The gradual development of the child’s articulatory powers, as indicated partly by the precision of the sounds formed, partly by their differentiation and multiplication, is a matter of great interest. At the beginning, when he is able to reproduce only a small portion of a vocable, there is of course but little differentiation. Thus it has been remarked by more than one observer, that one and the same sound (so far at least as our ears can judge) will represent different lingual signs, ‘ba’ standing in the case of one child for both ‘basket’ and ‘sheep’ (‘ba lamb’), and ‘bo’ for ‘box’ and ‘bottle’. Little by little the sound grows differentiated into a more definite and perfect form, and it is curious to note the process of gradual evolution by which the first rude attempt at articulate form gets improved and refined. Thus, writes a mother, “at eighteen to twenty months ‘milk’ was ‘gink,’ at twenty-one months it was ‘ming,’ and soon after two years it was a sound between ‘mik’ and ‘milk’.” The same child in learning to say ‘lion’ went through the stages ‘ŭn’ (one year eight months), ‘ion’ (two years), and ‘lion’ (two years and eight months). The little girl M., in learning the word ‘breakfast,’ advanced by the stages ‘bepper,’ ‘beffert,’ ‘beffust’. In an example given by Preyer, ‘grosspapa’ (grandpapa) began as ‘opapa,’ this passed into ‘gropapa,’ and this again into ‘grosspapa’. In another case given by Schultze the word ‘wasser’ (pronounced ‘vasser’) went through the following stages: (1) ‘vavaff,’ (2) ‘fafaff,’ (3) ‘vaffaff,’ (4) ‘vasse,’ and (5) ‘vasser’. In this last we have an interesting illustration of a struggle between the imitative impulse to reproduce the exact sound and the impulse to reduplicate or repeat the sound, this last being very apparent in the introduction of the second _v_ and the _ff_ in the first stage, and in the substitution of the _f_’s for _v_’s under the influence of the dominant final sound in the second stage. The student of the early stages of language growth might, one imagines, find many suggestive parallels in these developmental changes in children’s articulation. The rapidity of articulatory progress might be measured by a careful noting of the increase in the number of vocables mastered from month to month. Although Preyer and others have given lists of vocables used at particular ages, and parents have sent me lists, I have met with no methodical record of the gradual extension of the articulate field. It is obvious that any observations under this head, save in the very early stages, can only be very rough. No observer of a talkative child, however attentive, can make sure of all the word-sounds used. It is to be noted, too, as we have seen above, that a child will sometimes show that he can master a sound and will even make a temporary use of it, without retaining it as a part of the permanent linguistic stock.[92] ----- Footnote 92: