Motherese

Motherese is also termed as baby talk, parentese, infant-directed speech, child-directed speech, and caretaker speech. This refers to how mothers or care-givers speak when addressing their young children. The special characteristics include talking slower, using shorter sentences and higher pitch, increased word repetition, and modulating their voices by alternately going high and low. This particular kind of speech was also observed to be consistent across diverse cultures such as Japanese, Chinese, Polish, and Russian.

For instance, instead of simply saying “Good morning. How are you today What would you like for breakfast ,’ a mother may say, “Goooood morning! Howdy baby You like num-num ”


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