baby talk

ba·by talk

B b

Transcription

- US Pronunciation
- US IPA
- UK Pronunciation
- UK IPA
- [bey-bee tawk]
- /ˈbeɪ bi tɔk/
- /ˈbeɪbi tɔːk/

- US Pronunciation
- US IPA
- [bey-bee tawk]
- /ˈbeɪ bi tɔk/

Definitions of baby talk words

uncountable noun baby talk Baby talk is the language used by babies when they are just learning to speak, or the way in which some adults speak when they are talking to babies. 3
noun baby talk the speech of very young children learning to talk 3
noun baby talk an adult's imitation of this 3
noun baby talk playful, often nonsensical talk used to amuse or imitate a baby 3
noun baby talk the speech of children learning to talk, marked by syntactic differences from adult speech and by phonetic modifications like lisping, lalling, and the omission and substitution of sounds. 1
noun baby talk a style of speech used by adults in addressing children, pets, or sweethearts, and formed in imitation of the voice and pronunciation of children learning to talk: it is generally characterized in English by the addition of diminutive endings to words, the use of special words and pet names, and the systematic distortion of certain words, as dolly for doll, teensy-weensy for tiny, oo for you, and twain for train. 1

See all 9 definitions of baby talk

Information block about the term

Origin of baby talk

First appearance:

before 1830

One of the 36% newest English words

First recorded in 1830-40

Historical Comparancy

Parts of speech for Baby talk

noun

adjective

verb

adverb

pronoun

preposition

conjunction

determiner

exclamation

Full grammatical hierarchy of Baby talk

baby talk popularity

A pretty common term. Usually people know it’s meaning, but prefer to use a more spread out synonym. About 44% of English native speakers know the meaning and use word.

According to our data about 59% of words is more used. This is a rare but used term. It occurs in the pages of specialized literature and in the speech of educated people.

baby talk usage trend in Literature

This diagram is provided by Google Ngram Viewer