There is a certain age at which a child looks at you in all earnestness and delivers a long, pleased speech in all the true inflections of spoken English, but with not one recognizable syllable. There is no way you can tell the child that if language had been a melody, he had mastered it and done well, but that since it was in fact a sense, he had botched it utterly.
In Annie Dillard's "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek," she describes a stage in child development where young children eloquently speak in a way that conveys emotion and intention but lacks any understandable words. This moment is significant because it highlights the innate ability of children to mimic the tones and rhythms of language, while still missing the essential component of recognizable vocabulary.
Dillard suggests that, similar to how music can convey feelings without words, children can communicate meaning in their unique way. However, the complex nature of language as a sense means that they have not yet fully grasped its structure. This illustrates the beauty and challenge of early language acquisition, encapsulating the struggle between expression and comprehension in the journey of learning to speak.
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