My favourite moment was in March, my daughter was about to turn 2 and wasn't speaking yet.
I asked her if she would like to hear some music.
She made the sign for dog.
I searched youtube for some songs about dogs and she shook her head.
She made the sign for tree.
I was like "dog, tree", she nodded. Hmmm...
I was searching for "dog tree music" when one of the pictures that came up was a christmas tree.
She pointed to that excitedly!
I was like "dog christmas tree music" ... it took me a second to realise that she wanted to listen to the Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack that I had had playing off YouTube at Christmas 3 months previously!
I put that on again and we danced around to it.
I thought that was totally wild! It was the first time I remember her communicating a really sophisticated preference other than just wanting to eat/drink/help etc.
What's most surprising to me there is that she actually recognized Snoopy as a dog. He's a pretty abstracted drawing, walking on two feet and pointing with human hands. There's something interesting to be said about perceptual development there. I believe that Daniel Everett said that even the adult Piraha couldn't understand abstracted 2D drawings at all.
If we were indoctrinated into the tradition of keeping capybaras as pets then she probably would have assumed snoopy was a capy. As it stands - he’s not a cat, he’s not a bird, so he must be a dog.
The crazy thing about this happening with toddlers (at least in my experience) is that you're not really sure how complex their desires are until they manage to communicate them.
Settlers interacting with natives knew full well how complex their desires were – they lived side-by-side, traded, socialised, and learned from each other.[1] Any suggestion of a primitive native is self-comforting propaganda from the industrial complex that comes after the settlers.
[1]: Indians, Settlers, and Slaves in a Frontier Exchange Economy; Usner; Omohundro Institute; 2014.
The album cover for the Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack has Snoopy sitting on top of a Christmas tree. I was playing the album from YouTube through the stereo and the album cover was showing on the TV to which the computer was connected.
My favourite moment was in March, my daughter was about to turn 2 and wasn't speaking yet.
I asked her if she would like to hear some music.
She made the sign for dog.
I searched youtube for some songs about dogs and she shook her head.
She made the sign for tree.
I was like "dog, tree", she nodded. Hmmm...
I was searching for "dog tree music" when one of the pictures that came up was a christmas tree.
She pointed to that excitedly!
I was like "dog christmas tree music" ... it took me a second to realise that she wanted to listen to the Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack that I had had playing off YouTube at Christmas 3 months previously!
I put that on again and we danced around to it.
I thought that was totally wild! It was the first time I remember her communicating a really sophisticated preference other than just wanting to eat/drink/help etc.