Presents details of the linguistic modification in speech to children in the Mayan language, Quiche. Evaluates 17 features commonly cited for speech to children and notes seven additional features for Quiche: whispering, initial-syllable deletion, BT formed for verbs, a verbal suffix, more fixed word order, more imperatives, and a special…

Previous studies have defined the earliest stage of child language to be the stage at which an uninitiated speaker of adult language can understand sentences spoken by the child. Upon the examination of the language of one child, aged 1 year and 7 months, it became evident that she could talk, even though it was equally evident that she didn't use…