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Universal 1869:
Original
Core items of the baby talk register tend to persist for long periods of time.
Standardized
Core items of the baby talk register tend to persist for long periods of time.
Keywords
baby talk
Domain
lexicon
Type
unconditional
Status
diachronic
Quality
statistical
Basis
27 lgs, high in IE, low in African and Oceanic lgs: Bengali, Marathi (both Indic, IE), Dutch, English, German (all Germanic, IE), Greek (Greek, IE), Brazilian Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish (all Romance, IE), Serbo-Croatian (Slavic, IE), Latvian (Baltic, IE), Syrian Arabic, Neo-Aramaic, Maltese (all Semitic, Afro-Asiatic), Berber (Berber, Afro-Asiatic), Cocopa, Pomo (both Hokan), Comanche (Uto-Aztecan), Hidatsa (Siouan), Hungarian (Ugric, Uralic), Japanese (Japanese-Ryukyuan), Kannada (Havyaka) (Dravidian), Kipsigis (Nilotic, Nilo-Saharan), Luo (Eastern Sudanic, Nilo-Saharan), Nivkh (Isolate), Samoan (Oceanic, E. Malayo-Polynesian), Tzeltal (Mayan)
Source
Ferguson 1978a : 212
Counterexamples
E.g. 2000 years for Latin-Spanish ‘pappa’ (food).Do they really “persist”, in the sense of being handed on from one generation to the next? Or are they independently re-created, on iconic principles?