Language

In my home, we speak English to one another. That's only natural, considering that we are all born and bred in the midwest and the extent of our foreign language skills don't extend beyond my limited high school and college Spanish (Donde esta el zappatoria?) and my husband's high school German. I am particularly focused on language right now, as my son, age two, is learning about language every day. He has shortcuts and hand signals that he uses in addition to the words he uses and most times, my husband and I can follow along with what he is saying. Watching him I realize that he isn't the only one who uses shortcuts or hand signals to get along his point. I have more carefully listened to the interactions between the adults in our household and realize that we have a language all our own, made up of in-jokes and pop culture references, memories that only exist within the walls of our home. I wonder how this will affect my son's language and I realize that he will have languages all of his own: language with family, language with friends, language at school or work. It isn't that we use different parts of ourselves in different situations; we even use different language, different words, different speech patterns consciously or unconsciously imitating those around us. And I feel confident that my son's speech will develop just fine. I look forward to hearing what he has to say next.