Early bilingual speech: Tiarnan's translations

Two weeks ago, Tiarnan did something I have never heard of a baby doing.

He was then twelve months old. His mother, Syahidah, said to him: "kuching". He immediately said: "cat" - a translation of the Malay word into English. He is making explicit his awareness of the two languages - and stating that they share words with common meaning, though different sound.

He continued this new behaviour later in the day as I was putting him to sleep. I was carrying him up the stairs and I said "tido" to him. He immediately said: "bed". He said it in such a way that he seemed to be correcting me, for he knew that I didn't speak Malay, normally, so why was I using it on him now?

It was notable that the translation came immediately upon the utterance of the word: as if he were playing verbal ping pong - I say a word, he says the translation. It is clear that he is building two good representations of language, with hints at a third - but more of that another time.

(If you would like to read more of Tiarnan or his gifted brothers, Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and two months, or Fintan, three, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, intelligence, IQ, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, the creatively gifted, gifted adults and gifted children, in general. Thanks.)