Bilingual Being by Kathleen Saint-Onge Read Free Book Online Page B

things. Like «boubou» and «bobo.»
    But it can get even trickier than that for a bilingual baby. There’s a natural confusion between my two languages, for instance, between «doudou» in French and “doodoo” in English. How can a baby tell them apart? By articulation? Impossible. By tone? Perhaps. By meaning? Of course, he must. In French, this «doudou» is a lovely, soft thing that you sleep with, the transitional object of modern psychology, the special “stuffy” on the bed, the “blankie” you drag around. One «doudou» I personally loved is still in my possession, in a fancy hatbox where I keep my most precious curios. It’s a white rabbit about the size of an eggplant, and you’ll have to trust me that it’s a rabbit because it doesn’t look much like one these days. It’s a rabbit shape, but that’s about it. Along the way, I ate the whiskers – thick, tasty plastic. The tail is falling off, and both eyes are gone. Its dirty feet used to be pink, and one of its filthy pink felt ears is torn away. To top it off, it’s almost bald, worn down to the real rabbit skin it was made from. I apparently inhaled the fur right off its body, especially along its back.
    It’s still with me today because it was special not just to me but to my mother, who sheltered it for forty-five years in plastic shrink-wrap until she shipped it out one day when she was cleaning the basement. That’s the way it is with a «doudou.» You hang onto it unless you lose it. You never wash it. It has a busy life because it goes everywhere with you. And it’s called a «doudou» in French because, quite plainly, it’s «doux-doux» [very soft].
    The etymology of the English “doodoo” is something else entirely: it’s a childish term for excrement, simple as that. Not something you want to hang onto. Something you do wash off. It’s true that it can be soft, but most people don’t talk about their bowel movements openly like that. It’s something that’s highly unlikely to be spoken of as beloved – quite often, just the opposite.
    So the bilingual baby hears the same word being used, by one or both parents, to mean either the most precious thing in the world or the mess in the diaper. Freud could not have anticipated his own accuracy any better than this single word dangling between French and English. A psychological bonanza. And the child’s polar feelings towards the French «doudou» and away from the English “doodoo”? A psychological yoyo.
    Yet another example is the matter of the French «dodo» and the English “dodo.” In French, it’s a reference to sleep, made from a simplification of the verb for sleep, «dormir.» Some of the most common expressions in any French-speaking household with children include being enjoined to much-needed sleep, «fait un beau dodo» – and the promise that something will happen after this sleep, «après ton dodo.»
    In an English-speaking household (other than the scientific reference to a dodo bird, which surely isn’t that common), “dodo” is slang for someone who’s intellectually incompetent, forgetful, error prone.When you’d hear it, you wouldn’t be encouraged to do it, or to be it. In other words, in French, you’d want to move towards this word in your affect, while in English, you’d want to move far away from it. Emotions torn in opposite directions once again. Not just a plain word, but a conundrum.
    I don’t even want to consider the confusion stemming from “doodoo” and “dodo” taken together. Similar enough in sound. Agreed, the vowel sounds are different, but vowels are the most unstable between people and dialects, moving like oil slicks inside an accent. Can a vowel be trusted? What can you make of a childhood where a single sound made with lips