Xhosanglish

You may have heard of Spanglish, you know, the mixing of Spanish and English words.  And my boys refer to the blending of French and English words as Frenglish.  But I bet you have never heard of Xhosanglish!!!  But now you have, because Tommy speaks it!  It's the blending of that cool clicking African dialect, Xhosa, with English.

I think Tommy's new language combo came about from two different sources.  One, with our emphasis on word pronunciation due to his speech therapy, he's really picked up on the sounds in the words he says now and gives most sounds a try, some are successful and actually sound like they are supposed to and formed how they are supposed to be formed, some are still in progress and don't look or sound anything like what we are looking for.  And two, it arose from his desire to make the hard /k/ sound found in "Zac," "Luke" and "Milk," words he uses pretty regularly.

A few days ago I noticed a new sound when he said words with that hard /k/.  However, instead of actually making a /k/ sound in the back of his mouth like the rest of us do, he's figured out how to make it by clicking his tongue off the top of his mouth.  I know it has to go away eventually because he needs to be able to make a real /k/ sound, but while it lasts I am LOVING any /k/ word I can get him to say.  I ask him /k/ words all day long!  It completely reminds me of an African dialect that incorporates tongue clicks into their words.  I can't even do what he's doing!  I try to mimic him, but my mouth/tongue won't do it.  Go ahead, you try it!  Not easy!  It's awesome.  Video below.