Does the German language have some words used almost exclusively by/for young children?

Question

In English, when speaking to children, adults sometimes use words like "doggie" for dog, "boo-boo" to refer to an injury, or "upsy-daisy" if a child falls. Do Germans have something similar when they speak to babies and young children?

Do you think there is any language that doesn't have such words? — Robert, Sep 27 '18 at 20:40
@Robert The question literally asks whether there are such words in German, to which the answer is clearly yes. However, looking just beyond the literal meaning of the words in the question, OP obviously wants to know about some specific examples in German. — Zubin Mukerjee, Sep 28 '18 at 04:37
@ZubinMukerjee It wouldn't hurt to specifically ask for examples in the question, though. — Arsak, Sep 28 '18 at 10:03
Intersting, "Bonbon" used to be a children's language and was included into the normal vocabulary https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kindersprache — Iris, Sep 28 '18 at 10:40
Hm. I know quite a lot of adult writing that uses the word “doggie”. — Konrad Rudolph, Sep 28 '18 at 13:53

some_user · Accepted Answer · 2018-09-28T22:00:34.753

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Yes, German does have these kind of words. I'll borrow some of your examples:

Doggie would be Wauwau, also a pretty childish term.
Boo-boo could be translated as Wehweh, Wehchen or plainly as Aua (which is in this context rather used for children/babies).
Upsy-daisy is similar to Hoppla, but that's a term that can be used for other age groups, too.

Other examples would be pipi and kaka, translated as pee-pee and poo-poo. (credits to @Fabby)

You will notice the similarities here: doubling the syllables. This is often an indicator for more childish words, or words used with babies. This can be derived from the simplicity of these words, regarding the low state of language development of the babies. (e.g. Wehweh, Mama, Papa,...)

The words are often results of onomatopoeia, too: e.g. Wauwau, Lala (music), BrummBrumm (car), ...

edited Sep 28 '18 at 22:00

answered Sep 27 '18 at 19:48

some_user

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You forgot "kaka" which is a universal Indo-European word... (at least in the ones I know...) ;-) – Fabby Sep 27 '18 at 19:51
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Die Lulu in some dialects is the same as das Pipi. Which is of course very awkward if your name is literally Lulu. (lullen – to pee) – Janka Sep 27 '18 at 21:04
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Das Baba is anything the baby should not touch. – Janka Sep 27 '18 at 21:08
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teita mitm wauzi ... – Nina Scholz Sep 27 '18 at 21:12
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So, und nach dem Mammam (essen) machen wir Heiaheia (wir gehen schlafen). Ba, das ist igittegitt (eklig). – user unknown Sep 27 '18 at 22:44
@userunknown, ich kenn essen als "njam njam". – Iris Sep 28 '18 at 08:49
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Essen can be Happa or Happa-Happa. Dirty things are bäh or bäh-bäh or i-bäh. Hoppe-hoppe (probably from hüpfen) for bouncing, e.g. on a lap (there is the Hoppe hoppe Reiter song). There's the Da da da song from the 1980s. – Peter - Reinstate Monica Sep 28 '18 at 09:29
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Pullermann - Word for the male parts – Ulf Sep 28 '18 at 11:23
how the world is small - pipi and caca are also used in French.They may be, in specific circumstances, used by adults between adults. – WoJ Sep 28 '18 at 14:32
@Ulf Mumu for the vulva. – Peter - Reinstate Monica Sep 28 '18 at 15:45
I like how a wauwau edited this answer. – mathreadler Sep 28 '18 at 15:45
Not sure why there's a question mark on "pee-pee," but if there's any question, yes, that's an English euphemism for urine or urinating. – jpmc26 Sep 28 '18 at 21:59
@WoJ It's more than French alone: see first comment: It's in all the Indo-Europen languages I can speak from Afrikaans to по-русски... – Fabby Sep 28 '18 at 22:18
@Fabby: It's not even restricted to IE languages. All natural spoken human languages have some kind of a "baby talk" lexicon, and the words in it tend to follow a similar pattern of reduplicated simple CV syllables derived from the first recognizably speech-like "babbling" sounds made by infants learning to talk. "Mama" and "papa" are common examples of such words, and occur in a worldwide distribution that cuts in a distinctive way across language family boundaries. – Ilmari Karonen Sep 29 '18 at 11:24
I was specifically talking about kaka @IlmariKaronen (Also: I'm not a linguist) ;-) – Fabby Sep 29 '18 at 14:25

score 23 · Answer 2 · edited Sep 28 '18 at 12:18

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Do Germans have something similar when they speak to babies and young children?

Yes, we do. This is called Baby Talk. On the German Wikipedia it is defined as follows:

Unter Baby Talk oder Motherese (Aussprache: [ˈmʌðəɹiːs]; engl.), fachsprachlich Infant-directed speech, ungenau auch Ammensprache, Kinder- oder Babysprache oder umgangssprachlich „Mutterisch“ oder „Elterisch“ genannt, versteht man eine Varietät einer Sprache, die bevorzugt gegenüber Säuglingen und Kleinkindern gebraucht wird.

An example is Husch-Husch for Eisenbahn (a train).

edited Sep 28 '18 at 12:18

Wrzlprmft

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answered Sep 27 '18 at 19:00

Björn Friedrich

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Ich habe die Kommentare über die ursprüngliche Fassung der Antwort gelöscht. Falls jemand denkt, dass es es unserer Etikette entspricht, Fragen derart wortwörtlich zu nehmen, möge er dies bitte auf [meta] vorbringen. – Wrzlprmft Sep 28 '18 at 12:32
Ergänzenswert zu diesem "bevorzugt" wäre an dieser Stelle der Hinweis auf die Sprache 'Kindisch'. Oder die Infantilisierung des Sprachgebrauchs, wenn exakt diese oder ähnliche Wörter und Wendungen unter Erwachsenen verwendet werden. Das is nämlich wirklich zum Bäuerchen mit Land machen. – LаngLаngС Sep 28 '18 at 13:31

Pollitzer · Answer 3 · 2018-09-28T18:38:07.860

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Also commonly used:

in die Heia gehen = ins Bett gehen (go to bed)

killekille machen = kitzeln (to tickle)

kikeriki = den Ruf des Hahns nachahmen (mimic the cock's call)

Töfftöff = Auto (car)

winke, winke machen = mit der Hand winken (wave one's hand)

All examples are labelled as Kindersprache by Duden, unfortunately you can't specify that in the search.

edited Sep 28 '18 at 18:38

answered Sep 28 '18 at 07:25

Pollitzer

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Oje, das Wort "killekille" weckt schreckliche Erinnerungen :-O – Iris Sep 28 '18 at 08:51
@Iris: Dann wurdest du wohl – befummelt? – Pollitzer Sep 28 '18 at 09:02
ich fange bis heute an hysterisch zu kichern, wenn man auf mich zukommt, die Hände ausstreckt, die Finger bewegt und "Killekille" sagt. Harte Konditionierung :´D – Iris Sep 28 '18 at 09:04

score 2 · Answer 4 · answered Sep 28 '18 at 13:41

some words that come to my mind (and no idea how common they are :D )

papa - daddy / father
mama - mom / mother
opi - grandfather
omi - grandmother
pipi and kacka - things better to be brought to the toilet
Bubu (machen) - sleep ( to sleep )
Balla - a ball
Happi - pacifier
Nucki - pacifier
Schnulli- pacifier
kiekuck! - after hiding for some seconds, to greet the baby when it sees you
Pulla - baby bottle

Does the German language have some words used almost exclusively by/for young children?

4 Answers4