Baby sign language is a language spoken by some infants in Australia.
But how to pronounce it is not an easy task, even for experienced English speakers.
Here are some of the signs and phrases you need to know.
1.
Pause 1.
Stop.
This is a baby sign.
When you stop talking, the baby stops speaking.
When a baby pauses for a moment, you can hear the sound of a pause.
This can be as simple as a soft, deep breath or as long as a hard, loud “oh!”.
Pause means to stop.
If the baby pauses, it means that you have finished talking.
When the baby has stopped, you need a pause signal.
A pause signal is a sound that indicates you are about to resume speaking.
The baby’s body and mouth can be moved to make the pause.
The signal is audible but the sound is muffled.
When it is loud enough, the pause will be heard by the child.
2.
Say ‘hello’ The baby will usually pause when the mother is talking to her baby, as a sign of wanting to say hello.
The pauses are usually shorter and louder than when a baby is saying “Hello”.
The pauses will also usually be shorter than when the baby is talking and then a pause is heard.
When your child pauses, say “Hello”, or “Hello baby”.
If your child is asking for something, say, “Hi”, “Thank you”, “How are you?”.
If you are talking to your child, say ‘hello’, “I love you” or “I’m glad you’re safe”.
3.
Sing ‘Hooray!’
This is one of the easiest baby sign phrases.
When someone says “Hoorah”, the baby can hear your voice and respond with a “hooray!”.
When someone stops talking, they are saying “hoo hooray!”
This is an example of the baby sign phrase.
When singing, say: “Hoo hoo hoon”.
When someone does not say “hoonah”, they are probably trying to tell you that you are not allowed to sing.
4.
Ask ‘What’s your name?’
Ask the baby “What’s my name?”.
If the child does not know your name, ask them to call you by your name.
If you can do this, then the baby will be able to identify you.
5.
Say, ‘You’re so cute, baby’ The first part of this baby sign is the sound ‘hoorah’, which means ‘hoo-ah’.
It sounds like “Hi-hee”.
If you have a baby who is older than six months, you will probably hear the ‘hoom’.
The next part of the phrase is the ‘ha-hoo’, which is a ‘hoon-ah’, and is a “hey-oh”.
This sounds like ‘oh”.
When you say this, you are telling the baby to stop for a short period of time.
The pause is usually shorter than that when a child is saying, “Hey” or other signs of affection.
6.
Smile You will probably see a smile when a person says hello to a baby, although this will not necessarily be a sign that they are happy.
A baby’s face and mouth is usually smiling.
This may be because they are enjoying themselves or simply because they have been enjoying themselves.
The smile may be long or short, with short smiles appearing at the end of long pauses.
7.
Play A baby will stop when the mom is playing.
It is not uncommon for a baby to start playing as soon as the mom says “Oh, baby!”
When the mom starts playing, you may hear the baby pause as she is playing with a ball.
When she stops playing, the ball may then stop moving.
This does not mean that the baby stopped playing.
If a baby stops playing and starts to play again, you might hear the child start again.
8.
Say hello to your friend The baby may stop when a friend says hello.
When friends say hello to their baby, the pauses are shorter.
The friend may stop for no more than a couple of seconds at a time.
9.
Say goodbye If you say goodbye to a friend, the child will stop saying hello.
If they say hello again, they will pause again.
10.
Say “Goodbye” When someone gives a goodbye to their friend, they may stop saying goodbye, even though the child is still talking.
You might hear a soft pause at the bottom of the speech.
The child will then pause again and say “goodbye” or just say “bye”.
11.
Play again When you play with your child again, the time the baby paused before saying goodbye is different from the time it paused when you stopped.
The time the pause before saying bye was longer is when the child was still playing.
The point at which the pause is longer is the point at where the child pauses