Reminiscing my early infant years in life in the late 1930s and early 1940s I found myself trying to remember words that grown-ups used to communicate with infants.

Among the ‘baby-talk’ used in those early days were such words as bambu (shoes), bobba (dress), bumbu (drink), ċejċa (sweets), ċiċċi beqqi (sit down), kukka (egg), mimmi (pain), nejna (food), ninni (sleep), nuna (lady), żiżu (meat), paqqa (car), pejxu (cat) and tuttu (horse).

I wonder how many of these words, if any, are still in use these days? Most probably it would be a grandmother past her 70s caring for a grandchild who would occasionally let slip the odd ‘baby-word’ to her protégé.

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