A Comparison of Initial Consonant Acquisition in English and Quiché

Abstract

This chapter presents data from the phonological development of various Quiche Mayan children which demonstrates the effect of internal phonological organization on phonological development. This is done through a comparison of initial consonant acquisition in Quiche with known results from English. The full list of frequency data for all the initial consonants in Quiche and English is also very similar to the children’s acquisition orders in the respective languages. The initial consonant inventories show a remarkable consistency, given their origin in samples of the children’s spontaneous speech. We have sketched a phonological model to account for the differences between the phonological development of children learning Quiche and English. A phonological model could tolerate some selectivity in the initial period of development since children would need to accumulate some number of words before they could begin phonological analysis.