Amn't - When little kids start to talk

Anyone who has heard children talk knows that they will invariably make a mistake at some point, and as someone very fond of little kids, I find “child English” to be adorable. One of the things when child FLA (first language acquisition) is happening is that the child is actually picking out the bits and pieces of a language and sorting it out in their minds. ISN’T THAT COOL] (I’ll talk about the interrobang later.)

At some point, contractions are a part of what they pick up on. This isn’t surprising as a lot of words can be contracted together. What is a bit surprising is that sometimes the exceptions are picked up on and other times they aren’t. For example, some little kids (maybe all, I’m not sure) contract “I am not” the wrong way. As an adult speaker, I know that it becomes “I’m not”, but little kids have been known to say “I amn’t”, which isn’t correct at all.

Even after taking the time to explain, to correct, or just insist that the child repeat after you until the seem to get it, they will likely go back to saying “amn’t” soon enough. It is only after a certain amount of time, or after a certain amount of language development, that the child will stop saying “amn’t” and start to say “I’m not”.

While adorable at first, this habit of saying “amn’t” should be discouraged at each opportunity, so that the child will learn that “amn’t” isn’t a word, but “I’m not” does work

 (257 words, FLA)