Article

A vocabulary checklist for early lexical development in Tseltal

Authors

• Marisa Casillas Marisa Casillas ORCID profile. (opens in new tab) , mcasillas@uchicago.edu(compose email, opens in email app.),  University of Chicago (opens in new tab)  
• Ruthe Foushee Ruthe Foushee ORCID profile. (opens in new tab) , Psychology,  New School (opens in new tab)  
• Humbertina Gómez Pérez,  Centro de Investigación y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social (opens in new tab)  
• Juan Méndez Girón,  Centro de Investigación y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social (opens in new tab)  
• Gilles Polian Gilles Polian ORCID profile. (opens in new tab) ,  Centro de Investigación y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social (opens in new tab)  
• Kennedy Casey Kennedy Casey ORCID profile. (opens in new tab) , Psychology,  Princeton University (opens in new tab)  
• Penelope Brown, Language Development Department,  Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics (opens in new tab)  

Abstract

This study presents a checklist for measuring the expressive vocabularies of young children acquiring the Mayan language Tseltal. Adapted from the US English MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories and tested with 84 Tseltal-acquiring children (9–23 months), this Tseltal checklist shows desired within- and across-subcategory variability in age of acquisition, expected age- and gender-related change, and typical patterns of relative over- and under-representation in the most cross-linguistically stable domains. We discuss potential uses of the checklist and the next steps in its future development.

Keywords:

vocabulary checklist, parent report, Tseltal, Mayan

How to Cite: