Five years ago -- or was it six? -- Anni and I went to Amsterdam to visit Bryan when he was taking classes there during college. It was a memorable trip for two reasons: we got engaged (without Bryan), but almost as importantly, we learned about the Dutch penchant for grammatical brevity.
In other words, the Dutch seemed to prefer to randomly combine words by just eliminating spaces. There did not appear to be any reasoning behind why some words were combined without spaces while others were spaced. The best example of this was a popular tourist stop called "houseboatmuseum." Yes, in addition to the requisite Amsterdam tourist stops (figure those out for yourselves) there is a museum on a houseboat. Our entry ticket actually reads, "Houseboatmuseum," because, apparently, spaces aren't necessary.
To this day we sometimes joke about that silly Dutch eccentricity, and we were reminded of it again recently when we took Elise to hang out with the Dutch for a morning.
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Backing up a bit: Several months ago Anni saw that the University of Minnesota was seeking families with young children to volunteer for child development studies. We fit the residency requirements (they wanted Ramsey County residents, for some reason) and Elise fit the age category. I was reluctant to give out our information -- I imagined that telemarketers in lab coats were on the receiving end -- but eventually agreed with Anni that we should offer up Elise for some harmless testing with the hope that it could be kind of interesting. (Plus, she's brilliant, of course, so we might as well get that confirmed in a journal article with footnotes and the whole bit.) We weren't obligated to participate, but who wouldn't want to play lab rat?
A couple of weeks ago Anni got a call from Caas, a University of Minnesota researcher who wondered if we would like to have Elise participate in a "Dutch language study."
Caas was Dutch ("like suitCASE," he told Anni) and very polite, so Anni obliged. He told us to show up at a building on the U campus in Minneapolis. Elise would take part in a brief study and then would be on our merry way.
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We showed up and were greeted outside by a research assistant, who led us into the building and to the study lobby, where there were a bunch of toys on the floor. The researchers wanted kids to play for a bit to get comfortable before moving to another room for the actual study.
Before I could even get Elise's jacket off, Caas approached Elise and just started talking to her in Dutch and offering toys for her to play with. It caught me by surprise, but it didn't seem to bother Elise. She was shy, but immediately sat down and started checking out the toys. Caas sat down and started playing with her, the whole time speaking in Dutch. She was not fazed, just focused on the toys.
Then a younger man named Hans sat down next to the two of them and also started in with the Dutch. So there's Elise, playing with toys and listening to two strangers speaking Dutch, I suppose to get her somewhat familiar with them and the unusual sounds.
As Elise played puzzles with grown men speaking words she'd never heard before, I filled out the consent form and Anni and I were briefed on the actual study. Put simply, the researchers are studying how children learn language and, for instance, whether they identify a new word (in a foreign language; hence the Dutch) when spoken by one person, and then by another. It's more complicated than that and involves phrases like the desire to answer questions "about the socio-pragmatic processes of language acquisition," but basically they want to know how kids learn a language.
After about 10 minutes of playing, it was time to start the study. We brought Elise into a small office with Caas. He sat on one side of a table while Anni sat on the other and put Elise in her lap. The dorky guy in the background with the camera was me. (Long blog entries are more palatable with pictures sprinkled in.)
The study went like this: Caas would hold up an object such as a cup and pronounce the word in Dutch several times, all the while talking conversationally to Elise in Dutch. Then he would put the object on a tray, slide it over to Elise and encourage her to pick it up and put it in a box. He spoke the whole time and eventually introduced a second object into the routine, identifying each one and then putting them on the tray. She caught on quickly to the "game," and in short time was picking up the object and putting it in the box.
Then Caas was replaced by Hans, who came in the room, sat down and did the same thing with the objects. Each guy spent about 5 to 10 minutes speaking to Elise in Dutch and asking her to pick up the objects and put them in the box. The researchers used two video cameras to record the session, to later review how Elise responded and whether she started to identify objects by their Dutch name, regardless of which guy was talking to her.
Before long the study was over and we went back to the toy room.
While Elise played, Anni and I talked briefly with the researchers. They are seeking about a dozen children, ages 22 months to 26 months, to participate. They will compile the results within a few months and, assuming a paper or summary is written, we will receive a copy of the conclusion or findings.
At one point while we were talking to Caas he dropped a bombshell on us: The other man who was referred to as Hans wasn't really a Hans.
"His name is Joe," Caas said matter-of-factly. "We just call him Hans because it sounds better for the kids." In other words, "Hans" sounds Dutch, but Hans probably was just a college student helping with the study in part because he could speak Dutch. It was pretty funny, even though I later admitted feeling duped that I did not suspect that Hans wasn't really Hans. Oh, the scandal!
Anyway, at that point the study was over and we packed up to leave. Caas led us toward our car. Elise made fast friends with him and he walked her from the building.
We left with a good story, a glimpse at child development research and a cool T-shirt for Elise with the name of the research center on it. (Unfortunately, the shirt didn't read, "My parents made me a lab rat and all I got was this crummy T-shirt.")
I was trying to teach Elise the words describing what took place. As we drove home, I asked her where we had just been.
"The Dutch study," she said.
Or was it, "thedutchstudy"?
