I’m not sure how much interaction you all have with young children, 10 years and under, but thankfully I did my share a number of years ago so my involvement is small. But I do notice that the two boys down the hill from me do seem to communicate with each other and with their method using high pitched screams which they all seem to understand and interpret.
But lying on my sun bed and being coated in goose fat by Mrs Grumpy to keep my body pristine white, I was able to observe this phenomenon across a number of European nationalities.
Initially I watched a young boy and girl communicate a number of different complaints to their mother who answered in perfect English. Firstly the girl was playing with a plastic boat and the boy just gave a high pitched scream and, without looking, the Mum told her to give the boy his boat back. She did this while lying face down on a sun bed and not viewing the scene.
A couple of hours later the boy returned from the snack bar with an ice cream and the girl gave out what seemed to be the same decibel level of high pitched screaming, the Mum said she would get her daughter an ice cream in a minute and the girl went quiet!
All this time, poor Dad just sat there and tried to stop them screaming so he could not understand or translate each scream.
As an observer of human nature, this intrigued me and the next day we ended up by a large German couple also with one of each and, although I could not understand the woman’s replies, her responses put an immediate end to their screaming.
I also saw the same type of “conversation” taking place in the kiddies pool where a group of multi-national children were playing and “talking” in a strange variety of screams to each other and they all seemed to know what was required.
