Core vocabulary used by typically developing Tamil-speaking preschool children during structured parent-child play in India

PURPOSE: This study examined the core vocabulary used by typically developing Tamil-speaking pre-school children during structured parent-child play interactions and identified a root-based core vocabulary that accounts for the agglutinative morphology of Tamil. METHOD: Fifty typically developing Tamil-speaking children aged 3-4 years (24 males, 26 females) and their parents participated. Spontaneous parent-child interactions were video recorded in the home environment during a structured play activity using a standardised set of play materials. Language samples were transcribed verbatim and analysed using a root-word approach to determine the total number of words, number of different words, and frequency and commonality of root words. Words produced by at least 50% of participants and meeting the median frequency criterion were identified as core vocabulary. RESULT: Fifty-one root words were identified as the Tamil core vocabulary, accounting for 54.6% of the analysed corpus. Verbs and nouns were the predominant grammatical categories. CONCLUSION: The findings provide a root-based description of core vocabulary in Tamil-speaking pre-school children and contribute language-specific reference data for understanding early lexical development. The identified core vocabulary may inform future research, language assessment, intervention, and development of culturally and linguistically appropriate augmentative and alternative communication resources.