Baby excitedly tries to sign to deaf grandparents in adorable viral interaction

We don’t give babies enough credit. Sure, they just got here but they’re like these adorable little students of life just waiting to absorb all the things around them. In just over a year’s time, most babies go from these tiny beings with no control over any of their extremities including their heads and no way of communicating outside of crying, to walking talking humans with distinct personalities.

In that short time babies learn so much and babies raised in bilingual households learn even more because they’re learning two languages at the same time. While many people think of things like Spanish, French or Portuguese as second languages but sign language is also on that list. Since it’s a language spoken without many vocal sounds, people sometimes forget it’s a completely different language than English.

Mara McCullough recently uploaded a video of her infant daughter who appears to be around six months old attempting to sign to her deaf grandparents. The adorable video shows the use of American Sign Language (ASL) as a second language that the baby will clearly be fluent in as soon as she has full control over her limbs.

In the interaction you see the grandparents sign to the baby while she’s sitting in her bouncy chair. The infant intensely watches their hands and waits until they finish their question before responding in ASL baby babble. She’s so excited that even her little feet are going as she tries to get her words out.

The video has gone viral with 10.4 million views, 2.1 million likes and nearly 10k comments. People cannot get enough of this little girl’s excitement to “talk” to her grandparents.

“Baby’s[sic] babbling in sign language is the cutest thing ever, you know she’s just trying to talk to grandma and grandpa,” someone says.

“As another CODA (child of deaf adults), if this is your first just wait til she’s 2 and having full conversations in sign with your parents,” another writes.

“Turn-taking is a most basic communication behavior, verbal and non verbal. well done, grandparents! her baby brain is loving this,” one person shares.

“The baby looks like she is really understanding, look at how she keep looking at their hands.like waiting to see what they gonna say. so cool,” another commenter gushes.

Simple sign language has been used for decades by parents hoping to limit frustration from themselves and their children before they were able to speak. This baby and her grandparents are showing just how easily babies can pick up on the rules of conversation even when the words spoken aren’t verbal. In no time, she will be having full conversations with her grandparents and others who speak ASL.

This article was originally published on July 23, 2024. It has since been updated.