Currently, teachers often use tongue twisters in the lessons in elementary school. In some curricula, a certain number of hours are allocated for this genre of folk art. Undoubtedly, an experienced teacher can easily explain to children what a tongue twister is, reveal its features, explain the differences and similarities with other genres of folk art. But the curriculum does not take into account such an important point as the history of tongue twisters. This topic is very important, but, unfortunately, there is little historical information on this topic.
What is a tongue twister
The works of this genre are special fascinating phenomena that can be found in both children's and adult literature. Nevertheless, not everyone can easily explain what a tongue twister is. Surely many will recall how the magic of words in texts like the following captivated: “I rode a Greek across the river, sees the Greek: there is cancer in the river. "He put his hand in the river, the cancer on the hand of the Greek - DAC!" In this case, one of the variations of this tongue twister is presented, of which a huge number can be found.
The origin of tongue twisters
If you pay attention to the collections of folklore, you can see that there are few tongue twisters in them. This is especially noticeable when compared with the number, for example, proverbs, riddles or works of other genres of folk art. Not even in every source you can find the very definition of the concept of "tongue twister". Based on a number of texts about the origin of tongue twisters, we can conclude that they appeared a very long time ago, but no source specified the exact time.
First tongue twister
In 1862, W. Dahl first published tongue twisters in a textbook work. In a separate section, he clearly explained what a tongue twister is, and published a whole collection of essays on this topic. The merit of V. Dahl was also in the fact that he made the first attempts to systematize the works of this genre of folk art. He singled out a specific scientific term for tongue twisters. By the way, the fact is interesting that in comparison with riddles and proverbs, of which more than thirty thousand were noted, he quoted only forty-nine tongue twisters. Quantitative indicators vary significantly, which immediately catches the eye. It is interesting to note that most of the tongue twisters were not designed for children's perception, but rather for the adult in their semantic meaning. Among the noted forty-nine tongue twisters, only five can be attributed to the "children's" category.
Definition of tongue twister according to V. Dahl
V. Dahl put a special meaning in the interpretation of the tongue twister. For the development of the speech apparatus, in his opinion, such texts should be included in the curriculum. The need to use tongue twisters for the development of speech V. Dahl substantiated the fact that with their help you can exercise children in fast pronunciation. Attention should be paid not only to the rate of pronunciation, but also to cleanliness. It was noted that in the tongue twister there are sounds that can "collide" with each other. This is intended to make it difficult to pronounce quickly. Very often, the semantic meaning of a tongue twister includes a proverb. For example, in the tongue twister “Reported, but did not re-report, but began to re-report, reported”, it says that everything is done not as it should, that is, unsuccessfully and out of place.
Variety of tongue twisters
If we analyze all the tongue twisters that V. Dahl collected in his works, then we can immediately note that their range is quite wide. They are classified according to various criteria. For example, they can be short and long in size. A separate group marked works with repetitions or without them. Funny tongue twisters also stand out. For speech, depending on the construction, you can use works on one sound or several. Such texts are very often used by speech therapists and educators of speech groups of preschool institutions for conducting classes with children, for whom it is necessary to work out the production of a certain sound. Depending on the possibilities of perception, works designed for children and those that are inaccessible to children's understanding, that is, complex tongue twisters, are shared.
Similarity of tongue twisters with other genres of folk art
When studying tongue twisters as a full-fledged genre of folk art, it was concluded that in their content and structure they are similar to some other varieties of folk art. For example, in the course of the analysis, common signs were revealed between tongue twisters and proverbs. Similar features were also noted with sayings. Upon careful consideration of the jokes, it was also noted that the works of these genres overlap with each other. The conclusions described above were made on the basis of a comparison of the works of V. Dahl and I. Snegirev. Some texts from the collection of I. Snegirev are similar to tongue twisters, which are presented in the works of V. Dahl.
Editions of original tongue twisters
After V. Dahl published his works, for quite some time no one undertook such a work. And only at the beginning of the twentieth century in some publications unusual works of this genre of folk art gradually began to appear. For example, I would like to separately note the valuable contribution to the development of this field of literature by the greatest expert on folklore of Prikamye of pre-revolutionary times V. Serebryannikov. After some time, in 1964, more than thirty texts of this genre were collected under one cover. If we consider the second half of the twentieth century, then the most significant figures in the field of this genre were V. Anikin, M. Bulatov, A. Razumov, N. Kolpakov. Separately, I would like to single out among other authors G. Naumenko, who published a large-format collection of folklore. It was collected exclusively Russian tongue twisters. The fruitful activity in the field of tongue twisters is characterized by the works of such authors as V. Biryukov, I. Friedrich, A. Anisimova, M. Novitskaya and others.
Author's tongue twisters
In the twentieth century, a very interesting phenomenon was noted - author's Russian tongue twisters appeared. But it is worth noting that initially only one work of this genre by D. Harms was revealed among them under the title “Ivan Toporyshkin”. Among the numerous publications in children's books and magazines of Detgiz, most of the tongue twisters were marked as folk. Specialists who were involved in recording folklore works of this genre recorded them as a work of folk art. However, thanks to the work of V. Lunin called "Riddles. Tongue Twisters, published in 1999, managed to confirm the authorship of many tongue twisters, which until a certain time were considered the property of the people. For example, the author of the well-known tongue twister about a cuckoo, a cuckoo and a hood is I. Demyanov. V. Lunin devoted a separate section of his book to this subject. Analyzing the information that is presented in the section, you can find many popular tongue twisters that completely coincide with the copyright texts. Currently, some tongue twisters in collections are presented with the name of a specific author, and there are those that are still published as folk.
The value of tongue twisters for speech development
Children really like tongue twisters funny. But regardless of variety, they are all useful for all-round development. If we single out the main goal of tongue twisters, it will be the improvement of speech. For the development of speech, it is useful to use tongue twisters with different characteristics. For diction, for example, texts on one or several sounds are perfect. It is useful to use such works to form expressive, understandable and meaningful speech. Tongue twisters for children are indispensable in terms of reinforcing the skill of correctly understanding the meaning of words. They teach children to remember the semantic meaning of what they hear. When memorizing tongue twisters, mistakes in pronunciation often occur, but do not perceive them with condemnation. On the contrary, you can laugh with your child at how interesting he was able to utter a word.
Methodology for learning tongue twisters
Once you have clearly understood what a tongue twister is, you can begin to plan and organize a series of classes using texts of this genre. To memorize as efficient as possible, you must adhere to a number of certain rules. Children should develop an interest in such activities and a desire to engage. At the beginning of the lesson, you should take your time to speak the tongue twister with the arrangement. Then you need to repeat the tongue twister in a whisper, but so that all the sounds in the words are clearly audible. Do not rush while speaking. The next step will be a loud pronunciation. Make sure that each sound is pronounced as clearly as possible. Only after the text has been pronounced quietly and loudly, you can gradually begin to pronounce at a fast pace. Clarity and legibility are the main rules that should be followed when memorizing a specific tongue twister. For diction, for example, it is useful to pronounce works with different intonations. Training must be continued until all sounds are pronounced correctly and legibly. The last step in learning will be to pronounce the text without hesitation.
Ways to work with children's tongue twisters
There are many interesting and entertaining forms of organizing children's activities to study and memorize tongue twisters. For example, many children like to learn tongue twisters as follows: an adult puts a ball in the hands of a child. For each syllable or word, at will, the children throw a ball and legibly pronounce the text. This method is interesting by the presence of a game element using a ball. As a rule, children are able to train this way for quite some time. Alternatively, you can invite the child to pronounce the text, while throwing the ball from one hand to another. Similarly, you can organize classes without using the ball. In this case, you can pronounce the text under the pat of the rhythm in the hands. When memorizing tongue twisters, you can invite the child to fulfill a certain condition: "Speak without straying, 5 tongue twisters in a row." This will teach him how to work for the result. After some time, you can ask the child to repeat these 5 tongue twisters again to consolidate the skill. Adults would strongly recommend conducting classes with children to memorize tongue twisters regularly. Systematic exercises in the correct pronunciation will contribute to the formation of the speech apparatus, as well as the comprehensive development of the child's personality.