Also, linguistically, why is repeating a word make it associated to baby talk? E.g. “No no”, “bye bye”.
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It has a lot to do with how humans learn to talk.
Babies are listening to voices around them from almost the moment they are born. Once their brains and vocal chords reach the right level of maturity, they start experimenting with making simple sounds. Generally they don’t do this one sound at a time, but “babble” continuously, so something like “ba da ma ca ta ba” etc…
Eventually babies learn that specific patterns of these sounds have particular meanings, so sounds like “da da” or “ma ma” are easy for a babbling baby to latch on to as a “real” word. I’m not sure why repeating the same simple sound twice should be considered meaningful, instead of something like “ma da” or “da ma” which would be equally easy for a baby to learn.
Adults making “baby talk” is an area of research, but it does seem to have some sort of instinctual component rather than just cultural, and there is some limited evidence that it may help babies learn from adults easier, although that isn’t certain (babies are ALWAYS listening to voices, even if they aren’t baby talking).
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