The following was posted on Billy's now-closed Rugrats site, as part of a question-and-answer page, which has answered some pressing subjects, such as the whereabouts of Chuckie's mom. But one subject that was talked about at length is how the Rugrats talk. Here's his explanation.
©1995 by Billy D'Augustine.
I got the following mail message the other day, and agree with the idea. After, I give my own ideas on this.
You should put in something about the kids' ability to talk. I mean, how can they talk? Are there certain rules to talking? Several episodes mention something about the kids being able to talk. Read these lines: "and there's nothing you can do about it because you can't talk!" - Angelica "Remember, no talking to grown-ups." - Tommy, to Angelica Also, in one episode, Tommy talked to a parrot and it imitated exactly what he said, even though he supposedly can't talk. And, in another episode, [Tommy and Chuckie] called their parents on the phone and talked baby talk into the phone.
That's the end of the mail message. I hope the author of this doesn't mind me including it here, because it does bring up some good points, as well as specific examples. The question is tougher to answer than one might realize, and touches onto one of my hobbies: linguistics. More specificly, language development in babies. (if any professional reads this, please feel free to make any corrections!)
There seems to be two languages in the show. The kids language seems to be lost gradually as one grows up. By the time a child reaches at least double-digit ages (or maybe sooner, see below), they've completely forgotten that earlier language.
Tommy is one year old, and he is in the infant babbling stage, where a child experiments with various sound combinations (and becoming familiar with the native language sounds). He is also beginning to understand spoken words and attempts to speak (usually in singluar words).
Phil and Lil are between Tommy and Chuckie in age (18 months?), and they would be using two word sentence constructions, and beginning development of syntax. This is a stage where the children build up a large vocabulary.
Chuckie about two years old, and he should be in the early stages of grammer. Probably not that far behind Angelica, but he is very shy, and we never see him attempt to talk "adult" language.
Finally is Angelica, who is three years old. She has continued beyond the stage Chuckie is at, and has begun to develop full-fledged grammar. She is in the process of moving from "children" to "adult" language, and hasn't forgotten the childs language yet.
So what we have now is that the kids are talking to each other, in the childrens langauge, that they will lose sometime after they are 3 years old (after grammar has fully developed - even before this, children are amassing a huge vocabular of words). The babies can still talk to each other, but when an adult (who has forgotten the baby language), listens in (like when Tommy and Chuckie use the phone), the adult hears nonsensical babbling. Since no child is less than one year old, and a one year old may have a grasp of word concepts, they can still understand the adult language (or to a point) when they hear it spoken. Take it into the real world: I can read and understand German, to a point, but if asked to speak German, I would be at a total loss.
This is an oversimplistic explaination, and I may have some of the information wrong. If this is an interesting topic to you, I would suggest a book by Stephen Pinker, entitled "The Language Instinct". This is a shameless (and profitless!) plug for a professional who has written a book that is easy for a layman like myself.
The parrot (in The Case Of The Missing Rugrat -- SM) is a different case. The parrot is simply repeating what is said, and the listener (in this case, Tommy) is assuming the parrot can speak. Tommy is speaking baby langauge to the parrot, and the parrot is just repeating it back. I suspect that if an adult heard the conversation, they would hear baby talk coming from the parrot.
Someone mentioned that the parrot "squealed" on Tommy, but this is another case of the parrot "parroting" what Tommy says. Tommy says something to the parrot, and the parrot repeats the baby talk. The adults just hear the baby talk, and since they are looking for Tommy in the first place, they find him here.
Finally, another point brought up was when Angelica is talking to Spike, the perspective switches to Spike, and we hear nonsense. I suspect that this is a total perspective shift. We see thru Spikes eyes, and hear what Spike hears. Since Spike cannot understand any langauge, we hear what it might sound like to a dog.
Some more evidence pops up. The episode
"Regarding Stuie" deals with the situation
where Stu falls off the roof, and hits his head on the ground. When he regains
consiousness, he is in a "baby mode": he can speak to and understand the
children. I can't explain this, but perhaps the jolt to Stu's head has made
previously forgotten or supressed memories to be "reactivated", and he can
remember the childs language for a short time. Tommy finally convinces Stu
to "fight the duck", so that Tommy can have his father back. This results
in another fall and a jolt, and Stu is back in "adult mode".
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