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Mama for mother nearly universal? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| sayariza Triglot Groupie Indonesia Joined 6763 days ago 42 posts - 54 votes  Speaks: Malay, Indonesian*, DutchC1 Studies: EnglishC2 | Message 17 of 39 26 May 2006 at 9:54am | IP Logged | ||
there is a word "dada" in Indonesian, it means : breast.. do you that "mama" actually means "breast" too? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Lugubert Heptaglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 6867 days ago 186 posts - 235 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Danish, Norwegian, EnglishC2, German, Dutch, French Studies: Mandarin, Hindi | Message 18 of 39 04 June 2006 at 2:33pm | IP Logged | ||
At least in Latin: (mamma). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| breckes Triglot Groupie Belgium Joined 6799 days ago 84 posts - 89 votes Speaks: French*, English, Russian Studies: Italian, Dutch, Swedish | Message 19 of 39 04 June 2006 at 5:52pm | IP Logged | ||
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Here is a paper (pdf) on this subject : Where do mama/papa words come from?
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| Tired Buffalo Diglot Newbie Thailand Joined 6746 days ago 5 posts - 5 votes Speaks: Italian*, English Studies: Thai | Message 20 of 39 06 June 2006 at 12:38pm | IP Logged | ||
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In Thai they say "mae" for "mother".
I use "ae" to indicate a sound like a German "a" with umlaut. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Alijsh Tetraglot Senior Member Iran jahanshiri.ir/ Joined 6622 days ago 149 posts - 167 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Persian*, Spanish, French, English Studies: German, Italian | Message 21 of 39 10 October 2006 at 3:06am | IP Logged | ||
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Persian: mâdar; Spanish & Italian: madre; English: mother; German: mutter
Persian: pedar; Spanish & Italian: padre; English: father; German: vater Persian: barâdar; English: brother; German: bruder Persian: dokhtar; English: daughter; German: tochter (to write in German it's dochtar in Persian) For mama we have mâmân; also nane for papa: bâbâ Edited by Alijsh on 10 October 2006 at 3:10am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| wetnose Groupie United States Joined 6978 days ago 90 posts - 98 votes Studies: Mandarin, English* Studies: Japanese | Message 22 of 39 11 October 2006 at 8:57pm | IP Logged | ||
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I was about to talk about the babbling thing [I read about it as part of a psych study], but Breckes beat me to the punch!
The pdf has a good exposition, but is kind of lengthy: Basically people want to interpret a baby's babbling stage - which is universal, it occurs before babies adapt language distinctions - as something intelligible, so many informal words for father and mother center around these similar sounds. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6703 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 23 of 39 12 October 2006 at 4:45am | IP Logged | ||
"Mama" and "papa" were used fairly recently, - for instance I have seen on TV that the daughters of king Christian IX (in the late 19. century) wrote back to their parents using these terms, - and they were prononced with stress on the last syllable. However the family was heavily German influenced and maybe not typical. As for "måddå" the normal written version is "mutter", and the corresponding word for father is "fatter". The words in Old Norse were "Faðir" og "Móðir", so Danish has basically kept the line back to the vikings and beyond intact, both with the standard forms "fa(de)r" and "mo(de)r" and with "fatter" and "mutter". By the way, father and mother are parents, which in Danish is "forældre" (in plural). However until recently this word had no singular. Now the common people have forced through the logical singular "forælder", much to the dismay of some dusty old prescriptive grammarians, who for unfathomable reasons have tried to kill off that form for centuries. Edited by Iversen on 12 October 2006 at 4:47am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| neo Diglot Groupie IndiaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6806 days ago 81 posts - 83 votes Speaks: Hindi*, English Studies: German, Italian | Message 24 of 39 12 October 2006 at 8:14am | IP Logged | ||
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HINDI:
*traditional* Mother= Maa Father= Pitaaji but above is only what you would hear in some bollywood films or our endless mythological serials ! *colloquial/modern* Mother= Mummy Father= Papa / Daddy / Dad SINDHI: Mother= Maa Father= Pii BENGALI: Mother= Maa Father= Baaba --------- neo Edited by neo on 12 October 2006 at 8:15am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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