Dear Mum!

[mikenh]

Hi there,

I am just studying my first year of Chinese and find it realyy addicitve!

Regarding the word mother 2 things are just puzzling me.

First the word 母. In French (I am French speaker...) you say "Mere" (or rather Mère) and for sea you would say "Mer". In Chineses you would write it 海. Same root! Just wondering is this just pure coincidence or any reason behind it?

Second question, I have been surprised to see that for Mum you say 妈妈. Was it the case in ancient times or is it something that has been taken from from foreign language. If positive, how were the caracters choosen?

Thanks for you help,

Mike

[cutty]

For the first one, I think it's pure coincidence.

For the 2nd one, as I heard, not only in English and Chinese, in many languages, mum is pronunced something like mum. It said to that the sound "ma" maybe the first few sounds a baby can pronunce.

[Quest]

I thought mama and baba/papa were universal throughout the world.

I don't think Mere and Mer share the same stem. Mere probably came from mater.

For the Chinese 海, the radical is 每, which probably sounded close to 海(vowel part) and 母 in ancient times.

[liuzhou]

In most languages, the words for mother begin with /m/ and words for father in /b/ or /p/. This is probably because these phonemes are all formed by the lips, the first part of the vocal apparatus babies get under control.

It is always amusing to hear proud parents saying that their brats have spoken their first word - "mama", which they have "learned from us."

All babies in the world include 'mama' in their first utterings, even if the word is not appropriate as a term for mother in the local language. Even profoundly deaf children do it.

As to mere/mer, pure coincidence.

[mikenh]

All this makes sense obviously.

Thanks!