Chinese Character for Mother

[cwest]

I was woundering if someone could help me out in finding or providing me with a real good image of the chinese character for Mother. It has very special meaning between my mom since she has passed away and I'm having a hard time finding the correct one.

Thanks in advanced.

Chris.

[xuechengfeng]

妈

or

母

or

娘

Don't take my word for it, but I would imagine the 1st one is more informal and 2nd is more formal. I'm not very experienced or native like others, but I've never seen the 3rd one used.

[Ncao]

媽=mom

母親 and 娘 (mostly used during the olden days) = mother

[roddy]

Assuming this is for a tattoo or some other kind of momento, are there any suitable chengyu?

[yiwei]

妣(bǐ ), also as 先妣, is a literary expression of someone's mother only when she has passed away. it is not a daily Chinese, usually used in a memorial or written on a tombstone something.

there is a Chinese idiom, 如丧考妣(rú sàng kǎo bǐ ), which describes someone who is extremely sad, like his parents passed away.

but it might be not suitable for a tattoo i think. also it is kind of weird to get a tattoo of a character of mother. a tattoo with the name of mom is better.

[nipponman]

Personally, I prefer 嬤 ma1. 嬤嬤 looks cooler than 媽媽 IMO.

[amego]

Personally, I prefer 嬤 ma1. 嬤嬤 looks cooler than 媽媽 IMO.

Hmmm 嬤 and 嫲 are commonly used in written dialect to mean "Grandmother".

[HashiriKata]

Hmmm 嬤 and 嫲 are commonly used in written dialect to mean "Grandmother".

What's wrong with having "Grandmother" as a tattoo, huh ????

[Gestalt]

What's wrong with having "Grandmother" as a tattoo, huh ????

well at least that's one tattoo you won't regret when you're 60 years old!

[nipponman]

Hmmm 嬤 and 嫲 are commonly used in written dialect to mean "Grandmother".

While I agree that the modern usage of this character is for "grandmother", many sources seem to indicate that 嬤 and 媽 are variants of each other, see The Chinese Etymology Page

P.s.

I have never seen 嫲 before, and by all acounts it is not in the standard character set, where did you come across this character? Is it fairly common in your daily discourse?

[amego]

What's wrong with having "Grandmother" as a tattoo, huh ????

Erm haha lol no problem , coz nipponman said

Personally, I prefer 嬤 ma1. 嬤嬤 looks cooler than 媽媽 IMO.

so, he is implying that he wanna use 嬤嬤 as "Mother", so I told him 嬤嬤 can mean Grandma, so yar, that's it.

While I agree that the modern usage of this character is for "grandmother", many sources seem to indicate that 嬤 and 媽 are variants of each other, see The Chinese Etymology

I see, think the usage is from the need for some to write out 方言, like Cantonese and Hokkien.

I have never seen 嫲 before, and by all acounts it is not in the standard character set, where did you come across this character? Is it fairly common in your daily discourse?

I saw before in some Taiwanese show/webpage I think, not 100% sure, as 阿嫲