Re: Is "ma" Proto-World? (Re: Re: Comparison ofphilosophical languages)

Nik Taylor writes:
 > Josh Roth wrote:
 > > I don't know what comes first, but since when do we derive our words from
 > > babies' babbling anyway?
 >
 > We sometimes "borrow" children's words into our languages.  For
 > example, in Japanese, -chan, a childish pronunciation of -san, has
 > become part of the standard language as an affix indicating
 > affection.  Likewise, with terms for parents or siblings, childish
 > words sometimes stick, like "mommy" or "daddy", or "mama" and
 > "papa", "dada" for that matter.  Those aren't descended from the
 > PIE words for "mother" and "father", they're independant
 > developments.
 >

I know the Japanese _think_ children mispronounce [s] as [tS], but is
this really true?  How likely is it on a phonetic level?  I mean,
there are a lot more languages with /s/ than with a phoneme /tS/,
which would suggest to me that it's unlikely as a childish
mispronunciation.

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