Re: CHAT: The Conlang Instinct

"Grandsire, C.A." wrote:
> Yet it's true
> that "ma" is a very spreaded way of  kindly meaning "mother", even in
> unrelated languages. Where does it come from? Areal influence?
Probably just a sort of instinct.  One theory is that /m/ type sounds
sound similar to a suckling child.  Whatever the reason, even languages
not in contact tend to use nasals in words for mother, like Mandarin
"ma" (first tone, I think?), Greenlandic "nanaaq" (sp?) and, I forget
the lang, but the word is "ng" (I guess syllabic /N/)

And father tends to use frontal non-nasal consonants like /p/ or /t/
(cf. English /fADr=/ and childish English /d&d&/ or /d&di/), probably
just because those are easiest for children.

--
"Old linguists never die - they just come to voiceless stops." -
anonymous
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