Re: CHAT: The Conlang Instinct

Christophe>>>>>>
Bryan Maloney wrote:
>
> I'm reminded of
> someone in an early linguistics course I took who just WOULD NOT believe
> that "ma" did not mean "mother" in every language on earth, no matter how
> much the Japanese professor tried to explain things...
        I hope this person left linguistics before it was too late. It's not
the right behaviour to have if you want to be a linguist. 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?
<<<<<<

It's also interesting to note that when the normal "ma / pa" pattern is broken,
it often becomes "pa / ma".

I don't know the frequency of phonemes in infant babbling over multiple language
environments, but I'd guess that bilabials might predominate, ISTR this is due
or linked to a suckling instinct.  Taken with the number of other terms for
"mother" and "woman" that are related to "suck" in some way (eg Lat. feminus <
felare), I'd say there's a fairly convincing (if definately naive) explanation
for the phenomenon.

There's certainly other effects (areal influence springing most immediately to
mind) that have helped keep this feature stable and (nearly) universal.




That's just my attempt at "linguistics from first principles", but ISTR hearing
it somewhere, somewhen.








*************************************************************
This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential
and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity
to whom they are addressed.
If you have received this email in error please notify the
sender. This footnote also confirms that this email message
has been scanned for the presence of computer viruses.
*************************************************************