Re: Does every language family contain one with "ma-" "da-" "ta-" words for parents?

Daniel Hicken skrev:
> While I was only able to glance at the whole thread, it is interesting
> that nearly all of them use the principle stops of a baby, /m/, /d/,
> /t/, /b/, /p/.  Even the Euskaran example of /aita/ has the vocalic with
> the stop attached.  Interesting.  Which leaves one to wonder, did the
> “short names” of mama, papa, dada, etc. come from babies?  Curious!
>
>
>
> Daniel Hicken
>
Yes, that's what the famous Russian linguist
Roman Jakobson thought.  In a paper named,
IIRC, "Why mama and papa" he pointed out that
babies' first articulations are like [m6m6m6],
then comes [p6p6p6], then [n6n6n6], then
[d6d6d6].  Note how the baby's primary relation
gets identified with the first type of articulation
-- after that assignment is probably culture-
dependent.  Sometimes however the assignment of
"meanings" to these baby utterances is slightly
different: in Latin _mamma_ means "breast";
perhaps because upper-class Roman babies weren't
breast-fed by their birth mothers, and perhaps
by different other women at different times.

I googled for "jakobson mama papa" and found
a PDF treating the subject at length:
<http://tinyurl.com/7pf6n>.

--
/BP 8^)>
--
Benct Philip Jonsson -- melroch at melroch dot se

    "Maybe" is a strange word.  When mum or dad says it
    it means "yes", but when my big brothers say it it
    means "no"!

                            (Philip Jonsson jr, age 7)

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