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

WATCH THE REPLY-TO! I *did* try to configure my ISP webmail, but apparently it did not "take".

-----Original Message-----
>From: Eldin Raigmore <eldin_raigmore@...>
>>>But I _would_ be surprised if _every_ language
>>>family contained a language in which "mama" means
>>>"mother" and "dada" means "father".
>
>BTW David Peterson just mailed me a Georgian language
>in which "mama" means "father" and "deda" means
>"mother".
I did mention that in one of my emails near the start of our offlist thread.

I agree with your snipped methodology below, btw, but you'd need the patience of
Greenberg, if not more, to carry out that experiment.

It is a problem that lends itself to parallelization, though, and we do have a
large number of experts in a wide variety of families on this list. Doubtless,
if there is a plausible exception, it'll come up, at least enough to show a
need for further more focussed research. I'd welcome it if it did, btw, since I
actually quite enjoy seeing something I was told once and just accepted as true
being methodically disproven.





Paul