4 ms·
japanese falls completely outside this generalization. edit: on further investigation mama and baba are used very informally but it appears these are loanwords.
by princeb 11y ago
japanese falls completely outside this generalization.
edit: on further investigation mama and baba are used very informally but it appears these are loanwords.
- euske 11y agoTraditionally, they were "o-toh" for dad and "o-kah" for mom. You might add "-chan" or "-san" or remove the "o-" prefix, depending on your taste. Personally, a phrase like "every language" immediately flags a BS sign to me.
- ss248 11y agoKids use okasan/otosan only when they are talking about third party mom/dad. They use haha (which make even more sense, according to article) or chichi when speaking about their own mom and dad.
- princeb 11y agohaha and chichi are more formal.
- Steko 11y agoIt really depends what you mean by 'traditionally'. My reading of [1] is that the 'ka' reading is one of many although it's become more prevelant in modern usage. [2] says that 'papa' was most common in Old Japanese. [1] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%AF%8D#Japanese https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%AF%8D#Japanese [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mama_and_papa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mama_and_papa
- ryenus 11y agoJapanese has 'chichi' (dad) and 'haha' (mom)
- Steko 11y agoJapan is a linguistic minefield and defies generalization. In Ainu 'nanna' is mother and in Okinawan it's 'anma'. In Old Japanese there's 'haha' (and variants - 'papa' appears to have been prevelent in Old Japanese, see link in cousin post) and 'amo'. Also note: while 'mama' is a loanword it's overwhelmingly what babies call their mothers in Japan i.e. it has outcompeted other words likely for the same reasons as said in the article.