4 ms·
About a month ago, I heard my son (8 months at the time) saying "ma ma ma ma" several times, but he wasn't reaching for or even looking at his mother, just his
by lotharbot 16y ago
About a month ago, I heard my son (8 months at the time) saying "ma ma ma ma" several times, but he wasn't reaching for or even looking at his mother, just his bottle. My best guess is that he was trying to mimic Cookie Monster's "om nom nom nom" because he was hungry.
Kids around this age have an extremely limited vocabulary made up of simple sounds and few syllables. As such, they tend to overload certain words. The article noted that, for a child of that age, "mama" doesn't just mean mother, but several things associated with mother. Beyond that, "mama" might also mean something else that starts with an m (like "more"), or it might simply be babbling (my son currently says "da da da" to everything he touches.)
- philwelch 16y agoThere's a reason "mama" has the same meaning in nearly every human language; it's the first sequence of syllables a baby can pronounce, and in nearly every culture, babies at that very early stage spend all their time with their mamas. So it's the natural mapping.
- icegreentea 16y agoIt's not just "mama", its "mama" and "papa" (sometimes baba... basically the same thing). And then Georgian does it "backwards". "mama" is father, and "papa" is mother.
- tome 16y agoNearly: '"father" in Georgian is მამა (mama) , while "mother" is pronounced as დედა (deda). "პაპა" papa stands for "grandfather".' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mama_and_papa#Caucasian_languages http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mama_and_papa#Caucasian_languag...
- yosh 16y agoYeah, here's a paper on that topic: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/linguistics/documents/where_do_mama2.pdf http://www.sussex.ac.uk/linguistics/documents/where_do_mama2...
- ceejayoz 16y agoMine says it a lot when reaching for food/bottle. I'm wondering if it's being used as "me" or "mine".
- pbhjpbhj 16y agoAt 8 months a baby can sign "mother" (if they've been taught) and you can avoid having to guess whether they're babbling or attempting to say a proper word.