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“Mama” and “papa” are interesting words, because some variation on those, with the same meaning, exist in almost every language. Does this mean every language b
by TazeTSchnitzel 7y ago
“Mama” and “papa” are interesting words, because some variation on those, with the same meaning, exist in almost every language. Does this mean every language borrowed them from some common ancestor?
No, not quite. It's just that newborn children make babbling sounds that resemble speech, with a very limited range of “consonsants”, and humans are such narcissists that they assume those babblings refer to them, the parents :)
- nonsapreiche 7y agothat reminds me the lecture of Bernstein (The unanswered Question) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fHi36dvTdE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fHi36dvTdE
- pntnp 7y ago> and humans are such narcissists that they assume those babblings refer to them, the parents :) Or mama, papa, appa, amma, etc are the easiest words for infants/toddlers to pronounce and hence we used these word for children to call attention to the two most important people for their survival? Is it narcissism or the fact that infants/toddlers cannot even pronounce most vowels/consonants other than a, m, b/p?
- TazeTSchnitzel 7y agoYou're assigning meaning onto young infants' babblings that isn't there. They're not words.