I can't confirm it, but I've studied language and etymology a ton, and I think there is a hidden etymology between "man" (referring to humanity as a whole) and

I can't confirm it, but I've studied language and etymology a ton, and I think there is a hidden etymology between "man" (referring to humanity as a whole) and the mama/mom/mammary cluster. Hear me out. "Ma" is virtually always the first sound a baby makes, and is also reminiscent of breastfeeding, with the lips pursing together. It's widely hypothesized that because of this, the word for "mother" in nearly every language on the planet is some variant of "ma(m)". "Da" and "pa" are the next-easiest sounds to make. Hence, "dada/papa" for father (originally pH₂tér in PIE, where h2 is the "a-colored laryngeal). Anyway, we have the word "man", related to the Latin "homo", which is suspiciously close to "mama". Nowadays, "man" (and the Italian "uomo") has mostly masculine connotation. But it strikes me as really weird how close it is to such a feminine phoneme. My headcannon is that "mam" is the root of words referring to both "mother" (the first human a baby experiences) and "humanity" as a whole. It's hard to tease apart the influence of "guma"/dhghem, the PIE for earth. Also related to "Adam" (as in "Adam and Eve") who was famously made from Earth...yes Genesis is essentially based around a giant pun in Hebrew. Mama/dada/adamah/humana - they all swirl around the same phonetic space, and I don't think this is a coincidence. https://www.etymonline.com/word/*dhghem-?ref=etymonline_crossreference https://www.etymonline.com/word/*dhghem-?ref=etymonline_cros... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adamah https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adamah