My late father-in-law spoke a language, one of the Austronesian aboriginal languages of Taiwan, in which the word /mama/ indicated "father" rather than "mother.

My late father-in-law spoke a language, one of the Austronesian aboriginal languages of Taiwan, in which the word /mama/ indicated "father" rather than "mother." Several languages are like that, and some human languages do not have the word /mama/. The article cites Roman Jakobson on the issue, and he is the correct person to cite, but the article doesn't digest the findings of linguistics (a subject I have studied) helpfully. There isn't any universal word "mama," and there isn't any universal association of one sound string or a small subset of sound strings with feeding infants. AFTER EDIT: Hurrah for the earlier comment here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5694995 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5694995 which links to a much better article https://www.sussex.ac.uk/webteam/gateway/file.php?name=where-do-mama2.pdf&site=1 https://www.sussex.ac.uk/webteam/gateway/file.php?name=where... and well deserves your upvote.