Eli5: How did we invent words? What makes words to be considered a certain meaning?
In: Other
Short answer: it depends on the word.
Example #1:
As far as I know (and someone will correct me if I’m wrong), the word for “female parent” in practically every language in the world contains the same basic phonemes; the “mm” sound, and the “ah” sound. There may be other phonemes present, but the two are universal.
Why? Because those are usually the first non-wailing sounds a baby can make. And historically, babies were with their female parent when first putting those sounds together. So those babies would look at the female parent while saying “ma-ma” (or some variation). And that parent would respond to those sounds.
Thus we get the words for “mother”.
Example #2:
Back before electricity and the silicon circuit, people did calculations by hand. There was a lot of work for people who did nothing but these calculations. As their job was to “compute” these calculations, they were called “computers”. Centuries later, electronic devices were invented that were capable of doing the same job, but even more and even faster. Since they were doing the job of the human computers, these devices were also called “computers.” Now the word primarily refers to the device and not a person.
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