Why do so many languages have some words that are the same as other languages?
In: Economics
Languages aren’t typically found in distinct groups, language is more of a spectrum than anything. If you isolate two populations that speak the same language for a couple generations, you will get two languages out the other end. New words are always being added to languages, old words die off, new grammar replaces old grammar.
This is why we have multiple languages in the first place. Generally we can say that languages from communities in nearby places have similar language. Polish is close to Ukrainian which is close to Russian, even if Polish and Russian are a little distant from one another.
There have been cases where same words randomly evolve to be the same, for instance Australian Aboriginal Mbabaram’s word for dog is also dog, this is actually complete coincidence it seems. But given the amount of words in existence, it isn’t unlikely.
Usually because those languages share a common ancestor (i.e. French, Spanish and Italian have a lot of similar words because they descend from Latin), or because that culture borrowed that word from another (i.e. the Japanese word *orenji*, meaning orange, borrowed from the English word).
Like others have mentioned languages that are near each other will share similarities
But for things the same across the world, like how “mom, ma, mama, mum, madre” are all so similar across the world more has to do with that for babies, the “mmmm” sound is easy to make and usually the first they do, so over time mothers have accepted that part of baby babble as a word for them,
And then as the kid grows, it gets taught that this sound it’s making means mom and it sticks with it and the cycle continues
Humans agree across the board that this is what this thing is called, but their accents can make it sound funky OR it needs to be recognizable by anyone who hears it if they need the word.
Police, hospital, sex, train. Those are the ones that I can think of off the top of my head that sound a lot alike in multiple languages.
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