why so many languages, even those seemingly completely unrelated, tend to use variations of “mama” and “papa” as a shorthand reference to your parents?

Question

why so many languages, even those seemingly completely unrelated, tend to use variations of “mama” and “papa” as a shorthand reference to your parents?

In: Other

Answer 1

No one knows for sure! But the most plausible explanation is that the M and P/B sounds are the simplest, easiest sounds to make. As babies are learning to move their mouths and make noises, “mah” and “pah/bah” are going to be some of the first noises they can make deliberately. That’s because the consonants M and B/P use only your lips, with your tongue and teeth playing essentially zero role. You don’t need to carefully position anything, just squish your lips together. And the “ah” sound is just an open throat. *Super* simple. Since mom and dad are going to be the first *anything* the baby is going to be around and try to talk to, those simplest sounds get attached to those people.

It’s also theorized that “mama” is specifically used for mother because the M is kind of sort of the natural mouth shape and sound made by a baby attempting to nurse. So, the baby makes a nursing mouth and makes noise to get mom’s attention and indicate that the baby wants to nurse, and *mom* comes over. The baby will then kind of associate “mama” with mom instead of dad, who gets associated with the next easiest sound to make, papa or baba. (Side note: P and B are the same mouth shape, B is just *voiced* meaning you use your vocal cords with it.)

That started thousands upon thousands of years ago, and culturally we just kept reinforcing that idea. We also incorporated those sounds into the “proper” words, like Mother/Mutter/母亲 (Mǔqīn)/Mère/whatever language. And, of course, as you trace languages backwards you see common ancestors, such that once the “mama” sound got used as the proper word in Proto-Indo-European, every language that descends from that (which is [a lot](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/static/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2015/1/7/1420647015259/3628f5a3-9110-4c01-bcfc-9b4ca9c00bd5-2060×1340.jpeg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctZGVmYXVsdC5wbmc&s=f90b38f41c0fd469a5a45cdf1ecf497a) is going to share common word roots.

Since “mama” or “mom” or “mum” or other variations are such a core word in any language – the first or nearly the first word every child will learn – it gets preserved very well in the language as it evolves.