mum, mother, mum, mummy, mam, mama, mamma, mammy, mater, mom, maAynı kelimelerin karşılıklarını Türk dilinde de bulabiliriz sanırım. Türk dilinde de bir bebeğin söylediği ilk kelime ma mı?
Mamma is the formal English medical word for breast. Mamma is a reduplication of the much older Proto-Indo-European root *ma, breast or mother. This is not only the first sound uttered by many human infants, it may also be the most widespread word root in the world. *Ma forms the basis of the word for mother in many different and possibly unrelated language families around the world:
- Latin mater
- Greek meter
- French mère
- German Mutter
- Russian mate
- Icelandic modher
- Sanskrit mata
- Irish mathair
- Welsh mam
- Arabic oum
- Hebrew em
- Swahili mama
- Chinese ma
- Hawaian makuahine (maka first, beloved < *ma-k Proto-Polynesian, the mother (?) + wahine woman)
Why so widespread a word? The sounds of m and a are among the easiest to make and among the first sounds acquired by a human infant. The first noise in life associated with deep pleasure may be the sound made by the infant’s mouth sucking milk from the mother’s breast. This sound is frequently some variant of ma-ma. The slight smacking movement of the lips made in uttering an m-sound is similar to the lip movement required to suck a nipple.
But that is merely what the word mother means. There is no one way to express all an individual mother signifies. The sum of our sentiment is not contained in or exhausted by a mother’s day card. A certain Irishman lay on his deathbed and was asked by an attendant what he thought of life. Said the dying man, “I should have kissed her more.” So too with mothers.
Kaynak: http://www.billcasselman.com/wording_room/mother.htm
