Item — HN Reader

Most languages have common utterances for mother/father and other family members. This is because these are easy, early sounds a baby can make. Some variation of da, ma, pa, na occurs fairly universally.

There’s a pretty good episode of Lexicon Valley on this topic (see cavebabies say ‘mama’)

http://www.slate.com/articles/podcasts/lexicon_valley.html

1 comments

> This is because these are easy, early sounds a baby can make

Indeed, but while plosives are impossible in the uterus, humming is possible ("hummmmmmmm...") though it's likely not audible, it might resonate at deeper frequencies. After all they cry right when they come out and must have trained well for such vigorous performance.

Otherwise, hums are surely linked to pleasant and primitive, familiar emotions. A simple ADSR envelope around a hum gives quite a lot of expressiveness, too ("ha?" "aha!" "haha" "ahhh" "a ha ha" only with m, i.e. "hm?").

Also the ma syllable is linked to the sound of suckling (hence breasts is mama in Latin). Also, we say mother-tongue probably for a reason: Mothers are much more involved in early child rising and hence in teaching language. I guess that is evident in bilingual families if not taken special care of?