East and Central Asian Languages
- Mandarin Chinese, 父亲 (fùqīn) and 母亲 (mǔqīn) for "father" and "mother" respectively. However, parents are usually referred to by their children as 爸爸 (bàba) and 妈妈 (māma) — "Dad" and "Mom". And sometimes in informal language, they use bà and mā for short. (Note: The f sound was pronounced bilabially (as with p or b) in older and some other forms of Chinese, thus fu is related to the common "father" word pa.)
- Korean, 엄마 (eomma) and 아빠 (appa) is mom and dad in informal language, which is ultimately derived from the formal words, 아버지 (abeoji) and 어머니 (eomeoni) as father and mother.
- Kutenai, (a language isolate of southeastern British Columbia) Ma
- Khmer has different words that indicate different levels of respect. They include the intimate mak/meak and pa, the general mai/me and puk, and the formal madaay and ovpuk.
- Japanese, haha is the basic word for mother which does not combine with honorifics *papa (modern Japanese /h/ derives from the bilabial fricative ) which in turn is from the older *p.) Japanese has also borrowed informal mama and papa along with the native terms.
- In Vietnamese, mẹ is mother and bố is father. Má and ba or cha respectively in Southern Vietnamese.
- Thai, me3e (long e with glottalized high-low falling tone). and "father" is pho3o (with aspirated /pʰ/).
- Tagalog, an Austronesian language, mothers can be called nánay or ináy (diminutives of iná "mother"), and dads tátay (by contrast, not related to amá "father"). Owing to contact with Spanish and English, mamá, papá, ma(m(i)), and dad or dádi are also used.
- Uyghur, a Central Asian language, uses ana or apa for mother, and ata for father.
Very few languages lack labial consonants (this mostly being attested on a family basis, in the Iroquoian and some of the Athabaskan languages), and only Arapaho is known to lack an open vowel /a/. The Tagalog -na-/-ta- mom/dad words parallel the more common ma/pa in nasality/orality of the consonants and identity of place of articulation. However, there is nothing of motherhood or fatherhood inherent in the sounds.
Read more about this topic: Mama And Papa
Famous quotes containing the words east and, east, central, asian and/or languages:
“My angel,—his name is Freedom,—
Choose him to be your king;
He shall cut pathways east and west,
And fend you with his wing.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Though all the East did quake to hear
Of Alexander’s dreadful name,
And all the West likewise did fear
To hear of Julius Caesar’s fame,”
—Robert Southwell (1561?–1595)
“The best laws cannot make a constitution work in spite of morals; morals can turn the worst laws to advantage. That is a commonplace truth, but one to which my studies are always bringing me back. It is the central point in my conception. I see it at the end of all my reflections.”
—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)
“Exploitation and oppression is not a matter of race. It is the system, the apparatus of world-wide brigandage called imperialism, which made the Powers behave the way they did. I have no illusions on this score, nor do I believe that any Asian nation or African nation, in the same state of dominance, and with the same system of colonial profit-amassing and plunder, would have behaved otherwise.”
—Han Suyin (b. 1917)
“Science and technology multiply around us. To an increasing extent they dictate the languages in which we speak and think. Either we use those languages, or we remain mute.”
—J.G. (James Graham)