Mama and Papa - East and Central Asian Languages

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.