The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought | Page 5

a number of interesting facts are known, and some of
these follow.
The word mother is one of the oldest in the language; one of the very
few words found among all the great branches of the widely scattered
Aryan race, bearing witness, in ages far remote, before the Celt, the
Teuton, the Hellene, the Latin, the Slav, and the Indo-Iranian were
known, to the existence of the family, with the mother occupying a
high and honourable place, if not indeed the highest place of all. What
the etymological meaning was, of the primitive Aryan word from
which our mother is descended, is uncertain. It seems, however, to be a
noun derived, with the agent-suffix _-t-r_, from the root ma, "to
measure." Skeat thinks the word meant originally "manager, regulator
[of the household]," rejecting, as unsupported by sufficient evidence, a
suggested interpretation as the "producer." Kluge, the German

lexicographer, hesitates between the "apportioner, measurer," and the
"former [of the embryo in the womb]." In the language of the Klamath
Indians of Oregon, _p'gishap_, "mother," really signifies the "maker."
The Karankawas of Texas called "mother," kaninma, the "suckler,"
from kanin, "the female breast." In Latin mamma, seems to signify "teat,
breast," as well as "mother," but Skeat doubts whether there are not two
distinct words here. In Finnish and some other primitive languages a
similar resemblance or identity exists between the words for "breast"
and "mother." In Lithuanian, _móte_--cognate with our
_mother_--signifies "wife," and in the language of the Caddo Indians of
Louisiana and Texas _sássin_ means both "wife" and "mother." The
familiar "mother" of the New England farmer of the "Old Homestead"
type, presents, perhaps, a relic of the same thought. The word dame, in
older English, from being a title of respect for women--there is a close
analogy in the history of _sire_--came to signify "mother." Chaucer
translates the French of the Romaunt of the Rose, "Enfant qui craint ni
père ni mère Ne pent que bien ne le comperre," by "For who that
dredeth sire ne dame Shall it abie in bodie or name," and Shakespeare
makes poor Caliban declare: "I never saw a woman, But only Sycorax,
my dam." Nowadays, the word dam is applied only to the female parent
of animals, horses especially. The word, which is one with the
honourable appellation dame, goes back to the Latin domina, "mistress,
lady," the feminine of dominus, "lord, master." In not a few languages,
the words for "father" and "mother" are derived from the same root, or
one from the other, by simple phonetic change. Thus, in the Sandeh
language of Central Africa, "mother" is _n-amu_, "father," _b-amu_; in
the Cholona of South America, pa is "father," _pa-n_, "mother"; in the
PEntlate of British Columbia, "father" is _mãa_, "mother," _tãa_, while
in the Songish _mãn_ is "father" and tan "mother" (404. 143).
Certain tongues have different words for "mother," according as it is a
male or a female who speaks. Thus in the Okanak·ên, a Salish dialect of
British Columbia, a man or a boy says for "mother," _sk'õi_, a woman
or a girl, _tõm_; in Kalispelm the corresponding terms for "my mother"
are _isk'õi_ and intoop. This distinction, however, seems not to be so
common as in the case of "father."

In a number of languages the words for "mother" are different when the
latter is addressed and when she is spoken of or referred to. Thus in the
Kwakiutl, Nootka, and Çatloltq, three British Columbia tongues, the
two words for "mother" are respectively _ât_, _abóuk_; _ãt_, _abEmp_;
nikH, _tãn_. It is to be noted, apparently, that the word used in address
is very often simpler, more primitive, than the other. Even in English
we find something similar in the use of ma (or _mama_) and mother.
In the Gothic alone, of all the great Teutonic dialects,--the language
into which Bishop Wulfila translated the Scriptures in the fourth
century,--the cognate equivalent of our English mother does not appear.
The Gothic term is _aithiei,_ evidently related to _atta,_ "father," and
belonging to the great series of nursery words, of which our own _ma,
mama,_ are typical examples. These are either relics of the first
articulations of the child and the race, transmitted by hereditary
adaptation from generation to generation, or are the coinages of mother
and nurse in imitation of the cries of infancy.
These simple words are legion in number and are found over the whole
inhabited earth,--in the wigwam of the Redskin, in the tent of the
nomad Bedouin, in the homes of cultured Europeans and Americans.
Dr. Buschmann studied these "nature-sounds," as he called them, and
found that they are chiefly variations and combinations of the syllables
_ab, ap, am, an, ad, at, ba, pa, ma, na, da, ta,_ etc., and that in one
language, not absolutely