h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

muqin (moo chin) = mother
mama = mum

I'm going to say "A." It's not changed much since I've known it.

My thinking is it'd be a word to mean one, either in numeric value or more likely about self; we're a selfish creature the human and most likely would be thinking about our self before communicating.

As for the written word, 2legs hit upon something, pictorial representation, we had that first, so the written language is not that old in the scheme of things.

My second choice would be for water, but that's been diluted. (Sorry!)

And I'd guess at Mesopotamia being the wordy ones.

Could we just define what you mean by word?

Human defined specific word agreed at by humans or sound with a fixed meaning, in which case humans are out of the running by a couple of hundred million years years at least.

Having said that it was probably "Great, we can hide the evidence in here - no one will ever find it"

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God"

So there. Answered.

Oh! God!

Yep. Now prove me wrong.

Orgasim lil?

Not quite..

"because they're easy to say before a baby's vocal chords have closed"

hmmm, or is it because mothers are a pretty universal phenomenom and would have been one of the things for which we needed a word from a very early time. The above implies that the actual word itself was invented by babies which seems a bit unlikely to me.

Same goes for the proto indo european for brother, dog and a couple of other things to which were common to all such civilisations. Words now may be different, but the roots are the same.

Don't know about vocal chords closing, but mild disagreement from here, Ictoan.

Yells - cries - squeals - gurgles. Exploring. Open mouth, close mouth, notice eventually that sounds change.
Mamamama, mehmeheh, mimim, mumum... they all sound similarish & mama is one of the easiest?

Don't you still get a delighted "He called me mama" from a new mother?
Which came first? I'll guess it'd be a couple or so of new mums together.
I'll lay bets on baby saying, mum accepting. Another bet - it came before 'formal' language.

no probs I can see the argument. But do babies say mama for mother because they can and the word was adopted by adults or do babies say mama because it's an easy word to say and approximates the word that adults used to identify their mother?

My thoughts agin the first of those is that if it is just what is easy to say for a baby then 'mama' could just as well mean 'dog','mother','hungry','wet','cold' etc etc etc. There's no reason for a baby to associate that word with their mother.

No argument there, Ictoan. What I was aiming at was association by mother(s). Not that mama means 'mummy', (or anything else - it's just exploring) but... baby gets a cuddle & so on - it gets fixed by habit.

Huh

Gif

Nah. that's a haspirant. other things are likely to come out with it.

Mmmm!

because of the principle of Pleasure we all seek, enjoy...

etc.

"Bang!" surely?

F

Actually, "dadada" tends to come earlier than "mamama"--though the final associations may come at roughly the same time...

Really, Amy?
Though, not so strange really ... baba, gaga later I suppose. Interesting.

Googling 'baby's first words'.
The suggestion is mama, dada come when tongue & lips start being controllable - so gaga seems a candidate for earlier 'recognisable'. Though, calling any of them 'words' is a bit previous...

What a wonderful world

Back on track

Me Want Now

Yes, but before anyone was able to say "Mama", somebody else said, "I'm pregnant."

That doesn't change "Me want, now"