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I wonder why in so many languages we always have the similar pronunciation of mama and papa?

eg, Chinese Pin yin mama baba
English mama papa
French maman papa
Spanish mamá papá
........
Western language has big difference with eastern language, but why for this term of address they are so similar?
Silly question :P
.......

For learning: English
Base language: English
Category: Language

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    Best Answer - Chosen by the Asker
    Because perhaps the word 'mama' has his origin in baby talk.
    When babies start to talk they say only ma, ba, ta, da, pa.

    European languages come from Proto-Indo-European that is the hypothetical ancestor language of many languages, including the following major groups:
    Albanian
    Anatolian
    Armenian
    Balto-Slavic
    Celtic
    Germanic
    Greek
    Indo-Iranian
    Italic

    Perhaps it is because there was a single source of language. There have been some scientific studies within the last couple of years that suggest this is true. Multiple languages evolved from a single source, losing sounds the farther away from the source. Chinese, for example, is far away from that source, and it is a sound-poor language. See http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704547604576262572791243528.html .

    porque estas lenguas tienen una lengua, protolengua en común, que es la indoeuropea.
    Con las invasiones con las guerras en siglos pasados se fueron adaptando muchas palabras.
    Por ello si vas a estudiar algunas de estas lenguas a nivel profesional, te enseñan griego y latín, para entender sus raíces y palabras que son muy comunes entre ellas.

    mais pour le français est préférable d'utiliser mon père - ma mère

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