A Map of Mother

JF Ptak Science Books   Quick Post

Mother tongue, earth, lode...but the appearance of "mother" as "Mother" looks so pervasive, so wide-spread, that perhaps the reason for its worldwide similar appearance might be because it is so easy to say when an infant is learning to speak. The "m" and the "a" sounds are not challenging, and it might even be related to the sounds that an infant makes when being breast fed. 

Map source: Hendrik van Loon (1882-1944), The Story of Mankind (1931, by Bon & Liveright).  In all of this time, over all these years, I believe that I've never once referenced this once-popular book.

Others appearances of "mother" in different languages:

Arabic oum

Chinese ma

French mère

Greek meter

Hawaian makuahine

Hebrew em

Icelandic modher
Irish mathair
German Mutter

Latin mater Russian mate
Sanskrit mata

Swahili mama

  Welsh mam

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Comments

[Ray Girvan]

Interesting that "mother" is portrayed as a rather sinister thing with tendrils reaching everywhere... Did the artist have mother issues?

[John F. Ptak]

Ha! I think its just a badly-drawn tree, Ray.