Page:Primitive Culture Vol 1.djvu/241

Rh a very interesting philological region, that of 'Children's Language.'

If we set down a few of the pairs of words which stand for 'father' and 'mother' in very different and distant languages — papa and mama; Welsh, tad (dad) and mam; Hungarian, atya and anya; Mandingo, fa and ba; Lummi (N. America), man and tan; Catoquina (S. America), payú and nayú; Watchandie (Australia), amo and ago — their contrast seems to lie in their consonants, while many other pairs differ totally, like Hebrew ab and im; Kuki, p'ha and noo; Kayan, amay and inei; Tarahumara, nono and jeje. Words of the class of papa and mama, occurring in remote parts of the world, were once freely used as evidence of a common origin of the languages in which they were found alike. But Professor Buschmann's paper on 'Nature-Sound,' published in 1853, effectually overthrew this argument, and settled the view that such coincidence might arise again and again by independent production. It was clearly of no use to argue that Carib and English were allied because the word papa, 'father,' belongs to both, or Hottentot and English because both use mama for 'mother,' seeing that these childish articulations may be used in just the opposite way, for the Chilian word for mother is papa, and the Tlatskanai for father is mama. Yet the choice of easy little words for 'father' and 'mother' does not seem to have been quite indiscriminate. The immense list of such words collected by Buschmann shows that the types pa and ta, with the similar forms ap and at, preponderate in the world as names for 'father,' while ma and na, am and an, preponderate as names for 'mother.' His explanation of this state of things as affected by direct symbolism choosing the hard sound for the father, and the gentler for the mother, has very likely truth in it, but it must not be pushed too far. It cannot be, for