New Scientist is at it again
Merlijn De Smit
French researchers who, having examined 1000 languages, came to the
conclusion that 700 of them have a word for 'papa' and who adduce this
to common ancestry:
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996188
Worse than this, of course, it the title: "Family words may have come
first for early humans" (doesn't follow even if one accepts the
reported research results, which I provisionally don't), and worst of
all, somehow the item has snuck in the Neanderthalers! The text
referring to the story mentions that "A trawl of a thousand languages
suggests that common family words may have come from the
Neanderthalers.", and the item itself starts out with: "One of a
Neanderthal baby's first words was probably "papa", concludes one of
the most comprehensive attempts to date to make out what the first
human language was like." Now, fortunately, the research itself
apparently doesn't go that far.
I am pretty dread to think how the Neanderthalers got involved here. I
am very afraid a writer or editor may have badly messed up on human
evolution - which would be pretty atrocious. The way New Scientist
reports on linguistic issues make me very wary of what they report on
matters I know little about (physics, astronomy).
Merlijn de Smit
AlexV
"Merlijn De Smit" <isol...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:a6d093c4.04072...@posting.google.com...
> So New Scientist, in its web section, has published an item about two
> French researchers who, having examined 1000 languages, came to the
> conclusion that 700 of them have a word for 'papa' and who adduce this
> to common ancestry:
>
> http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996188
> I am pretty dread to think how the Neanderthalers got involved here. I
> am very afraid a writer or editor may have badly messed up on human
> evolution - which would be pretty atrocious. The way New Scientist
> reports on linguistic issues make me very wary of what they report on
> matters I know little about (physics, astronomy).
>
In fact there is nothing like this in the article. You should reread it and
the meaning will transpire to you. The author of the article or the
editorial board are clearly critical of the result emphasizing the fact that
it is speculative. Do not worry about physics and astronomy - you have
trouble understanding simpler things.
Brian M. Scott
wrote in <news:rb6dnT0okaX...@comcast.com> in
sci.lang:
> "Merlijn De Smit" <isol...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:a6d093c4.04072...@posting.google.com...
>> So New Scientist, in its web section, has published an item about two
>> French researchers who, having examined 1000 languages, came to the
>> conclusion that 700 of them have a word for 'papa' and who adduce this
>> to common ancestry:
>> http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996188
>> I am pretty dread to think how the Neanderthalers got involved here. I
>> am very afraid a writer or editor may have badly messed up on human
>> evolution - which would be pretty atrocious. The way New Scientist
>> reports on linguistic issues make me very wary of what they report on
>> matters I know little about (physics, astronomy).
> In fact there is nothing like this in the article.
There certainly is. Look at the very first sentence: 'One
of a Neanderthal baby's first words was probably "papa",
concludes one of the most comprehensive attempts to date to
make out what the first human language was like.' And the
last: 'Even Bancel admits that there will never be
conclusive proof. "We have no Neanderthals around to ask."'
> You should reread it and
> the meaning will transpire to you. The author of the article or the
> editorial board are clearly critical of the result emphasizing the fact that
> it is speculative.
This is not true. They acknowledge the existence of another
view, but they certainly don't emphasize it. They don't
even point out that the explanation given by Ringe is almost
universally accepted.
[...]
Brian
Jacques Guy
> Do not worry about physics and astronomy - you have
> trouble understanding simpler things.
You have trouble reading simple things. As Brian
Scott has already commented, New Scientist has
done it. Again. This is not the first time it
publishes complete nonsense in linguistics.
Remember when it described the Phaistos Disk
as a "large, carved, stone disk"? (14 Feb. 1998,
p.45).
Mind you, New Scientist is not alone in spouting drivel:
Scientific American has just done it about the
Voynich manuscript:
"http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=0000E3AA-70E1-10CF-AD1983414B7F0000"
Here is a sample of the drivel:
"An example from folio 78R of the manuscript
reads: qokedy qokedy dal qokedy qokedy. This
degree of repetition is not found in any known
language."
Oh yeah? And what language is "di mana-mana ada
barang-barang. Barang-barang itu...", or, for
that matter: "didi, gege, meimei, jiejie, baba,
tiantian dou..." (you fill in the rest--you might
even press grandma into duty)
But it is the conclusion that takes the prize:
"This study yielded valuable insights into the process
of reexamining difficult problems to determine whether
any possible solutions have been overlooked. A good
example of such a problem is the question of what
causes Alzheimer's disease. We plan to examine whether
our approach could be used to reevaluate previous
research into this brain disorder." [snipped the rest,
go look for it:
"http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=0000E3AA-70E1-10CF-AD1983414B7F0000&pageNumber=4&catID=2"]
Not even is the whole article grotesque, a travesty of science,
but the author is dishonest: he completely misrepresented
Jorge Stolfi's analysis and opinion of the Voynich manuscript.
Deliberately so. Or else, he is a total imbecile. As for the
editors of Sci. Am., I can hardly credit them with being
dishonest about a subject they know nothing about. So they
don't have the excuse. Therefore, they must be complete
imbeciles.
The two, New Scientist and Scientific American, belong to
the ilk of UFO Monthly and... was is it again? The Weekly
World News, I think. You know: "GIANT CHICKEN TERRORIZES
MANHATTAN".
Rolleston
[...]
>The two, New Scientist and Scientific American, belong to
>the ilk of UFO Monthly and... was is it again? The Weekly
>World News, I think. You know: "GIANT CHICKEN TERRORIZES
>MANHATTAN".
It's easy to make light of such matters. If you live in Manhattan and
a plane sprays you with glue and then you fall into a drum full of
chicken feed, as so often happens, such a headline is quite alarming.
R.
Jim Heckman
On 26-Jul-2004, isol...@hotmail.com (Merlijn De Smit)
wrote in message <a6d093c4.04072...@posting.google.com>:
[...]
> I am pretty dread to think how the Neanderthalers got involved here. I
> am very afraid a writer or editor may have badly messed up on human
> evolution - which would be pretty atrocious. The way New Scientist
> reports on linguistic issues make me very wary of what they report on
> matters I know little about (physics, astronomy).
Your wariness is well placed. New Scientist articles are
regularly debunked in newsgroups for several scientific
disciplines with which I have a passing familiarity. The
magazine appears to be following the trail blazed by Omni a
couple of decades ago.
--
Jim Heckman
Peter T. Daniels
What nonsense.
Open containers of chicken feed are not permitted on the streets of
Manhattan.
--
Peter T. Daniels gram...@att.net
Paul J Kriha
Peter T. Daniels <gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
news:410641...@worldnet.att.net...
I'd go along with that, there are hardly any major places in the world
where I'd expect to see open containers of chicken feed in the streets.
But does that mean the planes do spray people with glue in Manhattan? :-)
The papers down here have completely failed to inform me about that
and it has never happened to me during my visits.
I wonder, is it something kept hush-hush? :-)
Paul JK
Peter T. Daniels
That may be why The Rolleston Entity said "if."
Bill Bonde ( ``Soli Deo Gloria'' )
Any 'cutting edge research' can be 'debunked' if you ignore whatever the
new research is. I don't know what Neanderthals have to do with the rest
of the article, the usage seemingly coming from 'Neanderthal' being used
more metaphorically than literally. If one were to drop the first and
last sentences and look at the rest of the article, what is there in it
to attack New Scientist with?:
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996188
#begin quote
Many of the estimated 6000 languages now spoken share common words and
meanings, notably for kin names like "mama" and "papa". That has led
some linguists to suggest that these words have been carried through
from humans' original proto-language, spoken at least 50,000 years ago.
But without information on exactly how often these words occur across
distantly related languages, there has been little evidence to support
that claim.
What is more, some words of similar sound and meaning, such as the
English "day" and the Spanish "dia", are known to have arisen
independently.
Now Pierre Bancel and Alain Matthey de l'Etang from the Association for
the Study of Linguistics and Prehistoric Anthropology in Paris have
found that the word "papa" is present in almost 700 of the 1000
languages for which they have complete data on words for close family
members.
Common ancestry
Those languages come from all the 14 or so major language families. And
the meaning of "papa" is remarkably consistent: in 71 per cent of cases
it means father or a male relative on the father's side.
"There is only one explanation for the consistent meaning of the word
'papa': a common ancestry," Bancel says. He presented the findings at
the Origins of Language and Psychosis conference in Oxford, UK, in July
2004.
But debate over whether modern languages carry the remnants of the
language spoken at the dawn of humanity is likely to continue. Don
Ringe, a linguist at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia,
says that babies may simply associate the first sound they can make with
the first people they see - their parents. That, too, would lead to
words like "papa" acquiring similar meaning in many languages.
#end quote
Miguel Carrasquer
Gloria'' )" <std...@backpacker.com> wrote:
>Any 'cutting edge research' can be 'debunked' if you ignore whatever the
>new research is. I don't know what Neanderthals have to do with the rest
>of the article, the usage seemingly coming from 'Neanderthal' being used
>more metaphorically than literally. If one were to drop the first and
>last sentences and look at the rest of the article, what is there in it
>to attack New Scientist with?:
>
>http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996188
>#begin quote
>Many of the estimated 6000 languages now spoken share common words and
>meanings, notably for kin names like "mama" and "papa". That has led
>some linguists to suggest that these words have been carried through
>from humans' original proto-language, spoken at least 50,000 years ago.
What linguists? No-one who has studied language change for
more than five minutes can seriously suggest that these
words have been "carried through" from any remote
proto-language. It's obvious, for instance, that the
English word "papa" cannot even be inherited from something
as "recent" as Proto-Indo-European. PIE *papa would have
given English *faf.
>But without information on exactly how often these words occur across
>distantly related languages, there has been little evidence to support
>that claim.
>
>What is more, some words of similar sound and meaning, such as the
>English "day" and the Spanish "dia", are known to have arisen
>independently.
>
>Now Pierre Bancel and Alain Matthey de l'Etang from the Association for
>the Study of Linguistics and Prehistoric Anthropology in Paris have
>found that the word "papa" is present in almost 700 of the 1000
>languages for which they have complete data on words for close family
>members.
>
>Common ancestry
>
>Those languages come from all the 14 or so major language families. And
>the meaning of "papa" is remarkably consistent: in 71 per cent of cases
>it means father or a male relative on the father's side.
>
>"There is only one explanation for the consistent meaning of the word
>'papa': a common ancestry," Bancel says.
What a moron.
>He presented the findings at
>the Origins of Language and Psychosis conference in Oxford, UK, in July
>2004.
I'd say these "findings" have more to do with Psychosis than
with Language.
>But debate over whether modern languages carry the remnants of the
>language spoken at the dawn of humanity is likely to continue. Don
>Ringe, a linguist at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia,
>says that babies may simply associate the first sound they can make with
>the first people they see - their parents. That, too, would lead to
>words like "papa" acquiring similar meaning in many languages.
>#end quote
=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
m...@wxs.nl
Joseph W. Murphy
Well, looks like you can add The Guardian to the list:
More hubris about Alzheimer's here too.
http://education.guardian.co.uk/egweekly/story/0,5500,1186077,00.html
Joe Murphy
Boy Linguist
alexV
"Brian M. Scott" <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote in message
news:14tfb0r493027.1sq60p76l2pjp$.dlg@40tude.net...
> On Mon, 26 Jul 2004 15:18:17 -0400 AlexV <al...@comcast.net>
> wrote in <news:rb6dnT0okaX...@comcast.com> in
> sci.lang:
> There certainly is. Look at the very first sentence: 'One
> of a Neanderthal baby's first words was probably "papa",
> concludes one of the most comprehensive attempts to date to
> make out what the first human language was like.' And the
> last: 'Even Bancel admits that there will never be
> conclusive proof. "We have no Neanderthals around to ask."'
It is amazing and very instructive in fact, at least for me since I am not a
linguist but something else.
Two different people, I presume sober and in their sound mind, read the same
text, not very large indeed and come up with two totally different
conclusions. It is not very unusual either. It is rather a rule. I see it
every day in the press.
Bill Bonde ( ``Soli Deo Gloria'' )
Teresa Kerry is still claiming that she didn't say 'unamerican' and that
the guy asking for her to clarify her comments was putting words in her
mouth and trying to trick her. Of course the entire country has seen her
use those words on video.
--
He and Evie soon fell into a conversation of the "No, I didn't; yes, you
did" type--conversation which, though fascinating to those who are
engaged in it, neither desires nor deserves the attention of others.
-+E.M. Forster, "Howards End"
Jim Heckman
On 27-Jul-2004, "Bill Bonde ( ``Soli Deo Gloria'' )"
<std...@backpacker.com>
wrote in message <4106ACDA...@backpacker.com>:
> Jim Heckman wrote:
[...]
> > Your wariness is well placed. New Scientist articles are
> > regularly debunked in newsgroups for several scientific
> > disciplines with which I have a passing familiarity. The
> > magazine appears to be following the trail blazed by Omni a
> > couple of decades ago.
>
> Any 'cutting edge research' can be 'debunked' if you ignore whatever the
> new research is.
Um, no. It can only be debunked -- I chose this word, much
stronger than 'questioned', carefully -- if the debunkers can
demonstrate errors in the methodology, or in the logic used to
draw conclusions from the results.
> I don't know what Neanderthals have to do with the rest
> of the article, the usage seemingly coming from 'Neanderthal' being used
> more metaphorically than literally. If one were to drop the first and
> last sentences and look at the rest of the article, what is there in it
> to attack New Scientist with?:
Miguel Carrasquer has already given one obvious answer.
[...]
--
Jim Heckman
Des Small
> Jim Heckman wrote:
> >
> > On 26-Jul-2004, isol...@hotmail.com (Merlijn De Smit)
> > wrote in message <a6d093c4.04072...@posting.google.com>:
> >
> > [...]
> >
> > > I am pretty dread to think how the Neanderthalers got involved here. I
> > > am very afraid a writer or editor may have badly messed up on human
> > > evolution - which would be pretty atrocious. The way New Scientist
> > > reports on linguistic issues make me very wary of what they report on
> > > matters I know little about (physics, astronomy).
> >
> > Your wariness is well placed. New Scientist articles are
> > regularly debunked in newsgroups for several scientific
> > disciplines with which I have a passing familiarity. The
> > magazine appears to be following the trail blazed by Omni a
> > couple of decades ago.
> >
> Any 'cutting edge research' can be 'debunked' if you ignore whatever the
> new research is.
Also if it happens to be bollocks.
> I don't know what Neanderthals have to do with the rest
> of the article, the usage seemingly coming from 'Neanderthal' being used
> more metaphorically than literally. If one were to drop the first and
> last sentences and look at the rest of the article, what is there in it
> to attack New Scientist with?:
That the whole article is bollocks.
See, for example, Larry Trask's post
<http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=48c7f19.0308220303.27fdfd45%40posting.google.com>
or his more expansive essay
<http://www.sussex.ac.uk/linguistics/documents/where_do_mama2.pdf>,
which itself is based firmly on Roamin' Roman Jakobson's "Why 'mama'
and 'papa'", written in 1959.
The similarity of mama and papa words across many languages was an
open problem before 1959. It hasn't been since, and as Trask takes
pains to point out (and as anyone with a passing familiarity with
historical linguistics would know) the proto-World theory is rubbish.
This isn't cutting edge research, this is "aliens used perpetual
motion machines to build Stonehenge"-level bullshit, and only
charlatans and popular science journalistes have any interest in
pretending otherwise.
Des
gave up on New "Scientiste" a long time ago
--
"[T]he structural trend in linguistics which took root with the
International Congresses of the twenties and early thirties [...] had
close and effective connections with phenomenology in its Husserlian
and Hegelian versions." -- Roman Jakobson
Peter T. Daniels
> Teresa Kerry is still claiming that she didn't say 'unamerican' and that
> the guy asking for her to clarify her comments was putting words in her
> mouth and trying to trick her. Of course the entire country has seen her
> use those words on video.
No idea what you're talking about, but if "the guy" is a rightwing
talkradio nutcase, he probably is doing both those things. Yesterday the
entire AirAmericaRadio audience heard Hannity denying that he'd said
to/about Al Franken things he was heard on tape to say.
Bill Bonde ( ``Soli Deo Gloria'' )
"Peter T. Daniels" wrote:
>
> Bill Bonde ( ``Soli Deo Gloria'' ) wrote:
>
> > Teresa Kerry is still claiming that she didn't say 'unamerican' and that
> > the guy asking for her to clarify her comments was putting words in her
> > mouth and trying to trick her. Of course the entire country has seen her
> > use those words on video.
>
> No idea what you're talking about, but if "the guy" is a rightwing
> talkradio nutcase, he probably is doing both those things.
>
He was a reporter. Her comments and the exchange were shown on the
nightly news. I think I saw it on World News Tonight and the PBS
Newshour.
> Yesterday the
> entire AirAmericaRadio audience heard Hannity denying that he'd said
> to/about Al Franken things he was heard on tape to say.
>
So than it sounds like Hannity should be called on that. Of course
saying something five minutes before and being called on it, and saying
something five years ago and forgetting and then being called on it, are
different things.
Peter T. Daniels
> > Yesterday the
> > entire AirAmericaRadio audience heard Hannity denying that he'd said
> > to/about Al Franken things he was heard on tape to say.
> >
> So than it sounds like Hannity should be called on that. Of course
> saying something five minutes before and being called on it, and saying
> something five years ago and forgetting and then being called on it, are
> different things.
The one time I could stand to listen to Hannity for more than 1 minute,
he was badgering Bobby Kennedy Jr. because he'd made a slip of the
tongue (and instantly respoke himself, of course), for close to twenty
minutes preventing him from discussing Hudson River pollution.
Bill Bonde ( ``Soli Deo Gloria'' )
I've yet to find any talk radio that is worth listening to regularly.
Peter T. Daniels
>
> "Peter T. Daniels" wrote:
> >
> > Bill Bonde ( ``Soli Deo Gloria'' ) wrote:
> >
> > > > Yesterday the
> > > > entire AirAmericaRadio audience heard Hannity denying that he'd said
> > > > to/about Al Franken things he was heard on tape to say.
> > > >
> > > So than it sounds like Hannity should be called on that. Of course
> > > saying something five minutes before and being called on it, and saying
> > > something five years ago and forgetting and then being called on it, are
> > > different things.
> >
> > The one time I could stand to listen to Hannity for more than 1 minute,
> > he was badgering Bobby Kennedy Jr. because he'd made a slip of the
> > tongue (and instantly respoke himself, of course), for close to twenty
> > minutes preventing him from discussing Hudson River pollution.
> >
> I've yet to find any talk radio that is worth listening to regularly.
If you don't have AirAmericaRadio broadcasting in your area, get
Satellite Radio or the other one, or listen on the computer --
especially for The Al Franken Show, noon to 3 weekdays EDT. (Randi
Rhodes is great when she stops talking about herself, which is about 45
min. into her first hour; she's on 3-7.)
Pierre Jelenc
> [... ] It's obvious, for instance, that the
> English word "papa" cannot even be inherited from something
> as "recent" as Proto-Indo-European. PIE *papa would have
> given English *faf.
For any other word, undoubtedly. However if the argument is that this
represents the easiest sounds made by a baby, then the odometer would be
reset at each birth, counteracting the drift. There would be selective
pressure to retain "p" and "m" in those infancy words (and only those.) Is
there any evidence to the contrary?
Pierre
--
Pierre Jelenc | New on Home Office Records: Ethan Lipton
| www.homeofficerecords.com www.ethanlipton.com
The Gigometer | Pepper Of The Earth: the HO blog
www.gigometer.com | www.homeofficerecords.com/blog
AlexV
"Bill Bonde ( ``Soli Deo Gloria'' )" <std...@backpacker.com> wrote in
message news:4106FFC9...@backpacker.com...
And they say G.W. Bush is a liar. He an embodiment of pure naiveté and truth
in comparison with those Dem barracudas.
Miguel Carrasquer
(Pierre Jelenc) wrote:
>Miguel Carrasquer <m...@wxs.nl> writes:
>> [... ] It's obvious, for instance, that the
>> English word "papa" cannot even be inherited from something
>> as "recent" as Proto-Indo-European. PIE *papa would have
>> given English *faf.
>
>For any other word, undoubtedly. However if the argument is that this
>represents the easiest sounds made by a baby, then the odometer would be
>reset at each birth, counteracting the drift.
Exactly. These words are constantly created anew.
>There would be selective
>pressure to retain "p" and "m" in those infancy words (and only those.) Is
>there any evidence to the contrary?
The argument, or rather the claim, was that "these words
have been carried through from humans' original
proto-language, spoken at least 50,000 years ago".
I would have had no objections had the claim simply been
(and this is all that can be tentively concluded from the
"data") that there's a 70% chance that the Neanderthalers
(or rather, the first speaking humans) had the words *papa
and *mama, with the expected meanings. But nothing was
"carried through".
John Atkinson
"Pierre Jelenc" <rc...@panix.com> wrote...
> Miguel Carrasquer <m...@wxs.nl> writes:
> > [... ] It's obvious, for instance, that the
> > English word "papa" cannot even be inherited from something
> > as "recent" as Proto-Indo-European. PIE *papa would have
> > given English *faf.
>
> For any other word, undoubtedly. However if the argument is that this
> represents the easiest sounds made by a baby, then the odometer would be
> reset at each birth, counteracting the drift.
It seems to me that these words do suffer the same sound shifts at about the
same rate as any others, but that the shifted words eventually become the
more formal words for "mother" and "father", while the nursery words are
reinvented only when the change has moved the word substantially away from
an "easy-for-baby" form. That is, to say that "the odometer is reset at
each birth, counteracting the drift" isn't right if you mean by this that
mother/father words evolve more slowly than others.
The IE *p@ter probably started as a nursery word of the "pa" type. The
first letter did go to "f" by the regular change in Germanic, which is not a
"nursery" sound, and since then there has been a tendency to invent a new
nursery word, which one would expect to eventually replace the old word --
as "atta" seems to have done in Gothic, and "dad" may be on the way to
doing in English.
Cf the recent thread on Lithuanian, where mother is "motyna" (<mote<*mater),
but "mama" has pretty well replaced it in colloquial varieties.
> There would be selective
> pressure to retain "p" and "m" in those infancy words (and only those.)
> Is there any evidence to the contrary?
"M" seems to be pretty general ( though of course in some languages it is
used for "father" rather than "mother"). However, "p" is far from
universal. Many languages have "b" ("baba", "abba", etc), and some have "d"
or "t". Babies whose parents speak English almost always use "dada" for
father, not "papa" or "baba". Possibly this is because "b" is the initial
sound of the word English mothers use for the baby itself (usually spelled
"bubba" or "bub").
John.
Bill Bonde ( ``Soli Deo Gloria'' )
Giles Todd wrote:
>
> On Thu, 29 Jul 2004 15:32:49 -0400, "AlexV" <al...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
> > And they say G.W. Bush is a liar. He an embodiment of pure naiveté and truth
> > in comparison with those Dem barracudas.
>
> Never let it be said that US political argument is unsophisticated.
>
> How long have we got to go before the half billion dollars is spent on
> advertising and yet another member of the Privileged Party becomes the
> Leader of the Free World?
>
A couple of months?
Douglas G. Kilday
"John Atkinson" <john...@bigpond.com> wrote ...
>
> [...]
>
> "M" seems to be pretty general ( though of course in some languages it is
> used for "father" rather than "mother"). However, "p" is far from
> universal. Many languages have "b" ("baba", "abba", etc), and some have
"d"
> or "t". Babies whose parents speak English almost always use "dada" for
> father, not "papa" or "baba". Possibly this is because "b" is the initial
> sound of the word English mothers use for the baby itself (usually spelled
> "bubba" or "bub").
<dada> could also be interpreted as a reduplicated form of *<ada> resulting
from attempts by toddlers to say the English word for 'father', which
acquired a medial fricative by analogy with 'mother' and 'brother'
relatively recently (cf. ME <fader>, OE <fæder>).
<bubba>, <bub>, and <buddy> have been interpreted as resulting from attempts
by toddlers to say <brother>. This explains the prevalence of sons called
"Junior" and "Bubba" in the southern U.S. The first son gets his father's
first name and becomes "Junior", and when he is introduced to his newborn
brother, what comes out is similar to "Bubba" or "Buddy" depending on how
much articulatory control he has acquired.
John Atkinson
"Douglas G. Kilday" <fuf...@chorus.net> wrote...
>
> "John Atkinson" <john...@bigpond.com> wrote ...
> >
> > [...]
> >
> > "M" seems to be pretty general ( though of course in some languages it
is
> > used for "father" rather than "mother"). However, "p" is far from
> > universal. Many languages have "b" ("baba", "abba", etc), and some have
> "d"
> > or "t". Babies whose parents speak English almost always use "dada" for
> > father, not "papa" or "baba". Possibly this is because "b" is the
initial
> > sound of the word English mothers use for the baby itself (usually
spelled
> > "bubba" or "bub").
>
> <dada> could also be interpreted as a reduplicated form of *<ada>
resulting
> from attempts by toddlers to say the English word for 'father',
Hmm. Sounds unlikely to me. Does anyone have any evidence for this, for
example by observation of their own babies? Is there any sign of this
happening in the other Germanic languages?
> which
> acquired a medial fricative by analogy with 'mother' and 'brother'
> relatively recently (cf. ME <fader>, OE <fæder>).
Yes, this reason for the <th> seems to be generally accepted. But the
existence of the medial fricative has no bearing on the case.
> <bubba>, <bub>, and <buddy> have been interpreted as resulting from
attempts
> by toddlers to say <brother>.
This may be true in your dialect. In Australian English, <bubba> and <bub>
are the nursery versions of <baby>. They have nothing to do with <brother>,
and are never used with this meaning. <buddy> is not a "native" word
here -- it has been borrowed from American English relatively recently, but
only with the meaning 'mate' or 'pal', never 'brother'.
> This explains the prevalence of sons called
> "Junior" and "Bubba" in the southern U.S. The first son gets his father's
> first name and becomes "Junior", and when he is introduced to his newborn
> brother, what comes out is similar to "Bubba" or "Buddy" depending on how
> much articulatory control he has acquired.
I'll take your word for this, since I've never had the opportunity of
studying the unique customs of this part of the USA.
John.
Douglas G. Kilday
"John Atkinson" <john...@bigpond.com> wrote...
>
> "Douglas G. Kilday" <fuf...@chorus.net> wrote...
> >
> > "John Atkinson" <john...@bigpond.com> wrote ...
> > >
> > > [...]
> > >
> > > "M" seems to be pretty general ( though of course in some languages it
> is
> > > used for "father" rather than "mother"). However, "p" is far from
> > > universal. Many languages have "b" ("baba", "abba", etc), and some
have
> > "d"
> > > or "t". Babies whose parents speak English almost always use "dada"
for
> > > father, not "papa" or "baba". Possibly this is because "b" is the
> initial
> > > sound of the word English mothers use for the baby itself (usually
> spelled
> > > "bubba" or "bub").
> >
> > <dada> could also be interpreted as a reduplicated form of *<ada>
> resulting
> > from attempts by toddlers to say the English word for 'father',
>
> Hmm. Sounds unlikely to me. Does anyone have any evidence for this, for
> example by observation of their own babies? Is there any sign of this
> happening in the other Germanic languages?
I have no evidence for 'dada' or 'daddy' in this sense in other Germanic
languages, so I regard this particular usage as arising in English. [fæder]
in OE or ME could have been approximated in toddlers' speech as [ædi] which
would have become [dædi] by anticipation, following the preference of
toddlers for consonantal onset (cf. <nanny> <= <Annie>, Fr. <tante> <=
<ante> <= L. <amita>). This yields <daddy>, which some parents would be
likely to alter to <dada> in conformity with <mama> (cf. Fr. <tata> <=
<tante>). In my revised view there was no *<ada>, but <daddy> and <dada>
still originate with attempts to say the regular word for 'father'. This is
hardly farther-fetched than the notion of dissimilation from <papa>
resulting from <bubba> or <bub>, which in the sense 'baby' is unfamiliar to
me and must be an Australianism. <daddy> is no Australianism.
> > which
> > acquired a medial fricative by analogy with 'mother' and 'brother'
> > relatively recently (cf. ME <fader>, OE <fæder>).
>
> Yes, this reason for the <th> seems to be generally accepted. But the
> existence of the medial fricative has no bearing on the case.
The former existence of the stop is relevant to my theory, since toddlers
generally master stops before fricatives.
> > <bubba>, <bub>, and <buddy> have been interpreted as resulting from
> attempts
> > by toddlers to say <brother>.
>
> This may be true in your dialect. In Australian English, <bubba> and
<bub>
> are the nursery versions of <baby>. They have nothing to do with
<brother>,
> and are never used with this meaning. <buddy> is not a "native" word
> here -- it has been borrowed from American English relatively recently,
but
> only with the meaning 'mate' or 'pal', never 'brother'.
And what is the etymology of <pal>?
>
> [...]
>
Brian M. Scott
<fuf...@chorus.net> wrote in
<news:410fc...@newspeer2.tds.net> in sci.lang:
[...]
> I have no evidence for 'dada' or 'daddy' in this sense in other Germanic
> languages, so I regard this particular usage as arising in English. [fæder]
> in OE or ME could have been approximated in toddlers' speech as [ædi] which
> would have become [dædi] by anticipation, following the preference of
> toddlers for consonantal onset (cf. <nanny> <= <Annie>,
AHD3 derives <nanny> from <nana> 'grandmother', of nursery
origin.
[...]
> And what is the etymology of <pal>?
AHD3 says that it's from a Romany <ph(r)al>, akin to
Sanskrit <bhra:ta:> 'brother'.
Brian
Douglas G. Kilday
"Brian M. Scott" <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote ...
"Douglas G. Kilday" <fuf...@chorus.net> wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> > I have no evidence for 'dada' or 'daddy' in this sense in other Germanic
> > languages, so I regard this particular usage as arising in English.
[fæder]
> > in OE or ME could have been approximated in toddlers' speech as [ædi]
which
> > would have become [dædi] by anticipation, following the preference of
> > toddlers for consonantal onset (cf. <nanny> <= <Annie>,
>
> AHD3 derives <nanny> from <nana> 'grandmother', of nursery
> origin.
The AHD is not infallible and has several questionable etymologies involving
"nursery words" or "baby talk". Under *nana in the AHD1 is listed
Late/Medieval Latin <nonna> 'aunt, old woman, nun' whence E. <nun>. In
fact, according to Souter, <nonna> is attested only once before 600, and in
the sense 'nun', in one of Jerome's letters. The masculine <nonnus> 'monk'
is found in another of Jerome's letters and two other pre-600 sources
besides, casting serious doubt on the AHD's derivation from a "child's word
for a nurse or female adult other than its mother". The proper name
<Nonnita> occurs in Imperial funerary inscriptions whose distribution
indicates Gaulish origin. There is more to the etymology of E. <nun> than
"baby talk".
The derivation of <nanny> which I gave comes from pp. 4-5 of Y. Malkiel,
"Studies in Secondary Phonosymbolism", _Archivio Glottologico Italiano_
69:1-25 [1984], which I quote here:
"... Lexical borrowing is practiced where nurses or governesses are hired
from a speech community regionally (and, of course, socially) different from
that of the parents: Older Spanish <máma> 'mommy' has become <mamá> under
pressure from Fr. <maman> /mama~/, and G. <Papá>, <Mamá>, as against native
<Váti>, <Mútti>, also give the impression, on accentual grounds, of being
adjusted Gallicisms, for the very same reason as Sp. <mamá>. If a given
word taken from the language of the adults happens to begin with a vowel,
one of that word's medial consonants, usually the first, will tend to be
prefixed to it, by way of anticipation. Because the peasant girl in charge
of a baby in a British aristocratic or middle-class family was, typically,
called <Annie>, <nanny> 'nurse' sprouted from <n> + <Annie>; similarly, Fr.
<tante> /ta~t/ from older <ante> <= <amita> 'paternal aunt' at a certain
point became equipped with a <t->. (Consequently, E. <aunt> represents an
older borrowing from French than does G. <Tante>.)"
In my theory of <daddy>, of course, the unreduplicated form *[ædi] is not
taken from ordinary adult speech, but from the approximation to [fæder] made
at an earlier stage of toddlerhood when consonantal onset had not been
mastered. This earlier stage is attested by at least two funerary
inscriptions in my own town. A 63-year-old woman's tombstone reads "Mom,
Ommie and Friend, we will miss you". <Ommie> [ami] clearly represents an
attempt by an early toddler to say <Mom> or <Mommy> [mam(i)] which adults
were trying to get the toddler to say. A 33-year-old woman named Victoria
has on her tombstone, beside the usual nickname "Vicky", another one "Inky"
in smaller letters. <Inky> [INki] clearly represents an attempt by an early
toddler to say <Vicky> [vIki], with inability to produce fricative onset
(and prenasalization resulting from premature velar closure). In later
toddlerhood comes the tendency to produce consonantal onset by anticipation.
>
> [...]
>
Mervyn Doobov
news:41151...@newspeer2.tds.net:
> ... A 63-year-old woman's tombstone
> reads "Mom, Ommie and Friend, we will miss you". <Ommie> [ami] clearly
> represents an attempt by an early toddler to say <Mom> or <Mommy>
> [mam(i)] which adults were trying to get the toddler to say.
That might depend on where that woman came from. It could be a familiar form
of the German "Oma" (=grandma) and simply be "grannie" for a German-origin
grandmother.
--
Mervyn Doobov,
Jerusalem, Israel.
Douglas G. Kilday
"Mervyn Doobov" <mdo...@actcom.co.il> wrote in message ...
> "Douglas G. Kilday" <fuf...@chorus.net> wrote:
>
> > ... A 63-year-old woman's tombstone
> > reads "Mom, Ommie and Friend, we will miss you". <Ommie> [ami] clearly
> > represents an attempt by an early toddler to say <Mom> or <Mommy>
> > [mam(i)] which adults were trying to get the toddler to say.
>
> That might depend on where that woman came from. It could be a familiar
form
> of the German "Oma" (=grandma) and simply be "grannie" for a German-origin
> grandmother.
I believe that you are correct. I completely overlooked the significance of
the husband's tombstone, which reads "Dad, Grandpa and Friend, we will miss
you". Both stones are of the same type and design, so a parallelism between
"Ommie" and "Grandpa" is evidently intended. The large phonetic contrast
was probably useful to very young grandchildren who might have had trouble
distinguishing the titles "Grandma" and "Grandpa".
As a result, I have no evidence that initial [m] is ever reduced to zero in
toddlers' speech. It is, of course, replaced by [p] in "Peggy" for
"Margaret".