Hacker News Reader

Comment by mahmud | Hacker News Reader

It's the exact same thing.

For example, Suez Canal is called "Qanat al-Suez" in Arabic.

That doesn't answer the GP's question of whether there's an etymological link. That is, are the two words derived from the same root in some ancient language? It is a reasonable question since they are phonologically similar, but from different language families.

And just because two words sound similar doesn't mean they have similar roots. The word for “dog” in the Australian Aboriginal language Mbabaram happens to be “dog,” not because they have the same root but by coincidence.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=UtFqXQosVP0C&pg=PT283&lp...

Just to add to the fun, the etymology of the word "dog" itself is completely unknown.

There's a single documented mention of the Old English "docga" - and then nothing.

How this word took over pretty much well entirely from "hound" is a mystery.

If that's not enough, the Polish word for dog - "pies" - has exactly the same issue!

(and I believe, but can't say with any certainty, that other Slavic languages may have the same issue.)

Edit: Oxford English's page on "dog" is paywalled off but still available in via Google's cache, a fascinating read if you have a spare 15 minutes:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:jNMSJSG...

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/p...

There's a great list of these at

https://web.archive.org/web/20070227031854/http://members.ao...

they're known as "false cognates" in linguistics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_cognate

This one btw doesn't include the one that is strangest to me: that Chinese for mom or momma is 妈妈 "mama" and pop, pappa is 爸爸 "baba".

What is also interesting is that certain words share similar literal constructions in unrelated languages.

The best example I've always thought of is the verb "to understand". Picture standing under something; you get to know it better.

In my native language Twi [1], the to understand is literally constructed as "to to sit under" I know of several other languages with very similar constructions.

[1] http://www.omniglot.com/writing/twi.htm

These are nearly universal AFAIK. I've heard stipulated a link between this and the fact that these are the first sounds a child will learn.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mama_and_papa

> these are the first sounds a child will learn.

Not really, no. 'Gaga' or 'kaka' are just as easy yet aren't universal. The mystery is not solved. (Could be just areal effects, for example.)

Easy for an adult, not so easy for a baby. Bilabial and coronal sounds don't take much tongue dexterity: you just need to be able to open/close your lips and leave your tongue in its natural resting position respectively to produce them. Velar sounds, on the other hand, require you to flex the middle of your tongue to touch your palate, which is as significantly more difficult sound to produce.

It's no coincidence that sounds like 'gaga' and 'kaka' tend to be associated with either more distant relatives or with defecation: the kid's going to be older when those things get introduced.

There's nothing even slightly strange about it. The terms are self-recapitulating because parents mistake children's babbling for first words. If anything, it'd be strange if they weren't the same. Take a read of this: http://languagehat.com/trask-on-mama-and-papa/

Addendum: in case anybody's wondering what I meant when I wrote "it'd be strange if they weren't the same", I was referring to the high probability of them being coincidentally the same or at least very similar.

Then why isn't aunt "gaga" in all languages?

Why would it be? What's your reasoning for expecting it to be? Did you read the paper linked to?

I always presumed these were universal because they are the easiest sounds for infants to make.

I'm not sure why that was downvoted. It's a reasonable assertion.

And correct, as it happens. Though long-running cultural associations with certain consonants (such as 'm', 'n' and 'b' and mother or grandmother, 'p' and 'd' with father or grandfather, &c.) to play a huge role in it too: the parents need to be culturally primed to mistake the babbling for actual half-formed words, and subsequently build that association in the child's mind in return.

Couldn't have said it better (obviously) myself. Thanks!

The 'ma' and 'pa' sounds are some of the easiest sounds to make by babies since they just require the lips and don't involve the tongue.

You might be interested in the article by Larry Trask linked to here: http://languagehat.com/trask-on-mama-and-papa/

I'm not sure why I was downvoted - Larry Trask's article has the exact same explanation i gave above - mainly that the 'm' and 'p' sounds are the easiest consonant vocalizations that babies can do.

canal deriv. : 1400-50; late Middle English: waterpipe, tubular passage < Latin canālis, perhaps equivalent to can (na) reed, pipe (see cane ) + -ālis -al1; def. 5 a mistranslation of Italian canali channels, term used by G. V. Schiaparelli

Reply on news.ycombinator.com