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words for Mom
Guest
1
2008/12/13 - 10:03am

In today's discussion of what the kids will call their two mothers, someone thought Baba meant papa or dad. I thought that in Russian or another Slavic language, Baba means grandma, or at least little old lady. I think there's a bunch of stories about Baba Yaga, a witch who lives in a cottage with chicken legs-a mobile home? Baba Yaga flies around in a mortar.

Grant Barrett
San Diego, California
1532 Posts
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2
2008/12/13 - 10:23am

That's true about "baba" being a name for grandma or little old lady, but it's not always the same in every country. In some languages in India, “baba” means “father.” Here's a bit of a comparison.

Also, the last paragraph on page 227 of this book explains something well-known to linguists: “It has been recognized for centuries that nursery formations, so-called Lallwörter (the mama-papa-dada-caca sort of words), should be avoided in proposals of linguistic affinity, since they exhibit a high degree of similarity in languages throughout the world that is not due to common ancestry.”

My son, by the way, goes to a daycare here in New York City owned and run by two Byelorussian woman, a mother and daughter. For the first couple of months my son often played with the daughter's two boys, so he got in the habit of calling their grandmother "baba," too. 🙂

soymoon
3
2008/12/14 - 9:45am

The German word for mother would make a fun choice for the 2 moms.
They say Mutti(moo tea).

Or how about the Ferengi(Star Trek) term Mugi(moo gee).

Just some thoughts.

Guest
4
2008/12/15 - 6:15am

I am the sperm donor to a lesbian couple with two little girls. They use Mommy and Mama...but, the older girl (now 4) sometimes just uses Mom. So, don't be surprised if the child chooses their own name as they get older!

Martha Barnette
San Diego, CA
820 Posts
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5
2008/12/15 - 8:39pm

cobaltdragon, I suspect you're right about the name-choosing.

soymoon, I do like Mutti - might work just fine in some cases.

Guest
6
2009/01/03 - 4:40pm

How about mater? It's latin, I think, for mother.

Glenn Atkinson
7
2009/01/07 - 10:09am

I also agree that, if you are lucky, your child will likely make his or her own choice.

I have the privilege of being a stepparent. When my wife and I married, the boys were old enough to make their own decision about how to call me. At one specific point just prior to our wedding, I did explicitly give the boys the permission to make their own choices -- till then I had been "Glenn." Ultimately, they never really settled on just one choice. I asked permission to refer to them as my sons, which I still do, unless context demands greater clarity.

Over the years, I've enjoyed a rich experience of nuance, from their calling me Glenn (with tenderness ranging to both extremes), through the collective “my parents,” to the traditional “dad.”

Now that the boys have their own children, the nuance continues. When the oldest grandson was born, I certainly did not want to usurp the grandfather position from the boys' biological father. I was unsure what our son and his wife would choose. As it turns out, they were heading for “grandpa.” But, while my grandson was still in the babbling stage, I was tending him in the next room, and making a joke by loudly coaching him to say “grandpa” as his first word.

He popped out with something sounding like “oom-pa” and I jokingly declared victory that his first word was “grandpa.”

Now, as a five-year-old, while “grandpa” occasionally slips out, “oompa” is my primary label to all -- him, his younger brother, and younger cousin. I think it is a keeper.

Glenn Atkinson
8
2009/01/07 - 10:33am

The mention of Russian roots prompts me to suggest some Russian options to mama:

mamenka (soft mark after the n in Russian, маменька)
or
mamochka

Although, for a young child's earlier ability to articulate, "mamenka" is probably the more practical choice.

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