I am curious to know if there is any connection between the words for father and mother in various languages. When I spent five years as a missionary/teacher in the country of Laos, I learned that their word for mother was mee, pronounced with a short e (like the beginning of the word met). Their word for father is pa (pronounced paw).

In Navajo the word for my mother is shima (emphasis on the second syllable). Their word for my father is shizhe'e with the emphasis and tone marks on both e's (short e). It might be interesting to research the words for mother and father in European languages, because there may be other similarities.
Sincerely,
Rosemary Watson, Broken Arrow, OK

Hello languagelover, you'll see a commonality with the folks here.

Off the cuff...

The more basic the word the more likely a kinship and a common orgin with other languages. "Ma" and "Pa" are the base of basic and many of the World's languages pronounce the sounds with a similarity.

In fact a linguist at Berkley claims that she can date mankind's dispersal throughtout this big wide world by the degree of convergence or divergence of a set of fundamental words.

I think that most folk at Berkley are kooks and hippies but this chick might have a worthwhile idea.

I remember hearing something about that. Mother and father would be about the most basic words but the connection may be because they come from the first sounds a baby makes: mama, papa, dada. (or is that what you meant by "the base of basic", Milo?)
Come to think of it, does anyone know a language where the childish term for mother doesn't start with ma or mo(m)

Weren't the colors red, blue and green part of the list of very basic words? It was waaaay long time ago (from a High school French teacher who could be sidetracked into linguistics instead of the curriculum) Can anyone provide a link to more info?

PS Hi and welcome,languagelover

This* looks like an interesting paper on the subject. Just to answer one of your questions the following languages are given with their words for 'father':



*It's a pdf.

Thank you for your comments. I really appreciate the information you shared. I am interested to find out what other languages have similar root words for mother and father. I'm sure there are many!

Just for 2¢, in Thailand there is Maa (maa) while there are four different inflections of ma (mä) meaning horse, dog, bring, and ______ [forgotten the fourth one].

in gujarati (oneof the languages of western india) the word for mother is ma and for father is bap or alternatively pita. In classical sanskrit it is maatru and pitru respectively hope these add to your listing - aitrivra