A few good words...
With reference to a post on a friend's blog, I noticed that two very prominent words seem to start with the same sound in almost all languages.
1. "Mother" starts with the "M" sound
2. "No" starts with the "N" sound
I am not really listing the languages that conform to this... but you can easily verify the popularity of this phenomenon.
Instead I am putting forth my take on how this might have come to be, and shall be eager to know about the reader's point of view.
The "N" sound is the most instinctive sound that we usually make to express displeasure, discomfort, irritation, etc. Its not even a word. If you are concentrating and I disturb you, instead of saying something you may actually make that "N" sound which would tell me clearly that I am not wanted there :) So maybe thats got somthing to do with the "No" word ?
And the "M" sound... is it because when babies cry after being born, they have that nasal tone which sounds like a "waaaannnh" and also may resemble "M" ? This is kinda far fetched I know... but just seems so strange that almost everywhere in the world mothers would have a similar sounding name to describe their role in our lives!
posted by Joy Ghosh at 8:01 PM
13 Comments:
Here it is... finally u posted it :P
:), and what abt "aai"
:) one of those anomalies for sure..
all i know is that after the M-word, babies learn the N-word all too soon. my current thought process revolves around how that happens!!
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almost everywhere in the world when a baby cries "waaaannnh", which sounds like 'M', the first letter of 'MOTHER', mother uses the 'N' sound which does not express displeasure, discomfort or irritation. she wants to say only M-ain (Hoon) N-a?
the sound "a" replaces "m" in case of some languages ... cos babies born there dont cry, they are suprised..."aah!" and hence the "a" sound in languages like Marathi, Dravidian Languages, Korean and others....
@kundalini - that must be a another interesting observation to make real hand!! someday i too shall be going through that i presume, at which point i would be eager to share some your wisdom :)
@parbati - talking to babies sometimes can classify as "baby talk" and was not really my point of the "N" sound being irritable. I was refering to more of an adult response in this case ...
@sid - thats a nice way of looking at it :) reminds me of the old movie "look whos talking"... a child's point of view of the adult world..
Joy
The "MMMMMMMM" sound is a key sound in chanting practice. If you close your eyes and say it aloud, engaging your whole face as you say it, you can feel a noticeable release of tension.
I love your posts. :)
joy, the wisdom is simple - dont let them hear the n-word too often, and they wont pick it up that soon :). the sad thing is that i think i say the h-word a lot too - i 'think' i say it more often, and yet..! the n-word is just more fun, i guess. incidentally, last night was the first time we actually heard a "haan" out loud, otherwise it was always a 'knowing smile'. ours is yet a man of few words :)
btw, you seem to think about a lot of stuff much earlier than most of us do/did, so dont worry, you'll be great when the time comes :)
@vent - yeah.. i remember what you told me about the word "aa-oo-mm" and how the 3 parts come out of three different levels :) well.. if i am able to write stimulating blogs, its only because of the spiritual company i seem to keep. so thank yourself :)
@kundalini - hmm.. now that seems like a load of work. i mean having to watch urself all the time... i dont know about how much i think now.. but i still feel doing it for real wud be a lot different! :)
really liked your post.
here's what I've heard regarding the 'm' sound,
(getting a bit religious here), the Hindu religion believes the universe started with a big bang (sound) of 'ohm'. So, the end 'm' is considered the first sound that was heard. Hence, it is considered holy/sacred. So, many "pure" words start with 'm'
e.g. mother (as you pointed out in most languages. In Marathi there is 'maooli', 'mai'), 'mandir', 'masjid', mosque
no theory why 'nh' sound brings out displeasure.
hey chintan... thanks a lot for that intriguing piece of information... sounds very possible and interesting :)
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