All words / People & family / mother 母
mother · 4 etymological groups
“mother” in 35 languages Relatives of *méh₂tēr stretch from Ireland to India. Baby words like mama, on the other hand, turn up all over the world regardless of family. Looking alike does not always mean being related.
Indo-European19 languages Germanic
English mother German Mutter Dutch moeder Swedishnote mor Icelandic móðir
Italic
Latin māter French mère Spanish madre Italian madre Portuguese mãe Romaniannote mamă
Slavic
Russian мать mat’ Polish matka
Celtic
Irish máthair Welsh mam
Hellenic
Greek μητέρα mitéra
Indo-Iranian
Persian مادر mādar Hindinote माँ mā̃
Uralic Finnishnote äiti Estonian ema Hungarian anya
Afroasiatic Arabic أُمّ umm Hebrew אֵם em
Sino-Tibetan Mandarin 妈妈 māma Traditional 媽媽
Japonic Japanesenote 母 haha
Koreanic Korean 어머니 eomeoni
Austroasiatic Vietnamese mẹ
Austronesian Indonesian ibu Filipinonote ina Hawaiian makuahine
Language isolates Basque ama
The words and etymologies here were compiled by an AI (Claude) from its trained knowledge and have not been reviewed by a specialist. Items with a source have been checked against that source; anything without one may contain errors.
Spotted a mistake? Let us know at ateliercat24@gmail.com .
Forms marked * (such as *ḱwṓ) are reconstructed: no record of them survives, and they are rebuilt by comparing their descendants. Dog, water, mother, moon and three are on the Swadesh list, the basic vocabulary used in comparative linguistics. Cat and tea are here as words that travelled along with the thing they name.
Sources are linked, not reproduced. Wiktionary content is available under CC BY-SA; WALS Online under CC BY.
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