In many languages, the words for father and mother — being the first words a baby utters — are quite similar, and they include the labial consonants b, p, m; or dental d, t, n; as papa, dad, (Czech) tata, mam(m)a, mommy, nanny; similar words are used in Chinese, French, Italian, Persian, Turkish (in which anne means “mother”), Yiddish and more.*
The Hebrew words abba and imma end with an Aramaic suffix, to indicate a vocative form (used when calling someone, as in English, Mom! Dad!) The Hebrew cognates are av for “father,” and em for “mother.”
*So are the word “baby” and other “baby words”: bubba, puppet, mama (“breast, baby food” in other languages; including mammal, which is a “breast-feeding animal”).
Yona Sabar is a professor of Hebrew and Aramaic in the department of Near Eastern Languages & Cultures at UCLA.
