How to say “mother” around the world

421 languages · 421 in their own spelling

Why does “mother” sound alike nearly everywhere? A baby’s first sounds are m, b and p plus a — lips closing and opening make ma, ba, pa — and parents take these first babbles as names for themselves. As Roman Jakobson argued, the likeness comes not from shared ancestry but from the shared human mouth.

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Dots of one colour begin with a similar sound. Colours group words by the class of their first consonant (a sound-class method used in linguistics): words that begin alike share a colour. This shows resemblance, not common origin — proving relationship needs case-by-case comparison. Readable forms come from Wiktionary translation tables; many smaller languages come from the ASJP word lists, in ASJP’s simplified transcription.