What's even crazier than babies making
moms and dads? Babies giving us you and
me.
In honor of Father's Day on Sunday I
made a video on the origins of the words
Father, Dad, and Papa. I'm so excited about
this topic of the origin of the word of
dad because in order to explain it we
have to talk about phonetics
and childhood development: two things
that I absolutely loved studying in
university. So without further ado let's
get started.
Father comes from the
Proto-Indo-European *phter,  which turned
into Old English, faeder.  One theory is that
the peh- prefix came from a
Proto-Indo-European word to shepherd or
to protect and -ter was an agent marker
for nouns. We can see this -ter agent
marker in words like daughter and sister
today. *Phter was the more formal word
for father and Atto was a less formal
maybe more like dad. In translations of
the Bible into the old
Proto-Indo-European language Gothic, Atto
is used more often than "*Phter. But *Atto
didn't really evolve into anything in
English and *phter did.
Neither of these words though is the
origin of the word dad. Let's first do
some crash course phonetics. This is a
vowel quadrilateral without getting too
nerdy, trust me I really really want to. Um.
Basically different vowels are made
depending on what you do with your lips
and your tongue. The easiest sound to make
and a sound that babies make is this ah-
sound. You really just have to vibrate
your vocal folds and open your mouth and
ah. Babies make this sound all the time.
But when babies want to mix it up
probably the first consonant sound they
make is a mm sound. Now consonants are
made by disrupting the airflow in some
way so if you're going ahh mmm
All you basically have to do is shut your
mouth and press that air through your
lips and you get a mm sound.
Something that a baby might make while he
or she is nursing. The baby suddenly goes
mama while looking at its mother and the
mother goes "Mama! the baby said my name".
and from then on the mother refers to
herself as mama.
Similarly, when the baby is cooing or
having a good time, it's likely that the
baby is making a sound like babababa
which is almost the same as the mm
sound except you open your lips after
you close them. For our purposes
today B and P sounds are the same and T
and D sounds are the same and if you
think about it they're made almost the
same way, the same tongue and mouth
position. Baby's probably going ba ba or
pa pa. And if the baby's feeling frisky,
she or he might put their tongue a
little bit farther back on the ridge of
their mouth, behind their front teeth and
tap it and go tatata dadada. And suddenly that
word gets associated with the person who
is second closest normally to the baby
which is the father and it's Dada or
Papa. This theory of how Mama and Papa
Mom and Dad came into the English
language is the most widely held belief.
One reason for this,  is the fact that
languages all over the world have an
incredibly similar word for parents.
Take for example, Welsh tad, Irish dad
Lithuanian Tata, Sanskrit Tata,
Czeck Tata, Latin Tata, Greek Tata.
Not only these Proto Indo-European
languages but here's a list of non Proto
indo-european languages and their word
for that.
also these sounds mmm, pp or bb, tt or dd and the ah vowel
are basically universal in every single
language and easy for every single baby
that's born to make. Dad in English was
first recorded in the 15th century but
it's presumed that babies and children
had been calling their father's dad for
much longer than that.
Papa came to English from the French
in the 1600s. According to the Oxford
English Dictionary, the word Papa was
first used for courtly speech and then
it was used by more common folk in the
18th century but if you don't like the
baby theory to explain the origin of the
word dad here's a few other options for
ya. Dad can be traced from the
Proto Indo-European word Atto that I
said before. It's possible that these
sounds were rearranged to tata. Dad
could also be related to the low german
detta meaning grandfather. But even going
all the way back to Proto Indo-European,
you can't avoid the baby theory. Some
linguists argue that little babies
thousands of years ago
babbling saying mama bababa
someone took this baba papa and added
the suffix to make it a noun -ter and
you got *phter so you can't avoid it
folks.
Speaking of *phter that is the origin of
the word patron and I just started my
Patreon page. If you're interested in
being a patron of my channel then feel
free to click the link in the
description. See? It's all related, but
what's even crazier than babies making
dad's? Babies giving us you and me. If we
take into account that - and tt and dd and
ss are basically the exact same sound
and pp and bb are basically the same
sound and then we have the mmm sound.
Looking at languages even non Proto
Indo-European languages, we see that me
and you almost always start with one of
those consonants. You might be saying no
in English this isn't true. It is true. Me
and thou which came from the word tau we
have it too
linguistics explain 
that likely when people were coming
up with personal pronouns the mmm sounds
are things very close to you: mama milk
me meal. Then the things that are
associated with the tatata sound at the
ridge of the mouth are associated to the
things not quite right beside you but
very very close. You and that person who
doesn't feed you but is there and
loves you, your dad. Take a look at all of
these languages and their personal
pronouns. In German you have mich und dich.  In French,  you have moi et toi.
In Turkish you have ben and sen. The
words we use to call our parents are
almost as universal and as long lasting
as having parents. What do you call your
father in your native language? Happy
Father's Day to all the dads out there!
and I will see you next Tuesday
