Re: [tied] The "Mother" Problem

----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard Wordingham" <richard.wordingham@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, January 29, 2005 12:26 PM
Subject: Re: [tied] The "Mother" Problem


>
>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...>
> wrote:
> > Sorry, I didn't express myself clearly. In the case of 'father', I
> > wanted to say that we frequently find *t and *p _in_ IE, not
> worldwide.
> > Indeed, the choice of the consonant seems to be quite arbitrary,
> so the
> > fact that it's somewhat restricted within IE may be significant.
>
> I thought their common occurrence spanned Eurasia until one reached
> Austronesian territory. Semitic has /b/ Arabic _abu:_, Hebrew _a:b_
> etc., and the Tai languages have *bOO tone class B (> Thai phOO_F).
> I don't know how far into Africa the tendency goes.

Swahili has "mama" and "baba" with the consonats just like Semitic (Arabic
"ab" and "umm"). So the tendency goes at least till Bantu (Niger-Cordofan?)
languages.

Mate