Usually, the first words we learn as children, are the words for ’mama’ and ’papa’.  Similar words are learnt by children all over the world, - words like baba, dada, tata and so on for father, mama, nana, ma for mother. Why?

George Peter Murdock at the Yale University once examined the sounds in words for mother and father in 470 languages from different parts of the world. The material was found in World Ethnographic Sample, a worldwide research project from the 1950`es, published in the USA. Murdock found that the  words for mother and father grouped in certain patterns, not necessarily following the language families.

52 % of the words for mother in the material have ma/me/mo or  na/ne/no in the root syllable. Only 15 % of the words for father have the same syllable in the root. 55 % of the words for father had pa/po or ta/to in the root, while the same  syllables were only found in 7 % of the words for mother. The most common syllables used, "the winning couples" so to say, were  ma/na (for mother) and pa/ta (for father). They were found in 48 % of the cases, as I have understood it. 

The languages included in this survey, were from different language families as the Malayan-Polynesian, Niger-Congolesian and Indoeuropean families. Also when Murdock  had the language families in mind, the results showed a tendency to using certain sounds in words for mother, and other in words for father.
  
Some linguists differ between culturally decided or taught words, and more "biological" words. In the culturally decided words for mother and father, we find  sounds that isn`t so easy for small children to pronounce. Therefore we can find word couples in many languages, with a formal, "difficult" word for mother/father, and a more informal, "childish" and simple word for the parents. Examples here are English mother/father, mum/dad; Norwegian far/mor, mamma/pappa, the latter words in both languages being the ”biological” words.
  
 In 1959, the famous linguist Roman Jakobson published the article "Why "Mama" and "Papa"?", and here we can find one  theory about how children are learning these first, important words. The parents try to establish a common "language" between themselves and the baby, a kind of children language. They then use sounds like the babies can pronounce, and Jakobson thinks that a  principle of maximum difference in pronouncational power lies behind most of the "infantil" words for mother  and father. The ”mother-words” have a soft pronounciation, and therefore the ”father-words” must have a clearly different sound, but still be almost as easy as the ”mother-words” to pronounce.
  
Both Jakobson and Murdock link in a way biology and speech; the small children start to use or are taught to use the  first, simple sounds they make when they suckle, as a word for the one giving them nutrition. Of course we can find exceptions, like in Finnish ....  Since the material I refer to  is quite old, it most likely exists more recent research on the same topic. 

In connection to this subject, we can remember that the word for woman`s breast in Latin is mamma, and in Norwegian, amme is to give breast. The first man, according to the Bible, was Adam – in a way we find a masculine and a feminine principle in the same word in Adam`s name. We find the same in a Japanese word for origin,  'moto' (or something like this). The "first word", the mother of words and of the breathe, is 'om'/'aum' in hinduistic tradition. Fascinating! 

Source: 
J. P. Vestad: "I opphavet ligg mor og far" ("In the origin, mother and father is lieing"), Akt 2/1992, Oslo. (ISSN 0801-9975). 

Jon Peder Vestad

Edited version of a posting to the discussion group sci.lang August 28. 8., 2000, and published on the Net at August 29., 2000.