They are. Mama/dada/papa/nana or similar sounds made with the lips or tongue against the gums are near universal terms for parents across languages because that’s just easy sounds for babies to make early on. We just roll with it and adopted their “words” as the foundation of assigning meanings to a specific sound.
I think “mama”, “papa”, and “baba” are also some of the easiest things for human babies to say.
They are. Mama/dada/papa/nana or similar sounds made with the lips or tongue against the gums are near universal terms for parents across languages because that’s just easy sounds for babies to make early on. We just roll with it and adopted their “words” as the foundation of assigning meanings to a specific sound.