Its a construct made up based on the needs and perceotions of primitive peoples. Id explain it the same way id explain patterns/similarities/trends in mythology and language across cultures that had no contact. That doesnt make it ‘real’ any more than ‘mama’ is the true word for ‘mother’
Sorry, not really following your mama analogy. It sounds like that’s just a variant of mother, which is, of course, has a very real meaning.
I think it’s more like colour: the boundaries (like where blue becomes green) are kind of made up, but the spectrum itself is real. Same idea here—the labels can vary, but the underlying experience isn’t just invented.
It comes up a lot in a lot of languages because its a very easy combination of phonemes for a human tomake even without much motor control. Parents like to think baby is talking about them.
So even in completely unrelated languages words for some stuff are cognates at a statistically unlikely rate.
Its a construct made up based on the needs and perceotions of primitive peoples. Id explain it the same way id explain patterns/similarities/trends in mythology and language across cultures that had no contact. That doesnt make it ‘real’ any more than ‘mama’ is the true word for ‘mother’
Sorry, not really following your mama analogy. It sounds like that’s just a variant of mother, which is, of course, has a very real meaning.
I think it’s more like colour: the boundaries (like where blue becomes green) are kind of made up, but the spectrum itself is real. Same idea here—the labels can vary, but the underlying experience isn’t just invented.
It comes up a lot in a lot of languages because its a very easy combination of phonemes for a human tomake even without much motor control. Parents like to think baby is talking about them.
So even in completely unrelated languages words for some stuff are cognates at a statistically unlikely rate.