this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2023
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Mildly Interesting

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In an extinct Australian Aboriginal language, Mbabaram, the word for "Dog" is almost exactly the same as the English word for "Dog". The similarity is a complete coincidence. (en.m.wikipedia.org)
submitted 1 year ago by Iliveonsaturdays@sh.itjust.works to c/mildlyinteresting@lemmy.world
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...the Mbabaram word for "dog" was in fact dúg, pronounced almost identically to the Australian English word...

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[–] PhlubbaDubba@lemm.ee 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You forgot universals, words that wind up with a common derivation in a lot of languages. For example, "Mama" is a common word for mother in completely unrelated languages, because it's derived from babies frequently making mmm sounds first.

Also animal names derived from the sounds said animals make IIRC Crow is an example of this

[–] BraveSirZaphod@kbin.social 6 points 1 year ago

I kinda touched on that under coincidence, which is admittedly stretching it a bit, but I also think "universals" is a bit of an overly strong name for the phenomenon.

But it is true that there are some underlying elements of human biology and psychology that can cause some interesting effects as well, though I think people have a tendency to exaggerate them.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouba/kiki_effect

This is a pretty classic example of it.