International forms of address for parents

Thanks everyone :slight_smile:

In Germany Mama and Papa are mostly used. Mutti und Vati are sometimes used by little children, Mutter und Vater are version formal, Die Alten, is for parents, but quite rude. Eltern is the normal term for parents. There are regional exceptions even as german am not aware of, :wink:

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To add to what Kaelyn said, regional differences mean that, for example, ‘Mutti’ and ‘Vati’ aren’t used at all where I come from. Little children may use ‘Mami’ or ‘Papi’ down here in the south.

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In my region Mutti is more used for elderly woman, who behave like overprotective mothersSmile

It’s also a generational thing.

Where i come from. People from young to elderly just say mummy or daddy.

There’s a reason for this. Words for mother and father tend to derive from babytalk, and will tend to use the sounds that are easiest for babies to produce. This will often mean the vowel /a/, and favors labial sounds for the consonants—those made with the lips—preferably stops, so /m/ and /p/ and /b/, hence “mama” and “papa” and “baba.” Next easiest would be coronal stops, producing “nana” and “tata” and “dada.” So you’ll get variations of all of these referring to parents or other close relatives, though languages will differ as to which they assign to which.

(Even the word “father” derives from this pattern; the /f/ in Germanic languages such as English usually derives from Proto-Indo-European /p/, as seen in cognates like the Latin “pater.”)

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In English, I use ‘per’ as a slightly-jumbled contraction for ‘parent’, since ‘par’ (which would maybe be spoken like ‘par’? ‘pear’?) didn’t really appeal. My youngest is particularly fond of the term because we pronounce it like ‘purr’.

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what do you mean with generational? like when back in the day they used to pay more respect to their parents and usually call them “mother” and “father”, rather than “mom” and “dad”?

Anyway i’m from italy and people here call their parents the usual:
“ma” (short for “mamma”) = mom
“pa” = (short for “papà”) = dad

mother = “madre”
father = “padre”
are also used in the same way as their english counterparts

Naw, more that my generation in germany seems more likely to say mutti. Its subjective though

I see.
My grandmother used to tell me how she had to use the super-formal way of addressing her parents in our language, which is what we use for very important people like court judges and kings, so she basically referred to each one of their parents using the plural declensions, so instead of using the singular “you=tu” she always used the plural “you=voi” out of respect. Now we no longer do this, but sorry it’s kinda hard to explain in english at my current level

In Brazil we say mãe(mother) and pai(dad)

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In China we say
妈 for mother,pronounced like “ma”
爸 for father,pronounced like “pa”,“p” unaspirated (aspirated or not usually means different phonemes in Chinese)
In a childish way 妈妈 and 爸爸
Formally 母亲 (similar to /mu chin/),父亲(similar to /fu chin/)
There are also many forms of address in different dialects

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Ayyy same in pt! (É igual aqui!)

Here’s one that we use in the land of elephants and temples.
Pho (พ่อ)= Father
Mae (แม่)= Mother
Our language is gender centric as well, so we’re still looking for more neutral terms sadly.

The shortened form is just as the others mentioned.

(I’m loving this thread, it’s not dissimilar to a cultural exchange program! Super informative too.)

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In Vietnamese “mom” is mẹ, “dad” is bố; I think there are regional variants but I’ve never heard them! (I… don’t know how to write out the pronunciations for them.)

In Japanese, it’s a little more complicated: “kaa-san” or “tou-san” is a respectful way of referring to your mom or dad directly, but not when you refer to them in the third-person to other people. Then the prefix changes to a more respectful “okaa-san” or “otou-san.” (The “o” prefix being more formal and respectful, kind of like the difference between “father” and “dad”? So you’d be saying “my father does…” instead of “my dad does…”) If you want to get super formal with it, changing the suffix to a more distant but venerable “okaa-sama” or “otou-sama” can happen in certain situations, too.

And then there’s an old-fashioned way of doing it that adds even more politeness and formality: adding a “ue” at the end of the word to denote that the person is “higher than you,” like “chichiue” for “father who is higher than me.” I don’t think this is terribly common but it still happens; it was more done in older times and would be appropriate for a samurai story like SoH or something.

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wow, and here my californian ass is doing finger guns at my dad and calling him ‘my dude’

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Oh man id love to do that one day…but then I’d get exiled into the mountains. :sweat_smile:
Casual closeness with your elder familial members is to be envied for sure.

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If I did that I would be murdered with only mom looking at me, respect for your elders is very important here, like finding someone referring to their mom and dad, grandparents using other names or their real names is kinda frowned upon, at least in the part where I live I can’t speak it’s the same in all Brazil

Ps I’m not saying you don’t respect your parents, but in here that would be considered disrespect I think dude means cara or mano here, sorry for going off topic

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Yeah, legitimately one of my distant cousins has been frozen out by the older relatives in the family for years because one time she said to an aunt and uncle, “do you guys have orange juice?” Too informal = exile!

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wow ok, apparently i need to exercise my freedom even more, for your guys’ sake

from now on, i will only refer to my father as ‘big dude’

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