The Emir... Human languages are similar, but words differ

There are words we learn from books, words we learn from life, and there is a word we do not need to learn; because it is born within us before we know the meaning of language itself.

In Arabic, we say “Umm”; in Persian, “Madar”; in English, “Mother”; in French, “Mère”; in German, “Mutter”; in Italian and Spanish, “Madre”; and in Russian, while in Russian, Chinese, and others, we find the intimate call close to “Mama.”

The formal words may differ, and languages may diverge in their sounds and structures, but something remarkable catches the eye in the terms of address a child uses for his mother: Ma, Mama, Mama...

Here, we do not claim that all languages of the world derived the word for mother from a single origin; that is not linguistically accurate. But the similarity in these intimate terms of address opens for us a profoundly beautiful human door: children around the world, at the early stages of speech, tend toward simple and easy sounds, among them the sound of the letter “M,” which gives rise in many languages to words close to “Mama.”

When a child first calls out to his mother, he knows neither Arabic nor English nor Chinese nor Russian. He knows no borders, no nationalities, no religions, no differences among civilizations.

Perhaps the most beautiful aspect of this is that as we grow, our formal language becomes more complex; we say “Walida,” “Mother,” “Mère,” “Madre,” “Mutter”... But when a person returns to childhood, words shorten the entire path and revert to a simple, intimate sound:

Mother is not merely a name for a biological relationship, nor a word in a dictionary. Mother is the first meaning of safety, the first school, the first hand that holds us before we know how to walk, the first heart that gives us love before we know how to ask for it.

From this, the phonetic similarity in some words for mother around the world can become more than a linguistic phenomenon; it can serve as a symbolic reminder of human unity.

We are many peoples, many languages, and multiple civilizations, but we all began, roughly, from the same point: a child seeking safety, and a mother extending her arms toward him. Humans have differed in the names of things, in their interpretations of the cosmos, in their maps, borders, and flags, yet they have continued to carry in their memory a single image that is almost universal: the image of the mother.

It is not enough for a child to know that “Mother” is the woman who gave birth to him.

Rather, he must know that behind this word lies a lifetime of giving, unseen vigilance, unspoken fears, and joy at his children’s success that may be greater than her joy in herself.

Let us also teach our children that respecting one’s mother is not a social custom, nor a fleeting occasion on the calendar, nor beautiful words spoken once a year. It is a human value.

If languages have divided the sounds of humanity, the mother can unite their hearts. If borders have divided the earth, a mother’s embrace knows no borders.

If every people has its language, the mother has a language older than languages; a language that needs no interpreter. Perhaps for this reason, the word mother, regardless of how it is pronounced, remains close to the heart.

A human being was once small, and there was a great heart that embraced him.

And this is the truth that must not be lost among words:

Let us always seek the words that unite us, not the words that divide us. Perhaps the beginning lies in the simplest word humanity has known... Mother...