While reading a poem in English class which contained the word Fuck we began to discuss whether it is ok to use the word in everday context. Somehow we changed topics to the origin of the word, it seems like we do this with all topics (what can you expect with public school). Most of the kids said it was the “pluck yew” theory which Cecil dispelled. Before I could try and impress everyone with the information Cecil said, my English teacher gave us a definitive answer that he thought was correct, and refused to believe anything. He felt that the word was created due to frickatives. Frickatives are the feelings one gets from the sounds in a word. For example lovely Linda is very pleasing to the ears because of the L sound. M is another pleasing frickative, and also one of the first sounds we can make. This is why many languages have an M in their word for mother. Fuck is also one of the harshest frickativs. It would only make sense that one would say that to convey harsh feelings to another. Also it would be a good exclamation to represent pain. Although my English teacher could not explain why the word fuck means what it means. In case anyone wants Cecil talks about this in the following thread Origin of the F word
Your teacher appears to be a semiliterate baboon (but for God’s sake don’t tell him so).
A fricative is a sound like “f” or “v” or “th” (both kinds) or the “ch” in Scottish “loch”. “L” and “m” are no more fricatives than a saxophone is a violin.
As to the broader aspects of his theory, no-one knows why words mean what they mean. There are various theories, including the “Bow-wow”, “Ding-dong”, “Pooh-pooh” “Yo-he-ho”, “Sing-song”, “La-la”, and “Ta-ta” theories. None have been proven or disproven.
I seriously doubt it. Far more likely that the concept “mother” is so fundamental that it was coined by one of the very first Indo-European languages. All subsequent languages inherited the word without too much adaptation, all starting with ‘m’.
You can see similar results with the words for father (shifted from ‘p’), brother, daughter, etc.
Actually, not just Indo-European words for mother start with M–a lot of unrelated languages do also. It’s thought that “ma,” or something like it, is one of the first noises a baby makes, and since those early noises are usually addressed to Mom, the name stuck.
[QUOTE You can see similar results with the words for father (shifted from ‘p’), brother, daughter, etc. **[/QUOTE]
I only can speak Hebrew, Spanish, English, and a little Latin, so I can only speak about those. English, Spanish,Latin prove this point. Hebrew though does not. Hebew has Ema for mother. Aba for father (no f or p). Bat for daughter, and Ben or Bar for son.
The reason for this is that Hebrew is not an Indo-European language. A complete “family tree” of I-E languages may be found here
But, due to consonant shift, or “Grimm’s Law,” “aba” could be related to other languages’ word for “father.” Try not vocalising the “b,” and it sounds like “apa.” Not much of a correlation, I’ll admit, but there are similarities.