Mama, Papa: How the Japanese Words for Parents Lost Out to English

2 comments

1. ママand パパ haven’t replaced older words like お母さん or お父さん, they’ve simply carved a new niche for themselves—the relaxed and affectionate modern-day parent of young children, which is quite different to older ideals of how parents ought to behave. People do tend to shift to お母さん/お父さん or other words as they grow older though as this gentle image no longer applies. Japanese has lots of words like this for different social identities—母上 and 父上 aren’t used much anymore because they’re associated with the pretentiousness of the noble and warrior classes, and there are plenty of other pronouns and terms of address like these as well.

   TLDR, the Japanese words haven’t “lost out”, there are simply two new words added to the fluid and socially-bound hodgepodge of Japanese terms of address.

2. I never associated Mama and with English