Etymologically
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μάμμη

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Pronunciation

  • 5th-century BC Attic: /mám.mɛː/[1]
  • 4th-century AD Koine: /ˈmam.mi/[1]
  • 10th-century Byzantine: /ˈmam.mi/[1]

Forms

μᾰ́μμη (mámmē) f (genitive μᾰ́μμης, diminutive μᾰμμῐ́ᾱ); first declension[1]

Etymology

It is a nursery word, formed from the reduplicated baby-talk vocative μάμμα (mámma).[2][1][3] Similar words are found in many languages, among them Latin mamma (“mother, nurse, grandmother, breast”), Alemannic German Mamme, Lithuanian mamà and Russian мама (máma).[2][3] Beekes compares the related Greek nursery words μᾶ (mâ) and μαῖα (maîa), and refers to μήτηρ (mḗtēr) and μαστός (mastós).[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest writer to use it is the comic poet Pherecrates (5th century BC), for “mother” in family speech; in Aristophanes' Clouds a child cries for its “mamma”.[2][4][5]

Semantic evolution

In comedy and everyday speech it was the child's word for its mother, as in Theophrastus and Menander.[6][2] From the Hellenistic period it came to mean “grandmother”, the sense in the Septuagint, the papyri, Philo and Plutarch.[2][6][7] Arrian uses it for the mother's breast.[2] In the New Testament Paul's second letter to Timothy names Timothy's grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice side by side.[7]

The word lived on in Medieval Greek, and a form μαμμή with the stress moved to the end appeared by the 7th century.[8][9] The later form μάμα gave the common Modern Greek μαμά (mamá, “mum”).[8]

Timeline

  • 5th century BC – Pherecrates uses it for “mother”, and Aristophanes has a child cry for its mother.[2][4][5]
  • 4th–3rd century BC – Theophrastus and Menander use it as a family word for mother.[6][4]
  • 1st century BC – A papyrus from Oxyrhynchus uses it for “grandmother”.[7]
  • 1st century AD – The second letter to Timothy uses it of Timothy's grandmother.[7]
  • 7th century AD – The form μαμμή, with the stress on the last syllable, is recorded.[8]

Meanings

Noun

  1. Mamma, mummy: a child's or family word for mother.[6][2]
  2. (Hellenistic) Grandmother.[6][2][7]
  3. The mother's breast.[2]

Word family

  • μαμμία (mammíā)
  • μαμμόθρεπτος (mammóthreptos)
  • μαμμωνυμικῶς (mammōnumikôs)
  • μαμμῷος (mammôios)
  • μαμμάω (mammáō)

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010), Etymological Dictionary of Greek, with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 10, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  3. ^ a b c Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
  4. ^ a b c Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
  5. ^ a b Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
  6. ^ a b c d e Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  7. ^ a b c d e Bauer, Walter; Danker, Frederick W., et al. (2000), A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed., Chicago: University of Chicago Press
  8. ^ a b c Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
  9. ^ Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας