Why ‘Mom’ and ‘Dad’ Sound So Similar in So Many Languages(theatlantic.com)
theatlantic.com
Why ‘Mom’ and ‘Dad’ Sound So Similar in So Many Languages
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/10/words-mom-dad-similar-languages/409810/
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/10/words-mom-dad-similar-languages/409810/
This is a total rabbit hole you can get lost down in linguistics; an entire field of study, known as phonosemantics, or sound symbolism.
Take a look at these two shapes. [1] One of them is called "bouba" and one of them is called "kiki". Which is which? (As you probably instinctively know, the one on the right is "bouba".) What's fun is this isn't unique to English speakers. Cantonese, Swahili, Arabic, English speakers all concur quite strongly (typically around 90%!) Bouba is soft and round. Kiki is angular and sharp.
Now look at the letters. The letters in "bouba" all have some of curves and roundedness, and they enclose spaces, rather resembling bouba himself. And ""kiki" is all straight lines at angles jutting out. Maybe a coincidence. But the glyphs are ボウバ and キキ in Japanese. And بوبا and كيكي in Arabic. Maybe this is all reaching a bit too far, but one does wonder how pervasive this effect might be. Are the shapes of our letters, subconsciously, somewhat like what we think those sounds look like? (It's not the other way around: illiterates are equally subject to the bouba/kiki effect.)
[1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e7/Booba-Ki...