The same thing goes for Simon and Garfunkel. If someone doesn't know who Simon and Garfunkel are and you would show them a picture, I'm 100% sure they would point them out correctly. Because I don't know what a "Garfunkel" might be, but I'm pretty sure it would look something like Art Garfunkel.
"Mama" and "papa" (or "dada", or "tata", etc.) has nothing to do with "over here" or "over there". It just happens that "ma" is the first proper syllable that almost any baby makes, after simple vowels (because all you need to do is exhale while opening and closing your lips), so most cultures associate that with the person typically closer to the baby (i.e., the mother). The next one after that is usually "da", "ta" or "pa", done by blocking the airflow at the start (using the tongue or lips), so it's generally adopted to mean the next person in line (i.e., the father, or a grandparent). Sometimes just "pa", sometimes "papa", "da da", "ta-ta", "atata", etc. Babies don't "learn" to say those words, nor do they _mean_ anything by them. They're just learning to use their mouth to produce sounds, and start with the simplest ones. It was adults that picked the meaning of those "words" based on the fact that babies make those sounds. Eventually babies they figure out that certain people react more to certain sounds (and start to understand concepts like names, etc.), but that comes much later in their development. So the next time your baby says "ma ma ma", remember: he's really just being lazy. ;-)
well not most. I'm sure that American tribes have different words. while Indo-Europeans have Ma, Pa (or something similar). In Inuktitut for example, mother is anaana and father is ataata
Alwin Priven it is still the exact same concept. m and n are both nasals. and OP gave atata as an example for fatherly name. b and t, v and b, b and p, p and f are easily switchable
Royland Maines That example may have been wrong but try this one on for size. In Marathi, an Indian language spoken by a few tens of millions, the word for mother is "aai". No m or n sounds. No use of lips at all actually. Or tongue. Also no resemblance to any other Indian language. Which is not to say that I disagree with OP's overall point. I think OP is right. I just don't think it is a universal thing.
"aai" is another sound that every baby makes naturally in the first weeks of its life (in most languages that wouldn't even be seen as a proper "word"). It's another example of adults attributing a convenient meaning to a sound that occurs naturally, not of babies _learning_ to say "mother" (let alone trying to encode any complex meaning like "over there" and "over here").
It's the other way round in Georgian, mama is father and deda is mother. While the Turkic words are much the same as the Inuktitut ones. Ana and ata. But the OP's point stands, it's about what sounds are easier to make physically.
The 'morot' comes from Scandinavian languages, for example in Swedish its 'morot' ([muuruut], long 'o's as in 'root'). And in that 'rot' means a root. So the name probably came with the vikings, representing a vegetable that grows underground.
Japanese also. Circle is Maru, the ma sound is very smooth and soft. triangle is sankakuke. its so staccato and sharp. ...Words like "bulbous" vs."prickle." I like the whole subject :)
The first time I saw this episode I said something along the lines of "Rob's eyes look a bit more flirty." and then just seconds after David came with the prostitution comment... XD
Reminds me a whole lot of a Monty Python sketch where they're describing words as either woody or tinny. "Gooooooooooooone... much better than newspaper or litter bin. Terrible tinny words."
The Welch got it from the Saxons "moru", who got it from the Vikings "morot" (Swedish), who got it from Russia "mорковь". The English got it from the Romans "carōta", who got it from the Greek "karōton", who got it from some proto Indo-European language. Carrots originates from Iran/Afghanistan.
There was an extra bit at 4:54, which was shown in the XL version. JV: I've given them different names SF: What names have you given them? JV: Mr Sneeze, and Gonorrhea SF: Whoa! RB: He DOES look like Mr Sneeze actually, but I've never seen Mr. Gonorrhea in the series, with Arthur Lowe's voice!
@Ansuzie I taste colours. Pale yellows and green are sherbet, electric blue is tuna, karki is rain water and mud and pink red is orange. I've been able to do that for most colours for as long as I remember. I too have been considered weird as I thought everyone did it. Oh and white for some strange reason doesn't taste of anything. Texture also plays a part because it depends on how the light is reflected off the surface of something. Someone else who has something similar. WOW!!!
The difference between Rob and Johnny's 'soft eyes' look is that Rob's got eyes that say carrot (crunchy!), while Johnny Vegas has eyes that say moron.
@Ansuzie That's called Synesthesia. It's where two (or more?) senses overlap when you experience them. Yours is called colour-grapheme. You have others, like colour-sound, and even sound-taste. So, you're not weird ;)
@Ansuzie I see 5 as 'O' and blue, and 6 as 'A' and red. 4 is green and 2 is yellow. 3 is Brown/orange and 8 is purple. Sometimes I even accidentaly say the Number instead of the vowel or the other way around.
I love this show, I wish they'd air it over here in the US. Maybe the calming presence of Stephen Fry on our airwaves will bump the Average IQ up a bit.
The first sounds a baby can make apart from vowels, without their teeth, are nasals and bilabials (m, n, p, b). Next in line come the alveolars (t, d, n) because still no teeth.
@Ansuzie Actually this is popular in people. Either relating color to letters and numbers or color to music. It has to do something in the outer lobes of the brain that deal with color, sound, language, ect. actually get some what tangled in their wiring and both parts fire. Of course the later part of the brain not directly associated with the current mental task plays but a small role in the background. They find that people who share this tend to associate the same colors and letters.
This was practically a crossover! I wouldn't mind seeing an episode with this panel, but Lee Mack instead of Johnny. Especially if Lee and David are on the same side of the desk.
Oops, didn’t see your post there. Sorry! (The Germanic *murhon- is naturally a perfectly regular -ōn- expansion of the zero grade: *mr̥k-ōn- => *murhon-. The Welsh would still have to be a loan from Germanic at some stage, though, or it would have retained the velar, à la †morch or †mwrch or something.)
Actually, about the words for parents, it's funny that the Norwegian name for dad is "far". Of course there's also "father" which is quite close to "farther", so it'd work in English as well.
@Ansuzie Theres actually people who have a condition called synesthesia i believe where the brain mixes up nerve signals so they will actually see sound, and theres versions of synesthesia of almost any of the senses mixing up, Sight/touch, sound/taste, etc.
Speaking of Onomatopoeia. A freudian enterpretation would be that "ma" or "mama" could be a variation of "om nom" or "nam"... Like mom. The baby noms on his mom XD
Someone has probably already pointed it out, but in Swedish a carrot is morot, so there's probably some old common root word for that, maybe in Old Norse?
Indirectly, yes. Not Old Norse, but earlier. There is a Common Germanic noun *murhon- meaning ‘root (of a tree)’, which gives among others Old English ‘more’ (meaning ‘root’), German ‘Möhre’, and the first part of Old Norse ‘mor(a)rót’ => Swedish ‘morot’, a ‘more-root’. I would guess the Welsh ‘moron’ is simply an early loan from Germanic into Celtic. Would have to be very early, though, for the n to be kept intact …
@Ansuzie Hope you liked the documentary. :) Epilepsy being the cause of what you experience seems quite plausable to me, I just red synesthesia has been tied to Temporal lobe epilepsy. But ofcourse the brain is incredibly complex and no 2 brains work exactly the same so this could have any number of causes. :)
It sounds like Ansuzie is just associating letters and numbers with colours, not that they actually see those colours when they read them. I can associate letters with colours, but I don't have synesthesia.
I'm going to interrupt this heated debate over international jurisdictions of domestic copyright laws to say that I don't like the man in the blue shirt.
@urshoeonhead I haven't been contacted by anyone about the legality of this clip, so I'm not too worried. If the copyright holder contacted me asking to take it down, i would. I just posted it because I love this show and want to introduce it to others. :)
Actually I got it from the Wikipedia article for carrots. Looking in the left column for the links for article in other languages. You can see the spelling. For example, there are many Slavic languages that have spelling similar to Russian. I don't know if they adopted the Russian word, or if it was the other way around. I know that Swedish Vikings travelled far into Russia. It could be that the Vikings brought the name with them, who knows?
While we're on the topic of synesthesia, I attach colours and shapes to writing styles. Really hard to explain, especially when I always remember the words I want to use in another language than the one I'm speaking. For instance, the part of the book I'm reading now is yellow and narrow. That does in no way means there's a narrow use of language. Most of the Harry Potter-books are kind of coarse, without being what you normally think of as coarse. As I said, really hard to explain.
@Ansuzie it's called synaesthesia (i think that's how it's spelled, since my mother tongue isn't english :P) and i also see letters and numbers of a certain color. to me c is bright green, but n is dark blue, and y is a soft pink, etc. I find it very useful 'cause it helps me remember how to write difficult words, plus i love linguistics mainly because of that :D
It's also Möhre in German, morkov in Russian, morka in Lithuanian and murok in Hungarian among others. Seems that quite a few languages have this m-r base for the word carrot in them.
In Tagalog (a language from the Philippines) "kiki" is a slangword for vagina. I can't find anything pointy there... But it adds a meaning to the Scissor Sisters song ;-)
Развлечения
You can tell David Mitchell is just itching to say "but carrots *aren't* blunt, they're pointy!"
I like how for quite a while Mitchell is desperately trying to object to them calling the carrot blunt when it's basically a big spike.
“It is a form of ono-as-you-rightly-say-mato-as-you-pointed-out-poeia” I lost it at that lmao
Rob is rather kiki and Johnny is undeniably bouba.
I love the moment when David realizes, and his face shows, "everyone around me is idiotic."
This reminds me of the monty python episode where they talk about whether different words are "woody" or "tinny" xD
The same thing goes for Simon and Garfunkel. If someone doesn't know who Simon and Garfunkel are and you would show them a picture, I'm 100% sure they would point them out correctly. Because I don't know what a "Garfunkel" might be, but I'm pretty sure it would look something like Art Garfunkel.
funny you should say that, i actually got it completely the wrong way around when i was trying to guess which was which
Really? :( So my theory isn't a 100% valid? What a shame
i thought that garfunkel would be the goofy-looking short guy with a weird haircut
ElmerVSworld if
Not true.
I would say that Simon is a name of a ginger head ....
0:53 My favourite Johnny Vegas moment. I now want a tv series about Wolfgang Kurler the Pirate.
Same here XD
"It kind of is a form of ONO as you rightly say MATO as you pointed out POEIA"
"Desss-K! T-in, T-in, T-in! Boooooook!" ROFL Rob Brydon is such a nut.
"Mama" and "papa" (or "dada", or "tata", etc.) has nothing to do with "over here" or "over there".
It just happens that "ma" is the first proper syllable that almost any baby makes, after simple vowels (because all you need to do is exhale while opening and closing your lips), so most cultures associate that with the person typically closer to the baby (i.e., the mother).
The next one after that is usually "da", "ta" or "pa", done by blocking the airflow at the start (using the tongue or lips), so it's generally adopted to mean the next person in line (i.e., the father, or a grandparent). Sometimes just "pa", sometimes "papa", "da da", "ta-ta", "atata", etc.
Babies don't "learn" to say those words, nor do they _mean_ anything by them. They're just learning to use their mouth to produce sounds, and start with the simplest ones. It was adults that picked the meaning of those "words" based on the fact that babies make those sounds. Eventually babies they figure out that certain people react more to certain sounds (and start to understand concepts like names, etc.), but that comes much later in their development.
So the next time your baby says "ma ma ma", remember: he's really just being lazy. ;-)
well not most. I'm sure that American tribes have different words. while Indo-Europeans have Ma, Pa (or something similar). In Inuktitut for example, mother is anaana and father is ataata
Alwin Priven it is still the exact same concept. m and n are both nasals. and OP gave atata as an example for fatherly name. b and t, v and b, b and p, p and f are easily switchable
Royland Maines That example may have been wrong but try this one on for size. In Marathi, an Indian language spoken by a few tens of millions, the word for mother is "aai". No m or n sounds. No use of lips at all actually. Or tongue. Also no resemblance to any other Indian language. Which is not to say that I disagree with OP's overall point. I think OP is right. I just don't think it is a universal thing.
"aai" is another sound that every baby makes naturally in the first weeks of its life (in most languages that wouldn't even be seen as a proper "word"). It's another example of adults attributing a convenient meaning to a sound that occurs naturally, not of babies _learning_ to say "mother" (let alone trying to encode any complex meaning like "over there" and "over here").
It's the other way round in Georgian, mama is father and deda is mother.
While the Turkic words are much the same as the Inuktitut ones. Ana and ata.
But the OP's point stands, it's about what sounds are easier to make physically.
"I like the fact you leave me alone when I go quiet." Aww, I'm laughing my ass off but I just wanna hug him and tell him everything will be ok lol
It kind of is a form of ono - as you rightly say - mato - as you pointed out - poeia!
Stephen Fry is brilliant.
I would have loved to hear a David Mitchell rant about this, you could see his mind going off there.
Morot is swedish for carrot, there might be a connection :D
The 'morot' comes from Scandinavian languages, for example in Swedish its 'morot' ([muuruut], long 'o's as in 'root'). And in that 'rot' means a root. So the name probably came with the vikings, representing a vegetable that grows underground.
Japanese also. Circle is Maru, the ma sound is very smooth and soft. triangle is sankakuke. its so staccato and sharp. ...Words like "bulbous" vs."prickle." I like the whole subject :)
This show is pure genius!
Frye simply loves Johnny Vegas' humor :)
Probably doesn't , actually
The first time I saw this episode I said something along the lines of "Rob's eyes look a bit more flirty." and then just seconds after David came with the prostitution comment... XD
I believe in Georgian, deda is mum and mama is dad
You're quite right.
indeed and now i must watch it again, and again and again
Johnny Vegas is the strangest kind of genius I have ever encountered.
This is one of the most amusing exchanges I've seen in QI.
Reminds me a whole lot of a Monty Python sketch where they're describing words as either woody or tinny. "Gooooooooooooone... much better than newspaper or litter bin. Terrible tinny words."
Jesus, every second of that clip was brilliant.
Kiki begins with K, so, pointy.
Bobo begins with B, so, rounded.
@coruscantplanet I salute you, good sir, for your fine choice of comedy. That is by far my favourite Python bit.
The Welch got it from the Saxons "moru", who got it from the Vikings "morot" (Swedish), who got it from Russia "mорковь". The English got it from the Romans "carōta", who got it from the Greek "karōton", who got it from some proto Indo-European language. Carrots originates from Iran/Afghanistan.
2:06 The Swedish word for carrot is "morot". So it may sound like the Welsh got their word from Swedish.
There was an extra bit at 4:54, which was shown in the XL version.
JV: I've given them different names
SF: What names have you given them?
JV: Mr Sneeze, and Gonorrhea
SF: Whoa!
RB: He DOES look like Mr Sneeze actually, but I've never seen Mr. Gonorrhea in the series, with Arthur Lowe's voice!
@Ansuzie I taste colours. Pale yellows and green are sherbet, electric blue is tuna, karki is rain water and mud and pink red is orange. I've been able to do that for most colours for as long as I remember. I too have been considered weird as I thought everyone did it. Oh and white for some strange reason doesn't taste of anything. Texture also plays a part because it depends on how the light is reflected off the surface of something. Someone else who has something similar. WOW!!!
The difference between Rob and Johnny's 'soft eyes' look is that Rob's got eyes that say carrot (crunchy!), while Johnny Vegas has eyes that say moron.
A definition of Onomatopoeia is missing the toilet bowl
"what about onion rings?" shiiiit almost spat water all over the computer
I love how both the top comments are by the uploader.
I like that I can laugh and learn at the same time whilst watching this show. Wish it was on air in the US.
The word for mother typically contains 'M' because a baby can easily make the M sound by pressing its lips together.
@Ansuzie That's called Synesthesia. It's where two (or more?) senses overlap when you experience them. Yours is called colour-grapheme. You have others, like colour-sound, and even sound-taste. So, you're not weird ;)
GOOOOOOOOONE
+Kryštof Hanzlík Quite a tinny word isn't it?
Yes I do enjoy a good, WOODY, word.
There's nothing written on the green flash screen at 1:13, it's just a plain, dark green frame that only appears for a split second.
they all say a carrot isn't blunt
they obviously never left a carrot in the fridge for 5 months :p
I just love Rob Brydon. what a lovely human being.:D
david looks so concerned
He also reminded me of Sheldon Cooper doing his vocal exercises to find the sweet aural spot in the cinema on Big Bang Theory with this!
@Ansuzie I see 5 as 'O' and blue, and 6 as 'A' and red. 4 is green and 2 is yellow. 3 is Brown/orange and 8 is purple. Sometimes I even accidentaly say the Number instead of the vowel or the other way around.
''It kind of is a form of Ona-as your rightly say-mato-as you pointed out-poeia!''
@Ansuzie what the silence i have heard of it from somewhere but i can't seem to remeber
Love the Monty Python references there.
its funny how you see davids face all the way through waiting for his time to explode haha :D
@ImNotHere92 they don't just see colours, they can see shapes and so on even tastes when they hear certain words
I love this show, I wish they'd air it over here in the US. Maybe the calming presence of Stephen Fry on our airwaves will bump the Average IQ up a bit.
The first sounds a baby can make apart from vowels, without their teeth, are nasals and bilabials (m, n, p, b). Next in line come the alveolars (t, d, n) because still no teeth.
@Ansuzie Actually this is popular in people. Either relating color to letters and numbers or color to music. It has to do something in the outer lobes of the brain that deal with color, sound, language, ect. actually get some what tangled in their wiring and both parts fire. Of course the later part of the brain not directly associated with the current mental task plays but a small role in the background. They find that people who share this tend to associate the same colors and letters.
Yes, Johnny, they're Mr. Men. Mister Serial Slasher is the kiki, and Mister Explosive Diarrhea is the boba...
It is true! If you hit a desk it dose actually sound like desk! My hand has gone sore from hitting my desk now. xD
God I love this section so much.
BOOOOOOOOK.
@Ansuzie Were those the colours of the magnetic letters and numbers that you had on your refrigerator as a kid?
This was practically a crossover! I wouldn't mind seeing an episode with this panel, but Lee Mack instead of Johnny. Especially if Lee and David are on the same side of the desk.
Oops, didn’t see your post there. Sorry!
(The Germanic *murhon- is naturally a perfectly regular -ōn- expansion of the zero grade: *mr̥k-ōn- => *murhon-. The Welsh would still have to be a loan from Germanic at some stage, though, or it would have retained the velar, à la †morch or †mwrch or something.)
Actually, about the words for parents, it's funny that the Norwegian name for dad is "far". Of course there's also "father" which is quite close to "farther", so it'd work in English as well.
Actually, no one says "far", everyone says "pappa".
@Nullik That can vary a whole lot from person to person, and region to region. ...
@Ansuzie Theres actually people who have a condition called synesthesia i believe where the brain mixes up nerve signals so they will actually see sound, and theres versions of synesthesia of almost any of the senses mixing up, Sight/touch, sound/taste, etc.
The audience laughing is so loud I can't hear everything they say.
@LinguistDan I suddenly realize how much Rob looks like Hugh.
Speaking of Onomatopoeia. A freudian enterpretation would be that "ma" or "mama" could be a variation of "om nom" or "nam"... Like mom. The baby noms on his mom XD
David wanted to say something at 2:42. He never gets to say it...
Someone has probably already pointed it out, but in Swedish a carrot is morot, so there's probably some old common root word for that, maybe in Old Norse?
Yes.
what's with the random green frame?
I LOVE Scissor Sisters.
Indirectly, yes. Not Old Norse, but earlier. There is a Common Germanic noun *murhon- meaning ‘root (of a tree)’, which gives among others Old English ‘more’ (meaning ‘root’), German ‘Möhre’, and the first part of Old Norse ‘mor(a)rót’ => Swedish ‘morot’, a ‘more-root’.
I would guess the Welsh ‘moron’ is simply an early loan from Germanic into Celtic. Would have to be very early, though, for the n to be kept intact …
3:20 to 3:30 is brilliant!
@Ansuzie Hope you liked the documentary. :) Epilepsy being the cause of what you experience seems quite plausable to me, I just red synesthesia has been tied to Temporal lobe epilepsy. But ofcourse the brain is incredibly complex and no 2 brains work exactly the same so this could have any number of causes. :)
Guess I'm one of the 2% who thought that thought chunchooikit was the fish and mowat was the bird(excuse spelling)
@Ansuzie Synesthesia, that's called. Me and my mum both have it.
@Pralin91 That is HILARIOUS!!! :D:D:D:D omg.....morot!!!!!LMFAO
Gooorn! Frightfully woody sort of word, don't you know
*Monty Python reference alert*
Johnny's adorable xD
Any chance of subtitles.
It sounds like Ansuzie is just associating letters and numbers with colours, not that they actually see those colours when they read them. I can associate letters with colours, but I don't have synesthesia.
@Katanalikeskittens Whats that from again?
I'm going to interrupt this heated debate over international jurisdictions of domestic copyright laws to say that I don't like the man in the blue shirt.
@urshoeonhead I haven't been contacted by anyone about the legality of this clip, so I'm not too worried. If the copyright holder contacted me asking to take it down, i would. I just posted it because I love this show and want to introduce it to others. :)
Actually I got it from the Wikipedia article for carrots. Looking in the left column for the links for article in other languages. You can see the spelling. For example, there are many Slavic languages that have spelling similar to Russian. I don't know if they adopted the Russian word, or if it was the other way around.
I know that Swedish Vikings travelled far into Russia. It could be that the Vikings brought the name with them, who knows?
While we're on the topic of synesthesia, I attach colours and shapes to writing styles. Really hard to explain, especially when I always remember the words I want to use in another language than the one I'm speaking.
For instance, the part of the book I'm reading now is yellow and narrow. That does in no way means there's a narrow use of language. Most of the Harry Potter-books are kind of coarse, without being what you normally think of as coarse. As I said, really hard to explain.
I love stephen fry. Just thought I'd share. :)
@Ansuzie Check "Synesthesia" in Wikipedia (especially "Links with other areas of study")
How are carrots blunt???
If I was gonna draw a carrot simply, it'd be a long, orange triangle. You could stab someone with a carrot.
@Katanalikeskittens I remember that being from a movie......I CANT REMEMBER.
Tell me more about how a potato should be called a moron in welsh...
TheHappy_P0tat0 we potato in welsh is tatan and moron is carrot. I have no idea why its called moron but it sounds cool
Shauna Firth It does in fact come form Greek as Stephen Fry mentions in the clip
It's called almost the same in swedish: "morot"
And "Möhre" in German, which is also very similar.
"Aiti" is also a pretty "round" sounding word as well. Of course, the Finnish for "dad" is "isa" (or isi), which is also pretty round, so...yeah.
@LinguistDan doesnt it sound like he stole that from one of his old fry and laurie sketches?
There's "well-spoken" and then there's Stephen at 1:33.
@Ansuzie it's called synaesthesia (i think that's how it's spelled, since my mother tongue isn't english :P) and i also see letters and numbers of a certain color. to me c is bright green, but n is dark blue, and y is a soft pink, etc. I find it very useful 'cause it helps me remember how to write difficult words, plus i love linguistics mainly because of that :D
Mmhm sure you do
@rocketmik65 What's what from?
@MrNinjaSpartan Carrot's a frightfully tinny word if you ask me.
It's also Möhre in German, morkov in Russian, morka in Lithuanian and murok in Hungarian among others. Seems that quite a few languages have this m-r base for the word carrot in them.
Ok, so now I have to play Scissor Sisters - Let's Have a Kiki :)
In Tagalog (a language from the Philippines) "kiki" is a slangword for vagina.
I can't find anything pointy there...
But it adds a meaning to the Scissor Sisters song ;-)
so you could say the father is farther away....