Related to the question about whether facial expressions are universal.

Are there words/verbal expressions/sounds that exist in every language and have the same meaning in every language?

(I’d also count words that are very similar.)

One example, that I believe is universal is M followed by a vowel followed by another M and optionally another vowel, meaning “Mother”.

At least in any language I know, this seems to hold true (mom, Mama, mamma, Mami, …).

Any other examples?

Edit: To clarify, I am not looking for very popular words that have been imported into most languages (like how almost everyone worldwide knows what Ketchup is), but about words that are “native” to humans. So if you pick someone from an uncontacted native tribe and tell them nothing, they would be able to understand/use that word/sound/verbal expression.

  • BrerChicken
    3•2 years ago

    You’re thinking critically, which is good. But your bias is showing.

    need language and social interaction to survive

    Being deaf does not preclude one from gaining language or interacting socially.

    • Square SingerOP
      1•2 years ago

      Don’t worry, I can hold a basic conversation in British Sign Language.

      Being deaf does preclude you from hearing spoken language, which was what the mentioned experiment was about. It was specifically about a “natural human language” to emerge. That is why I brought up that point.

      The better argument was the second point, which you glossed over:

      Also, in many orphanages throughout the centuries, children often didn’t get much more care than described in that experiment.

      If you read stories of orphanages <1900, you will see that this experiment wasn’t really unique, but instead the de-facto standard for orphanages. Actually being fed and bathed might have been an improvement to many of these orphanages.

      But you don’t even have to go that far. Check out for example the “works” of Johanna Haarer. She wrote the main book teaching women in Nazi Germany how to raise their children. And the main points there were:

      • Give the children just what they physically need
      • Do not socially interact with the child at all
      • If the child screams, lock it into it’s room
      • Emotionally deprive the child as much as possible

      A whole generation was raised with these principles.

      And while that created a ton of traumatized people, there was still not an incredibly high death rate among these children.

      Also, check out this article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_child

      There are quite a few examples (especially in the “Raised in confinement” section) of children being raised without any human (or even animal) contact at all. Still they didn’t just die from lacking social interaction. They were severely impaired, many of them for their whole life. But they lived unless they died of some actual medical condition.