14 May 2017 (Sunday) – online

Dr Lisa Lim, Associate Professor in the School of English, illustrates the diversity of the word "Ma" in different languages, in her fortnightly Post Magazine column: Language Matters.

"People in various parts of the world are today sending wishes to their mothers, addressing them as mummy, ma, moeder (Dutch), mamma (Italian), mãe (Portuguese), mæ (Thai), amma (Sinhala), ammi (Urdu) and emak (Malay).

Is this a case of common ancestry or of languages influencing one another in the course of history?"

Please click on the following link for the complete article:

http://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/2093964/mothers-day-how-say-ma-different-languages-and-why-do-they

Source: SCMP