I had the best of plans for the letter U. I had decided early on that the perfect word for the letter U in this years’s challenge was the word Umiaq, which would give me opportunity to talk about gendered toolkits and tools, not pink hand drills, but real distinct tools that are women’s boats such as umiaq, or women’s knives such as ulus. These are both examples from languages of peoples from the circumpolar region inside the Arctic Circle. But there is also the gender of many words which I have always found intriguing that some languages have this and some do not.
But then I remembered Ursula K. Le Guin and wanted to remember her inspiring work. Surely I should talk about her groundbreaking novel about gender, The Left Hand of Darkness. Or her sensible words on aging.
Then the words unique and ubiquity kept jumping into my mind. Perhaps I could throw in a bunch of other words that deal with the iconic feminine that did not fit in elsewhere? Universal principles with unique, even idiosyncratic, examples.
Or perhaps the iconic nature of the umbilical cord but then I would probably have to talk about the placenta and I don’t want to do that. Personal phobia. Ick.
And how can I pass up an opportunity to talk about the usurious nature of many economic practices in the modern western world? It is not just about exorbitant interest rates but about women needing to take them out far more often than men due to lesser pay, hours being cut, layoffs, and having to care for multiple generations during family ill-health.
Then there is the way women are uniting in the United States to gain leadership and governance rules.
These are all worthy topics for discussion. So, if you were writing about iconic female connections to items, words, and concepts, as well as iconic women, which one of these would you tackle?
Iconic M: Mama
Why do most languages have something like a word that sounds like mama that means mother? Etymology, the study of the history of language and words, tells us part of the story, but biology tells us the other part. And we really can figure out why some things come to stand for other things, like a mmmmm sound for the one who birthed you and feeds your from her breast and for a while in a child’s life is indistinguishable from the child’s self. A pretty good article all about this can be found in the Atlantic.
We naturally make sounds before we can consciously shape the mouth, tongue and lips. Unclasping the lips from nursing and releasing a breath makes something akin to a ma or na sound. The mother reinforces the baby making that sound and the baby emulates her words and the positive experience. And wah lah we have a pretty damn near universal word recreates with every generation. Me beginning with the same sound as ma is not universal but is an Eurasian phenomenon.
This month I said I was working with iconic imagery that is associated with the essential or elemental feminine. Mama is one of the words that truly meets the criteria of iconic. Everyone has a mother. The woman, food, comfort, love, and a state of contentment are components of a preverbal association laid down in our earliest experience. In this way a mother, and as a universal experience, the mother truly stands for a concept in such a way such that it is more than simple representation, and that the icon embodies the concept.
The inverse is also true; we come to include the child’s response of naming Mama as part of this essential and symbolic element of this primordial relationship. Messing with icons breaks all cultural rules. This is also why creepy dolls who say, “Mama” are the subject of horror stories.
I offer this A to Z entry up as a roll out for Mother’s Day posts.