Names of the Father.
Father, like mother, is a very old word, and goes back, with the cognate terms in Italic, Hellenic, Teutonic, Celtic, Slavonic, and Indo-Aryan speech, to the primitive Indo-European language, and, like mother, it is of uncertain etymology.
An English preacher of the twelfth century sought to derive the word from the Anglo-Saxon fédan, "to feed," making the "father" to be the "feeder" or "nourisher," and some more modern attempts at explanation are hardly better. This etymology, however incorrect, as it certainly is, in English, does find analogies in the tongues of primitive peoples. In the language of the Klamath Indians, of Oregon, the word for "father" is t'shishap (in the Modoc dialect, p'tishap), meaning "feeder, nourisher," from a radical tshi, which signifies "to give somebody liquid food (as milk, water)." Whether there is any real connection between our word pap,—with its cognates in other languages,—which signifies "food for infants," as well as "teat, breast," and the child-word papa, "father," is doubtful, and the same may be said of the attempt to find a relation between teat, tit, etc., and the widespread child-words for "father," tat, dad. Wedgewood (Introd. to Dictionary), however, maintained that: "Words formed of the simplest articulations, ma and pa, are used to designate the objects in which the infant takes the earliest interest,—the mother, the father, the mother's breast, the act of taking or sucking food." Tylor also points out how, in the language of children of to-day, we may find a key to the origin of a mass of words for "father, mother, grandmother, aunt, child, breast, toy, doll," etc. From the limited supply of material at the disposal of the early speakers of a language, we can readily understand how the same sound had to serve for the connotation of different ideas; this is why "mama means in one tongue mother, in another father, in a third, uncle; dada in one language father, in a second nurse, in another breast; tata in one language father, in another son," etc. The primitive Indo-European p-tr, Skeat takes to be formed, with the agent-suffix tr, from the radical pâ, "to protect, to guard,"—the father having been originally looked upon as the "protector," or "guarder." Max Müller, who offers the same derivation, remarks: "The father, as begetter, was called in Sanskrit ganitár, as protector and supporter of his posterity, however, pitár. For this reason, in the Veda both names together are used in order to give the complete idea of 'father.' In like manner, mâtar, 'mother,' is joined with ganit, 'genetrix,' and this shows that the word mâtar must have soon lost its etymological signification and come to be a term, of respect and caress. With the oldest Indo-Europeans, mâtar meant 'maker,' from mâ, 'to form.'"
Kluge, however, seems to reject the interpretation "protector, defender," and to see in the word a derivative from the "nature-sound" pa. So also Westermarck (166. 86-94). In Gothic, presumably the oldest of the Teutonic dialects, the most common word for "father" is atta, still seen in the name of the far-famed leader of the Huns, Attila, i.e. "little father," and in the ätti of modern Swiss dialects. To the same root attach themselves Sanskrit atta, "mother, elder sister"; Ossetic ädda, "little father (Väterchen)"; Greek årra, Latin atta, "father"; Old Slavonic otí-ci, "little father"; Old Irish aite, "foster-father." Atta belongs to the category of "nature-words" or "nursery-words" of which our dad (daddy) is also a member.
Another member is the widespread papa, pa. Our word papa, Skeat thinks, is borrowed, through the French, from Latin papa, found as a Roman cognomen. This goes back in all probability to ancient Greek, for, in the Odyssey (vi. 57), Nausicaa addresses her father as [Greek: pappa phile], "dear papa." The Papa of German is also borrowed from French, and, according to Kluge, did not secure a firm, place in the language until comparatively late in the eighteenth century.
In some of the Semitic languages the word for "father" signifies "maker," and the same thing occurs elsewhere among primitive people (166. 91).
As with "mother," so with "father"; in many languages a man (or a boy) does not employ the same term as a woman (or a girl). In the Haida, Okanak'en, and Kootenay, all Indian languages of British Columbia, the words used by males and by females are, respectively: kun, qat; lEe'u, mistm; tito, so.
In many languages the word for "father," as is also the case with "mother," is different when the parent is addressed from that used when he is spoken of or referred to. In the Tsimshian, Kwakiutl, Nootka, Ntlakyapamuq, four Indian languages of British Columbia, the words for "father" when addressed, are respectively a'bo, ats, no'we, pap, and for "father" in other cases, nEgua'at, au'mp, nuwe'k'so, ska'tsa. Here, again, it will be noticed that the words used in address seem shorter and more primitive in character.
In the Chinantee language of Mexico, nuh signifies at the same time "father" and "man." In Gothic aba means both "father" and "husband" (492. 33). Here belongs also perhaps the familiar "father" with which the New England housewife was wont to address her husband.
With many peoples the name "father" is applied to others than the male parent of the child. The following remarks of McLennan, regarding the Tamil and Telugu of India, will stand for not a few other primitive tribes: "All the brothers of a father are usually called fathers, but, in strictness, those who are older than the father are called great fathers, and those who are younger, little fathers. With the Puharies, all the brothers of a father are equally fathers to his children." In Hawaii, the term "male parent" "applied equally to the father, to the uncles, and even to distant relations." In Japan, the paternal uncle is called "little father" and the maternal uncle "second little father" (100. 389, 391).