The word _mother_ is one of the oldest in the language; one of the very few words found among all the great branches of the widely scattered Aryan race, bearing witness, in ages far remote, before the Celt, the Teuton, the Hellene, the Latin, the Slav, and the Indo-Iranian were known, to the existence of the family, with the _mother_ occupying a high and honourable place, if not indeed the highest place of all. What the etymological meaning was, of the primitive Aryan word from which our _mother_ is descended, is uncertain. It seems, however, to be a noun derived, with the agent-suffix _-t-r_, from the root _ma_, "to measure." Skeat thinks the word meant originally "manager, regulator [of the household]," rejecting, as unsupported by sufficient evidence, a suggested interpretation as the "producer." Kluge, the German lexicographer, hesitates between the "apportioner, measurer," and the "former [of the embryo in the womb]." In the language of the Klamath Indians of Oregon, _p'gishap_, "mother," really signifies the "maker." The Karankawas of Texas called "mother," _kaninma_, the "suckler," from _kanin_, "the female breast." In Latin _mamma_, seems to signify "teat, breast," as well as "mother," but Skeat doubts whether there are not two distinct words here. In Finnish and some other primitive languages a similar resemblance or identity exists between the words for "breast" and "mother." In Lithuanian, _móte_--cognate with our _mother_--signifies "wife," and in the language of the Caddo Indians of Louisiana and Texas _sássin_ means both "wife" and "mother." The familiar "mother" of the New England farmer of the "Old Homestead" type, presents, perhaps, a relic of the same thought. The word _dame_, in older English, from being a title of respect for women--there is a close analogy in the history of _sire_--came to signify "mother." Chaucer translates the French of the _Romaunt of the Rose_, "Enfant qui craint ni père ni mère Ne pent que bien ne le comperre," by "For who that dredeth sire ne dame Shall it abie in bodie or name," and Shakespeare makes poor Caliban declare: "I never saw a woman, But only Sycorax, my dam." Nowadays, the word _dam_ is applied only to the female parent of animals, horses especially. The word, which is one with the honourable appellation _dame_, goes back to the Latin _domina_, "mistress, lady," the feminine of _dominus_, "lord, master." In not a few languages, the words for "father" and "mother" are derived from the same root, or one from the other, by simple phonetic change. Thus, in the Sandeh language of Central Africa, "mother" is _n-amu_, "father," _b-amu_; in the Cholona of South America, _pa_ is "father," _pa-n_, "mother"; in the PEntlate of British Columbia, "father" is _mãa_, "mother," _tãa_, while in the Songish _mãn_ is "father" and _tan_ "mother" (404. 143).