[rickyconnolly]

Their story checks out.

Using google translate, I can't find a single language that does not have a 'mama' or something very similar.

[drdaeman]

Fun thing I found on Wiktionary is that in Georgian, /mɑmɑ/ is a word for father[1] and mother is /dɛdɑ/[2].

Add: oh, and it's "panjo" in Esperanto... :)

Other languages outside of rule may possibly include Eshtehardi, Fijian, Greenlandic, Inuktitut, Igbo, Kyrgyz, Malay, Maori, Mari, Moksha, Thai and Vietnamese (suspections per http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mum#Translations and http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mother#Translations). Personally, I've unfortunately never even heard about half of those languages, and not familiar with the ones I've heard about to the extent I can confirm or opposite.

[1]: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E1%83%9B%E1%83%90%E1%83%9B%E1...

[2]: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E1%83%93%E1%83%94%E1%83%93%E1...

[kiba]

As a member of a Vietnamese speaking household, mom is still vaguely similar to English.

Of course, I could be wrong since I have moderate hearing loss.

[unhammer]

You didn't look well enough:

http://translate.google.com/#en/ka/mom%0Amother%0Adad%0Afath...

(Though for some reason, GT translates English "mama" into Georgian "mama", meaning 'father'. But then, one should really not use GT for linguistic research …)

[sunnybythesea]

Most Indian languages also follow this pattern, however Marathi uses 'Aai' for mother

[shrikant]

The "pure" Tamil word for mother is "thaai". There's no relation between the two languages, however.

[sunnybythesea]

That's interesting, I never knew that...thanks