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Happy Father's Day! You might have already prepared some fun things to do with your father today. What do you call your father? In Hong Kong, children normally address their father in Cantonese. However, it is also quite common for them to call their father in English, " Daddy " .

 

While the first Father's Day was celebrated in 1910 in the USA in honour of fatherhood, the first known written record of the word " Daddy " occurred much earlier in 1523. This form of direct address comes from the word " Dad " , which itself originates in baby talk. Babies normally learn to talk between 8 months and 12 months old. They find it easier to make sounds like " dada " and " tata " .

 

So, the word " Daddycomes from adding the suffix " -y " to " Dad " . And " Dad " is a shortened form of " dada " .

 

If you do a survey on how children of different languages address their fathers, you will find that a lot of these terms of endearment come from baby noises. For example, the word " Papa " is used in French, Russian and Spanish; the word " Tata " is used in Polish, Romanian, and Czech.

 

父親節快樂!你也許已經準備了一些有趣的事情與父親在今天一起做。你怎樣稱呼你的父親?在香港,兒童通常用廣東話來稱呼自己的父親。然而, 他們用英文「Daddy」來稱呼自己的父親也是相當普遍。

 

第一個父親節於1910年在美國慶祝,旨在向為人父者表示敬意。不過,「Daddy」一字首個為人所知的文字紀錄,早在1523年出現。這個直接稱呼來自「Dad」,而Dad本身源自嬰孩的牙牙學語。嬰孩通常在8個月和12個月之間學習說話,他們比較容易發出「dada」和「tata」等聲音。

 

因此,「Daddy」一字源於在「Dad」加上後綴「-y」,而「Dad」則是「dada」的縮寫。

如果你就不同語言的兒童如何稱呼自己的父親進行調查,你會發現許多這些親暱語是來自嬰孩發出的聲音。例如,法語、俄羅斯語和西班牙語用「Papa」一字;波蘭語、羅馬尼亞語和捷克語用「Tata」一字。