古体“母”字是在“女”字上增加两点,用以强调或表示女人的乳房,这是因为母亲要用乳房哺育婴儿,而这正是母亲的特征。在现代汉语中,“母”还可以引申泛指雌性动物,例如“母猴、母猪、母马”等。
The ancient pictogram of the character “母” was formed by adding two dots to the character “女”. Those two dots represented a woman’s breasts, because feeding a baby with breasts is a unique feature of a mother. In modern Chinese, “母” can be used to generally refer to a female animal, like “母猴” (female monkey), “母猪” (female pig), “母马” (female horse), etc.
母校:mǔxiào/Alma Mater
母语(母語):mǔyǔ/mother tongue
祖母:zǔmǔ /grandma
母亲(母親):mǔqīn /mother
字母: zìmǔ/letters of an alphabet
水母:shuǐmǔ/acalephe
Chinese is my mother tongue.
Yīngyǔ yígòng yǒu èrshíliù gè zìmǔ.
There are twenty-six letters in English.