mamma

   These terms have been used by English speakers since the sixteenth century to address their mothers. In Britain it tended to be in middle and upper-class families where a child used ‘Mamma’ or ‘Mama’, stressing the second syllable. It was this pronunciation, presumably, which led to the short form ‘Ma’. In the USA these words were usually stressed on the first syllable, leading to ‘Momma’ as a variant spelling, and ‘Mom’ as a short form. Both ‘Mamma’ and ‘Mama’ still appear to be used: they occur in relatively modern literary texts, but they are much less common now than they were. ‘Mamma’ occurs three times in Daughters of Mulberry, by Roger Longrigg, spoken by an English woman. There are a further six examples of ‘Mamma’ in the novel where the speaker is French. Nine examples of ‘Mama’ are in The Limits of Love, by Frederic Raphael, though others in the same novel use ‘Mum’, ‘Mummy’, and ‘Mother’. Three more examples of ‘Mama’ occur in Within and Without, by John Harvey, though ‘Mother’ is used vocatively more frequently. Like all the ‘mother’ words, ‘Mamma’ and ‘Mama’ are sometimes used by a husband to his wife if they have children. ‘Mamma’ is used in this way in the presence of the children in Charlotte Yonge’s Heir of Redclyffe. In a more recent novel, The Storyteller, by Harold Robbins, a husband uses ‘Mama’ to his wife.

   A particular use of ‘Mamma’ occurs in Charlotte Brontë’s Shirley, where a daughter says: ‘Mamma, I have slept so well.’ This is said to a woman who has only just revealed to her daughter their true relationship. Until now she has always been addressed by her daughter as ‘Mrs Pryor’, ‘ma’am’, etc.

   On being addressed as ‘Mamma’ for the first time ‘Mrs Pryor rose with a start, that her daughter might not see the joyful tears called into her eyes by that affectionate word.’ ‘Mamma’ is also one of those words which can, or cannot, be used to a step-mother. Wives and Daughters, by Mrs Gaskell, has:

   The question of the name by which Molly was to call her new relation had never occurred to her before. The colour flushed into Molly’s face. Was she to call her ‘mamma’? - the name long appropriated in her mind to someone else - to her own dead mother. The rebellious heart rose against it. ‘Oh, papa! must I call her “mamma”?’ ‘I should like it.’ replied he. ‘Why shouldn’t you call her “mamma”? I’m sure she means to do the duty of a mother to you.’