# Korean babo, Sicilian babbo, Portuguese/Spanish bobo



## Youngfun

They all mean "silly, fool". Are they related or just coincidence?

In some Italian dialects (e.g. Tuscany) _babbo_ means "dad", in others (e.g. Sicilian) it means "stupid". 
In Spanish speaking countries, the exception is Peru, where _bobo_ means "heart".

Could it be possible that at least Portuguese, Spanish and Sicilian words are related?

Probably the Korean word is not related.
But then I have a silly () theory: maybe it's a human instinct that /bVbV/ sounds make people think about silliness?
In Italian there are similar words too, like _babbeo_ and _babbione_. Or even _babbuino_ (lit. "baboon").

Or, taking only the b sound: French _bête_ (lit. beast), Japanese _baka,_ Chinese 笨 pronounced _bèn_ /pən/ in Mandarin, but probably with a /b-/ sound in Middle Chinese, and pronounced /baŋ/ in my Wu dialect.


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## Treaty

Well, to complete your list, in Persian _babu_ means stupid. Personally, I think it is onomatopoeic. As someone who has speech problem may use a lot of "b" like sounds. Unfortunately, the lack of speech ability was considered stupidity in older days.


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## Triginta Septem

Youngfun said:


> In some Italian dialects (e.g. Tuscany) _babbo_ means "dad"



Baba in Farsi, I believe. I'd say it could be a borrowing, maybe.



Youngfun said:


> They all mean "silly, fool". Are they related or just coincidence?



Baba/babo often means father, old lady/grandmother, baby, and cake. Its interesting that the list is so long, and that the same meanings are so common (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/baba), but aside from a few cognates, it's all just chance. Also, isn't there a Chinese word Baishi or Baichi or something?


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## Treaty

Triginta Septem said:


> Baba in Farsi, I believe. I'd say it could be a borrowing, maybe.



_bābā_ (MPers. _pāpa_ = father) is probably an original Persian word, cognate of Greek _papas_. (short for _pater/pitar_)
_babu_  (_papu_, _pape_ in some dialects) means silly. I don't know anything about its etymology.


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## rbrunner

I have just a little tidbit to add: The Filipinos seemed to like Spanish _bobo_ for _stupid_, because they borrowed this word with that meaning into their languages there.

I would also suspect that some onomatopoeia is at work here: Something like "bobo" really does sound stupid in a certain way, if you ask me.

In Swiss German children's language _bobo_ means little wound.


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## Outsider

"Babbo" in the familial sense (also _babba_ in many languages and _babushka_ in Russian) seems unlikely to be related to "babbo" in the sense of stupid.

According to the DRAE, "bobo" derives from *L. balbus*, "bumbling". Aulete assigns the same origin to Portuguese "bobo", and even seems to regard it as a loan from Spanish. However, Priberam says the origin is uncertain.

I can't help wondering if there's any connection between this word and the better known Portuguese loan dodo. Perhaps not, as in the original Portuguese the latter has a diphthong in the first syllable (_doudo_; currently _doido_).


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## Youngfun

Thank you, guys. Your contributions are all interesting.


Triginta Septem said:


> Also, isn't there a Chinese word Baishi or Baichi or something?


You mean 白痴 _baichi_. Here the core part of the compound is _chi_ which means "silly, stupid". _Bai_ means "white". But don't ask me why we say "white stupid"...

About the Spanish _bobo _meaning "heart" in some regions, it's also written in our dictionary:
(_Cono Sur_) (=_corazón_) heart, ticker (_informal_)
Rather a strange meaning shift, I say.

_Babà_ or _babbà_ is a pastry typical of Naples, Italy. According wikipedia, its names comes form the Polish _babka ponczowa_ (grandma's dessert), from _babka_ (old woman).
In Malaysia, _baba_ is a term to address men, similar to "sir".


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## sotos

There may be a relation between bobo meaning "stupid" in unrelated languages, through onomatopoia. Also in Greek there is the word "Boufos" which metaphorically means "stupid", but literally means the bird _Bubo bubo _(http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/accounts/Bubo_bubo/ ). This bird makes a "buuu" sound in the night. Possibly it has some characteristics  reminding of stupid persons. However, it is relative to the _Atena noctua, _the symbol of wisdom in ancient Greece.


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## Triginta Septem

sotos said:


> There may be a relation between bobo meaning "stupid" in unrelated languages, through onomatopoia. Also in Greek there is the word "Boufos" which metaphorically means "stupid", but literally means the bird _Bubo bubo _(http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/accounts/Bubo_bubo/ ). This bird makes a "buuu" sound in the night. Possibly it has some characteristics  reminding of stupid persons. However, it is relative to the _Atena noctua, _the symbol of wisdom in ancient Greece.



Well that's ironic... ^^


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## Sempervirens

Ciao! Mah, tutto può essere!  Ecco che cosa dice un articolo al riguardo: http://www.etimo.it/?term=babbo

Saluti


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## Ben Jamin

Youngfun said:


> _Babà_ or _babbà_ is a pastry typical of Naples, Italy. According wikipedia, its names comes form the Polish _babka ponczowa_ (grandma's dessert), from _babka_ (old woman).



Baba is a Polish word that has many meanings, with two main semantic groups:


Baba= old woman, grandmother (nowadays babka), woman (pejoratively)
Baba= a physical object (usually bulky or heavy), a weight used to hit poles into ground, a cake (nowadays babka).
(I don’t know if there is any etymological link between them, but it’s possible.)
The name of cake (baba, babka) has no direct connection to the meaning of grandmother, so the claim that _babka ponczowa_ = grandma's dessert is simply wrong.


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## CitizenEmpty

Babo (바보) in Korean originally meant a person who does nothing but eat, I.E. a stupid person. It's originally 밥보. 밥 means food or rice. 보 is a native Korean suffix for designating a person for a certain characteristics. (For example, 울보. It is 울 + 보. Or "crying + er" in crude English. Therefore 울보 means a crybaby in Korean.)


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## Ben Jamin

You have the word "babble" in English, and Ancient Greek "barbaros" which mean the same. It must be onomatopoeic. From "babling" to "stupidity" the way is short.
The "b" can be devoiced, and become for example "paplac" like in Polish.


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## merquiades

Bobo has come to mean in French something radically different:  Bourgeois-Bohème.  It's a person who while very much being a materialistic yuppie, well to do and loving all the material comforts his money can buy, is likewise a strong socialist, ecologist, liberal, libertine, hedonist, secularist and lover of the arts, counterculture, non-European cultures and dangerous decaying neighborhoods.  The contrast is the crux of their identity.  The sense can be both positive and negative.

I remember a certain type of funny clown (circus look/ Ronald McDonald type) being called bobo in the US.  Now that I think of it, it might actually have developed from the first name of this clown.  Get bobo to come cheer up the kids...

So, I really don't think there is anything intrinsic about the sound Bo or Ba that would lead to a certain meaning developing.  It's a simple sound to make so it must be redoubled and present in lots of different language groups.


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## Ben Jamin

After a while I recalled that a retarded person was called "ebe" or "ebe-ebe" in the street urchin language of the town I grew up in Poland.


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## Angelo di fuoco

Youngfun said:


> _Babà_ or _babbà_ is a pastry typical of Naples, Italy. According wikipedia, its names comes form the Polish _babka ponczowa_ (grandma's dessert), from _babka_ (old woman).
> In Malaysia, _baba_ is a term to address men, similar to "sir".



Wiki is misleading about the _babà_ or _babbà_ etymology. _Babka _(noun)_ ponczowa _(adj., from "poncz" = "punch") means "punch cake", not "grandma's dessert", and I'm not sure whether "babka" meaning "cake" (actually, a specific kind of cake) is related to _babka_ in the meaning "old woman".
My sources state the Polish king Stanislaw Leszczinski named it after Ali Baba...


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## bearded

Sicilian  babbo=stupid may well go back to a Spanish influence, since there was a long Spanish (Aragonese) domination over Sicily  centuries ago.


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## porkkanaraaste

Finnish _pöpi _means crazy, stupid person.

Greek _boufos _reminds me of Finnish _pöllö _which means both 'owl' and 'stupid'. There´s also a similar sounding word, _pöljä_, which means 'stupid'.


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## Ben Jamin

Angelo di fuoco said:


> Wiki is misleading about the _babà_ or _babbà_ etymology. _Babka _(noun)_ ponczowa _(adj., from "poncz" = "punch") means "punch cake", not "grandma's dessert", and I'm not sure whether "babka" meaning "cake" (actually, a specific kind of cake) is related to _babka_ in the meaning "old woman".



This is correct.



Angelo di fuoco said:


> My sources state the Polish king Stanislaw Leszcz*y*nski named it after Ali Baba...


This is a fairy tale.

Actually the word "baba" has two root meanings:
1. An old woman --> grandmother. Later developed to "babka" (grandmother). Still later "babka" began to mean both "grandmother" and "a woman of any age" and even "an attractive woman", while "baba" changed the meaning to "old woman, hag, a bothering female".
2. A massive object, a clot, later a large object used to drive piles into ground, and also a cake (a clot of dough).

It is not known if the two meaning families have any common origin.


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## Angelo di fuoco

Thanks for the spelling correction (sometimes I get it right, sometimes not - interferences) and the additional information.

I thought nowadays you say "babcia" for grandmother.


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## Ben Jamin

Angelo di fuoco said:


> Thanks for the spelling correction (sometimes I get it right, sometimes not - interferences) and the additional information.
> 
> I thought nowadays you say "babcia" for grandmother.


Babcia is a word used by children or to children (like abuelita in Spanish), or among family members, or to the grandmother. When I speak to an adult person outside my family, I use the word babka speaking about my late grandmother, especially to a stranger.



Angelo di fuoco said:


> Thanks for the spelling correction (sometimes I get it right, sometimes not - interferences) and the additional information.


It may be easier if you remember that the digraph cz is never followed by an "i" in Polish, only "y".  
 The same applies to "ż", "sz", "dż", "rz" and "ch".


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## Youngfun

Ben Jamin said:


> After a while I recalled that a retarded person was called "ebe" or "ebe-ebe" in the street urchin language of the town I grew up in Poland.


In Italy there is _ebete_!



CitizenEmpty said:


> Babo (바보) in Korean originally meant a person who does nothing but eat, I.E. a stupid person. It's originally 밥보. 밥 means food or rice. 보 is a native Korean suffix for designating a person for a certain characteristics. (For example, 울보. It is 울 + 보. Or "crying + er" in crude English. Therefore 울보 means a crybaby in Korean.)


Thanks! Now I know the true etymology! I thought it was onomatopoeic.
In Chinese there is a very similar insult: 饭桶, lit. rice container, with the same meaning.



Ben Jamin said:


> You have the word "babble" in English, and Ancient Greek "barbaros" which mean the same. It must be onomatopoeic. From "babling" to "stupidity" the way is short.


And in Italian _balbettare_, and you have reminded me the original meaning of "barbaros". Interesting.


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## Angelo di fuoco

Ben Jamin said:


> It may be easier if you remember that the digraph cz is never followed by an "i" in Polish, only "y".
> The same applies to "ż", "sz", "dż", "rz" and "ch".



Technically I know that it is just the opposite of Russian spelling rules (despite the same pronunciation - except for ch), but knowing is one thing and applying the knowledge is another one.


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## Angelo di fuoco

Youngfun said:


> In Italy there is _ebete_!



Because you got rid of all mute Latin & Greek h (except in avere conjugation), you may not be aware that in French there's the verb hébéter.


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## Perseas

"b*a*bo" or "v*a*vo" exists in Greek and means "old woman" or "grandmother". It's dialectal, not common today, probably from Slavic.

"Β*ο*bos" is a name used in jokes (and not in real life) to denote a not so clever boy.


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## Ben Jamin

Angelo di fuoco said:


> Because you got rid of all mute Latin & Greek h (except in avere conjugation), you may not be aware that in French there's the verb hébéter.



It is from Latin "hebes" (fool).


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## Youngfun

Angelo di fuoco said:


> Because you got rid of all mute Latin & Greek h (except in avere conjugation), you may not be aware that in French there's the verb hébéter.


As a funny coincidence, I thought that the French cognate was _bête_ lol. But I think that actually means _beast_.


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## Ben Jamin

Youngfun said:


> As a funny coincidence, I thought that the French cognate was _bête_ lol. But I think that actually means _beast_.



It does. Look at the ê, it marks the lack of historic "s".


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## francisgranada

The Hungarian words _buta, bamba, balga, bárgyú, bunkó_ mean stupid (or related to it). Conclusion: the sound "b" seems to be strongly related to the idea of stupidity in human languages ...


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## Sempervirens

Youngfun said:


> They all mean "silly, fool". Are they related or just coincidence?
> 
> In some Italian dialects (e.g. Tuscany) _babbo_ means "dad", in others (e.g. Sicilian) it means "stupid".
> In Spanish speaking countries, the exception is Peru, where _bobo_ means "heart".
> 
> Could it be possible that at least Portuguese, Spanish and Sicilian words are related?
> 
> Probably the Korean word is not related.
> But then I have a silly () theory: maybe it's a human instinct that /bVbV/ sounds make people think about silliness?
> In Italian there are similar words too, like _babbeo_ and _babbione_. Or even _babbuino_ (lit. "baboon").
> 
> Or, taking only the b sound: French _bête_ (lit. beast), *Japanese *_*baka*,_ Chinese 笨 pronounced _bèn_ /pən/ in Mandarin, but probably with a /b-/ sound in Middle Chinese, and pronounced /baŋ/ in my Wu dialect.



Youngfun, per quanto riguarda la parola giapponese baka　馬鹿　ばか  credo che , secondo il modo di pensare di queste popolazioni, la stupidità umana sia in qualche modo messa in relazione con il cavallo( nobilissimo, intelligentissimo animale n.d.a).
Niente a che vedere con supposti balbettii allora. Ma posso anche sbagliarmi.
Il cavallo però non balbetta, nitrisce.


Ora, sapendo che in queste lande quando si comunica , si pensa e si parla e si scrive si utilizzano gli ideogrammi importati dalla Cina, mi viene spontaneo pensare che anche in Cina per dare dello stupido a una persona si tiri ancora una volta in ballo il cavallo. È così oppure ho preso un abbaglio?

Ironicamente, la spiegazione che ci dà Wikipedia sulla parola baka , in relazione a cavallo, tenderebbe a significare la non individualità di questo animale.,e quindi giustificherebbe il (presupposto) nesso semantico.

In fatto di individualità ci sarebbe tanto da discutere...

Saluti


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