Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885

  The Etymology of "Babe."

  In the latest English etymological dictionary, that by the Rev. W.W.Skeat, we read under the word _babe_, "Instead of _babe_ beingformed from the infantine sound _ba_, it has been modified from_maqui_, probably by infantine influences. _Baby_ is a diminutiveform."

  _Maqui_ is Early Welsh for _son_, and those to whom Mr.Skeat's modified _maqui_ seems absurd will be pleased to find itsabsurdity indicated, if not proved, by a Greek author of the sixthcentury.

  The following passage in the seventy-sixth section of Damascius's "Lifeof Isidorus" has escaped the notice of English etymologists generally:

  "Hermias had a son (the elder of his philosopher sons) by AEdesia, andone day, when the child was seven months old, AEdesia was playing withhim, as mothers do, calling him _babion_ and _paidion_,speaking in diminutives. But Hermias overheard her, and was vexed, andcensured these childish diminutives, pronouncing an articulatereprimand.... Now the Syrians, and especially those who dwell inDamascus, call newborn children, and even those that have passed theperiod of childhood, _babia_, from the goddess _Babia_, whomthey worship."

  What is _babion_ but the English _baby_, what _babia_ butthe English _babies?_ We can hardly suppose that our English wordsare derived from Syriac words in use fourteen centuries ago, or that thelatter were "modified from _maqui_" by "infantine" or otherinfluences. We are therefore driven to the conclusion that they werealike "formed from the infantine sound _ba_," unless we acceptDamascius's derivation from _Babia_.

  Unfortunately, we know no more concerning this goddess than did thelearned John Selden, who, writing two hundred and twenty-odd years ago,"De Dis Syris," says, on page 296 of that work, "I cannot conjecturewhether _Babia,_ who seems to have been reverenced among theSyrians as goddess of childhood and youth, is identical with the SyrianVenus or not, and I do not remember to have met with any mention of thisdeity except in Damascius's Life of Isidorus."

  Selden's memory was not at fault: the words _babion, babia_, and_Babia_ occur only in the passage above quoted.

  In the absence of other evidence than Damascius's own, we may wellquestion whether he has not inverted the etymological relation betweenthe goddess and the babies. Most divinities owe their names to theattributes or functions imputed to them by their worshippers. It seems,therefore, more probable that the Syrian protectress of babies owes hername to the _babia_ than that they were called _babia_ in herhonor. If, however, we accept Damascius's theory of their relation, whatforbids us to conjecture that the goddess's name was itself "formed fromthe infantine sound _ba_"? In any case, the little domestic scenebetween the priggish father and the dandling mother is amusing andinstructive to parents as well as to etymologists.

  S.E.T.