Amah (occupation)
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An amah or ayah (, German: Amme, Medieval Latin: amma; or ayah Hindi: āyā or amma, Portuguese: aia, Latin: avia, Tagalog: yaya) is a girl or woman employed by a family to clean, look after children, and perform other domestic tasks.
Contents
Role
It is a domestic servant role which combines functions of maid and nanny. The term, resembling the pronunciation for "mother", is considered polite and respectful in the Chinese language when it is used to refer to a maid. They may often be required by employers to wear a uniform.
Etymology
The word amah may have originated from the Portuguese ama meaning "nurse".[1] Some however argued that it is the anglicized form of the Chinese word ah mah (ah is a common Chinese prefix, and mah means "little mother"), while others say that it originated as nai mah (wet nurse in Chinese, literally "milk mother").[2] This word is common in East Asia, South East Asia and India to denote a maidservant or nursemaid. In India, ayah is the more common variant, and this Anglo-Indian word originated from the Portuguese aia meaning "nurse", feminine form of aio meaning "tutor".[3]
Variants such as Amah-chieh or mahjeh (chieh or jeh means elder sister in Chinese dialects) have also been used in some countries.[1][2] In Taiwan and China, amah may even refer to any old lady in general. Similar terms in the same context includes ah-yee (Aunt), yee-yee (aunt), or jie-jie (elder sister). Since the mid-1990s, it has become more politically correct in some circles to call such a person a 'helper' rather than a maid or ayah.
Other meanings
During the Tang dynasty in China, the word Amah was used as an informal and poetic title for the Taoist goddess, the Queen Mother of the West. Amah also means mother in many countries.
In English literature
Amah and ayah have been adopted as loanwords into the English language:
- She never remembered seeing familiarly anything but the dark faces of her Ayah and the other native servants, and as they always obeyed her and gave her her own way in everything, because the Mem Sahib [her mother] would be angry if she was disturbed by her crying, by the time she was six years old she was as tyrannical and selfish a little pig as ever lived.
- When Tony and his sister arrived they wanted to go straight to the pond, but their ayah said they must take a sharp walk first, and as she said this she glanced at the time-board to see when the Gardens closed that night.
- The Little White Bird, by J.M. Barrie, author of Peter Pan
See also
References
Further reading
- Suzanne E Cahill Transcendence & Divine Passion. The Queen Mother of the West in Medieval China, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993, ISBN 0-8047-2584-5
