Amah (occupation)

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A Chinese amah (right) with a woman and her three children
Two ayahs in British India with their charges

An amah or ayah (simplified Chinese: 阿嬷; traditional Chinese: 阿嬤; pinyin: ā mā, Portuguese: ama, German: Amme, Medieval Latin: amma; or ayah, 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. Amah is the usual version in East Asia, while ayah relates more to South Asia, and tends to specifically mean a nursemaid looking after young children, rather than a general maid.

Role[]

It is a domestic servant role which combines functions of maid and nanny. They may be required to wear a uniform. The term, resembling the pronunciation for "mother" (see Mama and papa), is considered polite and respectful in the Chinese language.

Etymology[]

The word amah may have originated from the Arabic: أَمَةٌ‎, romanized: ʾamah meaning "female slave" or from the Portuguese ama meaning "nurse".[1] Some however argued that it is the English form of the Chinese word ah mah. Ah (阿; ā) is a common Chinese prefix used before monosyllabic names or kinship terms to indicate familiarity, and mah (妈; 媽; mā) means "mother". Others say that the word originated from the term for a wet nurse, nai mah (奶妈; 奶媽; nǎimā; 'milk mother').[2] This word is common in East Asia, Southeast Asia and South Asia to denote a maidservant or nursemaid.[3]

Variants such as Amah-chieh or mahjeh (姐; jiě means elder sister in Chinese dialects) have also been used in some countries.[1][2] In China, amah may even refer to any old lady in general. In Taiwan and southeastern China where the Minnan language is spoken, amah (Chinese: 阿媽; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: a‑má) refers to the paternal grandmother. Similar terms in the same context include ah-yee (Chinese: 阿姨; pinyin: āyí; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: a‑î; lit. '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.

See also[]

  • Amah (mother)
  • Ayahs' Home, an organisation that provided accommodation and support to foreign nannies abandoned in London

References[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b Ooi Keat Gin (2013). Dirk Hoerder (ed.). Proletarian and Gendered Mass Migrations: A Global Perspective on Continuities and Discontinuities from the 19th to the 21st Centuries. BRILL. p. 405. ISBN 978-9004251366.
  2. ^ Jump up to: a b Nicole Constable (2007). Maid to Order in Hong Kong: Stories of Migrant Workers. Cornell University Press. p. 52. ISBN 978-0801473234.
  3. ^ https://servantspasts.wordpress.com/2017/06/21/first-blog-post/ 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". "Ayah". Oxford Dictionaries.

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
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