Amah (occupation)

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.

A Chinese amah (right) with a woman and her three children

Two ayahs in British India with their charges

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 amah meaning "female slave" The word amah may have originated from the Portuguese ama meaning "nurse".[1] Some however argued that it is the English 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, Southeast Asia and South Asia to denote a maidservant or nursemaid.[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 China, amah may even refer to any old lady in general. In Taiwan and southeastern China where the Minnan language is spoken, amah refers to the paternal grandmother. 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.

The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett

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

References

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.
Nicole Constable (2007). Maid to Order in Hong Kong: Stories of Migrant Workers. Cornell University Press. p. 52. ISBN 978-0801473234.
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.