Ma means "mother" in Mandarin Chinese.
Ma also means "horse." Fortunately they have different ideograms so they don't get confused. (Plus they have different tones.)
"Ma" meaning "horse" may be an Indo-European loanword, cognate with English "mare."
MA ( AS IN MOTHER ) IN CHINESE:
MA ( AS IN HORSE ) IN CHINESE:
Notice the right radical in the ideograms for Mother and Horse. They are similar. The only difference is the Left radical of "mother" in Chinese, which is the symbol for Woman.
Shhhh... Don;t let the gender neutral types know this in the USA, they might mis-educate Chinese foreign students who will go home and demand gender neutral idiograms :)
Mother in Thai is Maa. Father is Paw. Both pronounced with a falling tone.
Ma (with an up tone) = Horse. Ma (with an down tone) = Dog.