母
はは · haha · JLPT N5 · noun
mother
👩 haha: Mom laughs ha-ha at your jokes, because she is your own mother
母 (haha) is the humble word for your own mother when talking to others; お母さん (okaasan) is for addressing her or someone else's mother. The kanji derives from the character for woman (女) with two added dots marking a nursing mother.
母 — pictograph of kneeling woman with two breast dots
母 is a pictograph derived from 女 (woman) with two added dots representing breasts, marking a nursing mother. The earliest oracle bone forms show a kneeling figure with prominent dots on the chest. The meaning has stayed remarkably stable, denoting 'mother' and by extension 'female' or 'source/origin'.