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Distinct family words | ||
Tags: Family | Vocabulary learning | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| Alijsh Tetraglot Senior Member Iran jahanshiri.ir/ Joined 6622 days ago 149 posts - 167 votes  1 sounds Speaks: Persian*, Spanish, French, English Studies: German, Italian | Message 1 of 5 12 October 2006 at 4:55am | IP Logged | ||
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In Persian, we have different words for:
. uncle: maternal/paternal uncle . aunt: maternal/paternal aunt . cousin: son/daughter of one's maternal/paternal aunt/uncle . father-in-law: the father of husband/wife . mother-in-law: the mother of husband/wife . brother-in-law: brother of the husband/wife, husband of the sister, husband of the sister of the wife . sister-in-law: sister of the husband/wife, wife of one's brother, wife of the brother of one's spouse . wife of maternal/paternal aunt/uncle For cousin and the rest below, it's just the magic of word combination. For example, amu means paternal uncle and pesar: son and pesaramu: the son of paternal uncle. zan means wife and zanamu: the wife of paternal uncle *** Is it found in your language? Edited by Alijsh on 12 October 2006 at 4:57am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6703 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 5 12 October 2006 at 5:34am | IP Logged | ||
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The system in Danish is as follows:
Son, daughter, child is "søn", "datter", "barn". No problems there. Brother, sister, siblings is "bro(de)r" (plural: "brødre"), "søster", "søskende" (no singular). Father, mother, parent is "fader" (or just "far"), "moder" (or "mor"), "forælder" (this last word according the the purists should only be used i plural, but the general population couldn't care less) Grandfather, grandmother, grandparents are "bedstefar", "bedstemor" and "bedsteforældre" (I have not yet seen *bedsteforælder). But we also have special sets for the parents of father and mother: "farfar", "farmor" (but NOT farforældre) "morfar", "mormor" (and NOT morforældre) One generation further back we have "oldefar", "oldemor", "oldeforældre" (not *farfarmor or things like that), and still further back we use "tipoldefar", "tipoldemor", "tipoldeforældre", - you can add more tip's if you need it. Uncle, aunt, corresponds to "onkel", "tante" (no common denominator), but we also have slightly less used forms for the siblings of fathers and mothers: "farbror", "faster" (from *fars søster) "morbror", "moster" (from *mors søster) The siblings of grandparents are "grandonkel" and "grandtante". The male and female children of oncles and aunts are called "fætter" and "kusine" (so "kusine" is a false friend as it can only be used for females), no common word for these. Man (husband) and wife are "mand", "kone", and each one is "ægtefælle" for the other, and the couple is "ægtepar" or just "par". If you are not married to your de facto man/wife then the two of you are 'paperless': "papirløse" The family that you marry into is your "svigerfamilie". The father, mother, parents of your better half is "svigerfar", "svigermor", "svigerforældre". The male and female siblings of your better half is "svoger", "svigerinde" respectively (no common denominator). The children that your better half carries into the marrige are half-jokingly called "papbørn" (paper children), while those who only share one biological parent are called "halvbrødre", "halvsøstre", "halvsøskende". Long time ago we had "ægte børn" and "uægte børn", according to whether they were born in wedlock or not, but no true Dane cares about that distinction these days. A bit complicated, but I have read that there are even more complicated systems out there in the world, maybe somewhere in New Guinea or places like that. EDIT: or China Edited by Iversen on 17 October 2006 at 4:29pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| lady_skywalker Triglot Senior Member Netherlands aspiringpolyglotblog Joined 6890 days ago 909 posts - 942 votes Speaks: Spanish, English*, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, French, Dutch, Italian | Message 3 of 5 12 October 2006 at 6:13am | IP Logged | ||
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Mandarin is probably a language that goes overboard with distinct names for family members. It not only divides by gender and whether the relative is on the maternal or paternal side but also according to the order that a person was born (eg. 1st brother, 2nd sister, etc).
I gave up trying to learn them all since I never had the opportunity to use half of them anyway! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| hagen Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6960 days ago 171 posts - 179 votes 6 sounds Speaks: German*, English, Mandarin Studies: Korean | Message 4 of 5 17 October 2006 at 3:29pm | IP Logged | ||
I found it entirely sufficient to learn the terms for relatives I actually have. That way I could connect the terms with persons in my family and memorize them much more easily. And you can always add another term or two later if you meet someone who has a relative of a particular kind. Edited by hagen on 18 October 2006 at 3:57pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Raincrowlee Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 6702 days ago 621 posts - 808 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Korean, French Studies: Indonesian, Japanese | Message 5 of 5 18 October 2006 at 12:28am | IP Logged | ||
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I have a chart for the Chinese words I might try to dig up, but the factors that go into deciding which word to use include:
1 gender 2 relative age (uncle is older/younger than father) 3 connected through mother or father 4 conected by blood or by marriage 5 can be modified to show birth order (big/second/third) This occurs for each level, i.e. siblings, uncles, grandparents, cousins. I think the only connection that is simple is for your children (one word for son, one for daughter), but then I've mostly only spoken to unmarried Taiwanese about this. There might be a more complex scheme for that, too. Edited by Raincrowlee on 18 October 2006 at 12:29am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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