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LabelContactRelationYoungerCousinMothersSiblingsDaughterOrFathersSistersDaughter

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Re: LabelContactRelationYoungerCousinMothersSiblingsDaughterOrFathersSistersDaughter

#251

Post by eitland »

eterm wrote: post #179
eitland wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am fairly sure English doesn't have (or at least does not use) separate everyday words for farmor/farfar (fathers mother / fathers mother) or mormor/morfar (same for mothers parents). Sure in academic language there is probably a way to describe it (edit: and the concept is easy to explain) but there is nothing quick that you can use to tell a kid so they immediately know which of the grandparents we are going to v…

English has "Paternal grandmother" and "Maternal grandmother" for example, it's just not often used and isn't turned into a compound word.

But you wouldn't tell your kid: we are going to visit your paternal grandmother, right?

That is the distinction I tried to make above between academic and everyday language.

Re: LabelContactRelationYoungerCousinMothersSiblingsDaughterOrFathersSistersDaughter

#252

Post by carstenhag »

lynguist wrote: post #6
lainga wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Related question (not really!) - two dads or moms - who should be called what?

Not an issue: You already have two grandfathers and two grandmothers, how do you call them?

In Germany it used to be quite common to just say Oma (grandma) and then the village name. So "Oma Salzgitter" would be the perfectly accepted way of referencing to one of your grandmas.

It got out of fashion though, not really common anymore at least in my circle.

Re: LabelContactRelationYoungerCousinMothersSiblingsDaughterOrFathersSistersDaughter

#253

Post by vrc »

adastra22 wrote: post #183
gweinberg wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think about it this way: your brother in law is your child's uncle.

Most languages don’t have a word as generic as “uncle” in this context.

It gets even more complex when there are regional and family differences in the naming schema. For example, my cousins on my moms side and dads sides respectively use different words for some relations, and then they sometimes use an entirely different set of words with their other sides of the family. All in the same language, but based on background, dialect, etc. So my working knowledge of naming schema ends up being very, very large. Thankfully the relations they map to are standardized in the language so it's just word swapping.

Re: LabelContactRelationYoungerCousinMothersSiblingsDaughterOrFathersSistersDaughter

#254

Post by vrc »

renewiltord wrote: post #114
bandyaboot wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be surprised to learn if most people regardless of language wouldn’t recognize the similarity of those two relationships.

It's funny. A Tamil friend of mine from a specific group would not differentiate between her 1st cousins and her siblings. So her female cousin was her "sister" and her biological sister was also "sister". Likewise for brother. She was surprised to learn that we don't recognize the similarity of those relationships. I suspect the appearing naturalness of this is all down to whether or not you grew up with it.

I think that's very common in South Asian languages. Same goes for uncles and aunts. You just extend the family outwards and carry relations with as much fidelity as you can. So a lot of "brothers/sisters/uncles/aunts" are children of my aunt's (through marriage) brother, for example.

Edit: I bet there is a term/prefix for "direct" relationships in Tamil. In Telugu, for example, everyone is "anna" or "mama" but you can use prefixes like "mena-" i.e. "mena-mama" to imply it's a direct uncle. But you only use that distinction when you directly need to specify the relationship. You'd still call them or refer to them as "mama"

Re: LabelContactRelationYoungerCousinMothersSiblingsDaughterOrFathersSistersDaughter

#255

Post by flangola7 »

robertlagrant wrote: post #206
eitland wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is Norwegian. And it is serious. And I am not saying the concept doesn't exist, only that as far as I am aware there is no usable everyday word for it. I mean: nobody will tell their kids they are going to visit dads mum and dads dad next week, rather than telling them they are going to visit grandma and granddad "across the country" or something?

"What are you doing this weekend, little Timmy?" "One is repairing to the country where one will be enjoying the company of one's paternal grandmama and grandpapa."

Repairing?

Re: LabelContactRelationYoungerCousinMothersSiblingsDaughterOrFathersSistersDaughter

#256

Post by conductr »

prmoustache wrote: post #189
conductr wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you understand they’re all referring to aunts and uncles of your children

The children have nothing to do with that for a start. They may not even exist.

They don't have to, the point is they occupy the same relative position in the family and I chose to illustrated that using a child

Re: LabelContactRelationYoungerCousinMothersSiblingsDaughterOrFathersSistersDaughter

#257

Post by mjochim »

flangola7 wrote: post #255
robertlagrant wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"What are you doing this weekend, little Timmy?" "One is repairing to the country where one will be enjoying the company of one's paternal grandmama and grandpapa."

Repairing?

Retreating?

Re: LabelContactRelationYoungerCousinMothersSiblingsDaughterOrFathersSistersDaughter

#258

Post by mtVessel »

flangola7 wrote: post #255
robertlagrant wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"What are you doing this weekend, little Timmy?" "One is repairing to the country where one will be enjoying the company of one's paternal grandmama and grandpapa."

Repairing?

It's a slightly archaic usage, but it's correct:

repair [1]

verb

repaired; repairing; repairs

intransitive verb

1a: to betake oneself : go

    repaired to the judge's chambers
1b: to come together : rally

[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/repair

Re: LabelContactRelationYoungerCousinMothersSiblingsDaughterOrFathersSistersDaughter

#259

Post by hatthew »

smeej wrote: post #130
hatthew wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it would be good to have a deterministic way to decide who gets to be called what in that case. The world would be a better place if we didn't make a distinction between mother and father, though obviously that's baked into almost all cultures and fully removing that would cause more problems than it would solve. Given that we don't have preexisting momentum to make a distinction between two parents of…

I think the fact that it's baked into biology in the overwhelming majority of cases is why distinguishing between mother and father is so entrenched in practically every culture.

Agreed. Part of my point is that these days, the biological difference is becoming less and less relevant to the "cultural" difference between mother and father.
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