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LabelContactRelationYoungerCousinMothersSiblingsDaughterOrFathersSistersDaughter

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Re: LabelContactRelationYoungerCousinMothersSiblingsDaughterOrFathersSistersDaughter

#261

Post by bandyaboot »

mynegation wrote: post #113
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.

If you squint hard enough - yes. I do not know if it is Sapir-Whorf, but if I grew up using completely different words for sisters of my spouse, brothers of my spouse, husband of my sister, and wife of my brother, they do not look that similar to me.

I really don't have to squint all that hard to recognize that these two people are both near-adjacent on the family tree and they both are non-blood relatives that I see almost as much as my actual siblings. When described in writing, the grouping seems strange, when those two relationships are actually experienced, it seems quite intuitive to me.

Re: LabelContactRelationYoungerCousinMothersSiblingsDaughterOrFathersSistersDaughter

#262

Post by throwaway290 »

afiori wrote: post #249
throwaway290 wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will you be satisfied if your brother or sister were only describable as "sibling"? Would it roll off your tongue? Similarly in many languages using the wildcard equivalent to mean something more specific is unnatural .

I do not undestand how this relates to my comment... I only said that if you wanted to precisely localize mormor to english you could.

Ok, I thought you were against having capabilities for supporting mormor as a dedicated word in software (like in the topic post)

Re: LabelContactRelationYoungerCousinMothersSiblingsDaughterOrFathersSistersDaughter

#263

Post by Gamemaster1379 »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #129
prosody wrote: post #36

Of possible interest to HNers, kinship terminology of different cultures is a subject that has a very elegant taxonomy. It was a major line of inquiry in early modern sociology, which tried to link other attributes of how societies were structured to how they named relations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinship_terminology

Yes, this is a modern post Industrial Revolution phenomenon. In the distant past, when you met someone new, they asked who you are in relation to your tribe and family. Now, they ask what you do for the economy as an economic unit. It’s fun to rebel against the current culture by asking someone who they are instead of what they do.

People still do this in small US towns. Your last name defines who you are to the town heritage. If you have the wrong last name, then you don't matter.

As non-contrarian as it sounds, I'd argue that as someone who came from a small town, having to define yourself by your "tribe" last name is worse, because if it the "wrong" last name, there's nothing you can do about it. You can, within reason, change what you do for a living.

Re: LabelContactRelationYoungerCousinMothersSiblingsDaughterOrFathersSistersDaughter

#264

Post by bradrn »

deaddodo wrote: post #196
bradrn wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, English is considered to have an Eskimo kinship system: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eskimo_kinship

Sure, I could logically make that connection. But I guess comparing it to something like Nigerian where all friends/family of an equal level are "brother"/"sister" or higher level "aunty"/"uncle", it seems weird to see English flattened so much. The language is specific to level (grand), node depth (x removed) and colinears (brother, sister, cousin, 2nd cousin, etc) that you can accurately describe pretty much any li…

> I guess comparing it to something like Nigerian where all friends/family of an equal level are "brother"/"sister" or higher level "aunty"/"uncle", it seems weird to see English flattened so much.

I don’t know what you mean by ‘Nigerian’, but that sounds to me like a Hawaiian kinship system, which is different to the Eskimo kinship system found in English.

> The language is specific to level (grand), node depth (x removed) and colinears (brother, sister, cousin, 2nd cousin, etc) that you can accurately describe pretty much any lineage.

My understanding of the kinship system classifications is that they’re focussed on the most basic terms. You can refer to ‘my mother’s father’s sister’s son’ in pretty much any language, but it’s most interesting to see which terms are considered basic (because that in turn reveals ‘how language and culture play into each other’, as you say).

Re: LabelContactRelationYoungerCousinMothersSiblingsDaughterOrFathersSistersDaughter

#265

Post by mulmen »

klausa wrote: post #215
mulmen wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not the use case I imagine. When setting relationships in a Chinese localization this option appears with the correct characters in the dropdown. If that contact is shared with an English locale the attribute is still set but it displays as “cousin”.

People can use iPhones in English and be native speakers of languages that make the distinction; why would you hide that information from them?

Interesting perspective. I define the rules based on the localization but maybe it should be by user. Not really sure how that UX works though.

Re: LabelContactRelationYoungerCousinMothersSiblingsDaughterOrFathersSistersDaughter

#266

Post by smeej »

hatthew wrote: post #259
smeej wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I wonder how long it might take evolution to catch up with the shift in cultural mores, or whether we'll successfully overcome pretty much the whole history of humanity with technology.

Sometimes it feels like we've found a fence in a field and started tearing it down because, today, we don't want it to be there, but I'm not as confident as I'd like to be that there wasn't some reason the fence was built that we haven't discovered yet. I'm not confident that there is, either. I'm just apprehensive about trying to change something in a few generations that developed over millennia.

Are we definitely more astute than the way the planet and the universe directed human development? Maybe. But also maybe not.

Re: LabelContactRelationYoungerCousinMothersSiblingsDaughterOrFathersSistersDaughter

#267

Post by deodar »

InitialLastName wrote: post #244
gorlilla wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about India? They alone would reduce China from the 'vast' majority[0]. [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_...

Is this concept also used in any of the major Indian languages?

Yes in Hindi you have different nouns and adjectives for uncles, aunts and cousins depending on the relation path:

E.g. Mother's sister = Mausi

Mother's sister's child = Mauseri/mausera

Father's younger brother's child = chacheri/chachera

And so on.

Although some of these are more obscure and I'm not sure how commonly they are used these days.

Re: LabelContactRelationYoungerCousinMothersSiblingsDaughterOrFathersSistersDaughter

#268

Post by deaddodo »

bradrn wrote: post #264
deaddodo wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, I could logically make that connection. But I guess comparing it to something like Nigerian where all friends/family of an equal level are "brother"/"sister" or higher level "aunty"/"uncle", it seems weird to see English flattened so much. The language is specific to level (grand), node depth (x removed) and colinears (brother, sister, cousin, 2nd cousin, etc) that you can accurately describe pretty much any li…

> I guess comparing it to something like Nigerian where all friends/family of an equal level are "brother"/"sister" or higher level "aunty"/"uncle", it seems weird to see English flattened so much. I don’t know what you mean by ‘Nigerian’, but that sounds to me like a Hawaiian kinship system, which is different to the Eskimo kinship system found in English. > The language is specific to level (grand), node depth (x r…

Yeah, it's useless to comment on a post if you only read the first paragraph.

But cool. You do you.

Re: LabelContactRelationYoungerCousinMothersSiblingsDaughterOrFathersSistersDaughter

#269

Post by mensetmanusman »

Gamemaster1379 wrote: post #263
mensetmanusman wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this is a modern post Industrial Revolution phenomenon. In the distant past, when you met someone new, they asked who you are in relation to your tribe and family. Now, they ask what you do for the economy as an economic unit. It’s fun to rebel against the current culture by asking someone who they are instead of what they do.

People still do this in small US towns. Your last name defines who you are to the town heritage. If you have the wrong last name, then you don't matter. As non-contrarian as it sounds, I'd argue that as someone who came from a small town, having to define yourself by your "tribe" last name is worse, because if it the "wrong" last name, there's nothing you can do about it. You can, within reason, change what you do fo…

Discrimination due to one’s family history is not a requisite for caring about who someone is.

They have often gone hand in hand though, just as for example lawyers will discriminate against you if you aren’t elite educated.

Re: LabelContactRelationYoungerCousinMothersSiblingsDaughterOrFathersSistersDaughter

#270

Post by musicale »

vore wrote: post #177
musicale wrote: post #176

I'm convinced that autocompletion is a curse that enables this madness.

How else would you name this? I don’t think you can make it any shorter without making it either incomprehensible or losing critical detail.

Unlike the library designers for Swift, Java, etc., I don't think every identifier needs to be a paragraph.

It probably isn't necessary for constant names to completely encode their content either.

There has to be a better way.

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