davidst@teklabs.UUCP (09/14/83)
Can anyone replace the "?" with an appropriate English word?
Or a word from any of the European languages?
Or explain why we have these holes in our terminology?
Collective Individual
Term Term
--------------- ---------------------------------
parents mother, father
siblings sister, brother
inlaws mother-in-law, sister-in-law, etc.
? aunt, uncle
grandparents grandmother, grandfather
? niece, nephew
cousins ?, ?
Regards!
David D. Stubbs
uucp: {ucbvax,decvax,pur-ee,ihnss,chico}!teklabs!davidst
CSnet: teklabs!davidst@tek
ARPAnet: teklabs!davidst.tek@rand-relay
USPS: David D. Stubbs
Electronic Systems Laboratory, MS 50-383
Tektronix, Inc.
PO Box 500
Beaverton OR 97077
Phone: 503-627-2627
--
David D. Stubbsdave@utcsrgv.UUCP (Dave Sherman) (09/14/83)
We usually have no term for a relative name simply because it
wasn't important enough to distinguish it for long enough for
the language to develop a term. There are many others that
you didn't point out:
1. brother-in-law (wife's brother) != brother-in-law (sister's husband)
2. maternal grandfather vs. paternal grandfather. The use of "maternal"
and "paternal" has developed recently in response to a greater need
to distinguish them.
3. There is no word in English equivalent to the Yiddish "mechutonim".
These are one's child's in-laws. (That is, your parents and your
in-laws are mechutonim to each other.) In some societies, this
relationship was/is important enough to merit its own title.
The same kind of thing happens with pronouns, too. Some languages
have two words for "we": the inclusive we, which includes the
listener, and the exclusive we, which excludes the listener. This
distinction is quite useful ("Can we go out tonight?" will have
quite different meanings, for example).
Dave Sherman
--
{cornell,decvax,floyd,ihnp4,linus,utzoo,uw-beaver,watmath}!utcsrgv!lsuc!daventt@dciem.UUCP (Mark Brader) (09/14/83)
Dave Sherman (utcsrgv!lsuc!dave) writes:
There is no word in English equivalent to the Yiddish "mechutonim".
These are one's child's in-laws. (That is, your parents and your
in-laws are mechutonim to each other.) In some societies, this
relationship was/is important enough to merit its own title.
In the movie "The In-Laws", the title characters where mechutonim, or to
be exact, they were about to be. One of them was always explaining
his relationship to the other thus: "He's going to be my in-law. His son
is marrying my daughter." (or maybe the other way around)
Another "relative" distinction English doesn't make is among the four
kinds of aunts: {mo|fa}ther's {sister | brother's wife}, and similarly
for uncles. Latin distinguished two kinds of aunts ({fa|mo}ther's sister)
and similarly with uncles; I think the respective words were tanta, anita,
patrvvs, and avvncvlvs, but I'm not sure about the first two, or whether
spouses counted. (Note: the last two are normally writeen patruus and
avunculus, but the u-v distinction was not made in Roman times.)
Mark Brader, NTT Systems Inc., Toronto -- decvax!utzoo!dciem!ntthalle1@houxz.UUCP (09/14/83)
If I remember my high school French (and foreign films) correctly, cousin= cousin(m) or cousine(f)
ptw@vaxine.UUCP (P. T. Withington) (09/15/83)
The exclusive "we" in English is "you": "Can you go out tonight?" has a distinct meaning. 't` --Tucker (ptw@vaxine.UUCP) ~
dave@utcsrgv.UUCP (Dave Sherman) (09/16/83)
Sorry, Tucker, the exclusive "we" in English is *not* "you".
You may be able to use "you" in its place in the phrase "Can we
go out tonight". But how about these:
We're going to the movies. ("See you later!")
[Husband to wife] "Yes, we did visit Washington" (...when I was a little boy,
with my parents)
etc.
There are clearly two "we"s with different meanings in English.
Dave Sherman
--
{cornell,decvax,floyd,ihnp4,linus,utzoo,uw-beaver,watmath}!utcsrgv!lsuc!davejgpo@iwu1c.UUCP (09/16/83)
======================================================================== The exclusive "we" in English is "you": "Can you go out tonight?" has a distinct meaning. 't` --Tucker (ptw@vaxine.UUCP) ~ ======================================================================== I don't think so. The exclusive "we" and the "you" are two entirely different things. Picture two kids talking to their mother. One asks, "May we drive to the beach today?" This, presumably, includes both siblings *AND* Mom (assuming the kids are too young to drive). Now, if one of the kids asks, "May we play in the yard after lunch?" it is ambiguous whether the "we" includes Mom or not. Contrast this to a kid, asking both parents, "Are you going out tonight?" This construct unambiguously refers to the parents only. The exclusive "we" excludes the listener. The "you" excludes the speaker. They are *NOT* the same thing. John Opalko
ptw@vaxine.UUCP (P. T. Withington) (09/20/83)
Argh! My remark was made in jest. "Can you go to dinner?" does have a *distinct* meaning. 't` --Tucker (ptw@vaxine.UUCP) ~
dje@5941ux.UUCP (09/21/83)
Regarding the inclusive vs. exclusive "we" -- the artificial language LOGLAN
has the following solution:
"mu" means the "I and you" kind of we (inclusive);
"mia" is the "I and he/she" kind of we (exclusive).
Incidentally, the additional compound pronouns "mie," "mii," "mio" and "miu"
are also exclusive first person plurals, coexisting with "mia" to let the
speaker group him/herself with different third persons. Thus, "mia" is
translated as "X and I," "mie" as "Y and I," and so on.
Dave Ellis / Bell Labs, Piscataway NJ
...!{hocda,ihnp4}!houxm!houxf!5941ux!dje
...!floyd!vax135!ariel!houti!hogpc!houxm!houxf!5941ux!djeashwin@uicsl.UUCP (09/22/83)
#R:teklabs:-243500:uicsl:8600017:000:1640
uicsl!ashwin Sep 21 14:40:00 1983
German has two distinct words for male-cousin and female-cousin.
Hindi, along with most other languages and dialects in India, has distinct
words for the various types of uncles and aunts. Thus:
chacha father's younger brother
chachi wife of chacha
tau father's elder brother
tai wife of tau
phoophi or bua father's sister
phoopha husband of phoophi
mama mother's brother
mami wife of mama
mausi mother's sister
mausa husband of mausi
Note that your father's brother is named differently, according to whether
he is elder to or younger than your father. This probably arose due to the
importance of the eldest son in a patriarchical society.
Then there are grandparents:
nana father of mother
nani mother of mother
dada father of father
dadi mother of father
In each of the above, the suffix 'ji' is usually added as a mark of respect.
As an aside, 'ji' is also appended on to the ends of names, or other
relationship tokens (like (elder)-brother) for the same purpose.
All cousins are 'bhai' (brother) or 'bahen' (sister), and if you need to
specify the relationship, you prefix an adjectival form derived from the
relationship of the cousin's parents to you.
Finally, there are names for other relationships, like sister-of-husband,
mother-of-husband, husband-of-sister-of-wife (derived from sister-of-wife),
and so forth...
Ashwin Ram
Coordinated Science Lab
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
...!uiucdcs!uicsl!ashwin
...!uiucdcs!ramdinitz@uicsl.UUCP (09/27/83)
#R:teklabs:-243500:uicsl:8600015:000:551 uicsl!dinitz Sep 20 09:23:00 1983 Swedish distinguishes between maternal and paternal grandparents in an agglutinatinative fashion. Mormor = mother's mother Farmor = father's mother etc. I'd like to ask anyone who knows languages spoken (or formerly spoken) by cultures with a heavily tribal-based society to describe the kinship terms available in those languages (e.g. Irish and a host of Asian, Australian, African and Amerindian languages). In particular, What kinds of relationships bewteen clans and tribal subdivisions exist? ----Rick Dinitz (...!uiucdsc!uicsl!dinitz)