Re: Words for relationships that don't have good analogues in English

Kelly Drinkwater wrote:
> On 10/19/07, Herman Miller <hmiller@...> wrote:
>> But so far all I have is a tiny vocabulary for Zireen sexual
>> relationships in Yasaro, and these don't go across well in English: ruké
>> [z`u_R.ki], jáđi [j\a_F.n_di], and thíla [t_di_F.la]. The typical adult
>> Yasaro speaker of breeding age has one ruké and one jáđi. Both could be
>> translated "husband" or "wife", and both are long-term stable
>> relationships. One prototypical Yasaro family includes two pairs of ruké
>> in a jáđi relationship with each other. I.e.
>>
>>    M - jáđi - F
>>    |          |
>> ruké       ruké
>>    |          |
>>    F - jáđi - M
>>
>> Thíla is a long-term relationship of a more auxiliary nature, and it's
>> not uncommon to have more than one of them; they often take the place of
>> a ruké or jáđi in their absence. Of course, many other stable family
>> arrangements are possible, and there's a whole range of more casual or
>> temporary relationships, which can get rather complicated, but I haven't
>> really thought much about them.
>>
>
> What's the difference between the ruké and jáđi relationships? Are
> there situations where the relationships between all four people are
> roughly the same? Is there a term for the relationships along the
> diagonals of your square -- the M-M and F-F ones?
Ruké tends to be a closer or more primary relationship. In the case of
the typical two-pair family illustrated above, each pair may share a
room, and often travel together, while any of the potential male-female
pairs may get together to have children. In this family pattern, the
unmarked relationships would be considered "brothers" or "sisters".

Another traditional family pattern involves an endless chain; older
members retiring on one end, and newer members marrying into the family
on the other end, where the older members are ruké to the younger ones,
and the younger ones are jáđi to the older ones.

   >> ruké >>    >> ruké >>    >> ruké >>
M            F             M             F
   << jáđi <<    << jáđi <<    << jáđi <<

Then things get complicated if you have branches, irregular numbers, or
families with same-sex relationships. So there isn't a fixed definition
of these words that fits in all cases. The only general rule (with only
rare exceptions) is that everyone involved has at most one ruké and one
jáđi; any other relationships within the group are thíla. So, in the
case where all relationships within a group are effectively symmetrical,
they would all be thíla relationships. Unless there are only three
members of the family group, in which case other possibilities might
include:

    >> ruké >>     >> ruké >>         >> ruké >>     >> ruké >>
F  << jáđi <<  M  << jáđi << F    M  << jáđi <<  F  << jáđi << M
  \                          /      \                          /
   \_____>> jáđi >>_________/        \_____>> jáđi >>_________/
         << ruké <<                        << ruké <<

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