Re: kinship terms (was Re: The pitfall of Chinese/Mandarin_

On Wed, Dec 12, 2001 at 08:36:21AM -0800, nicole dobrowolski wrote:
> --- Yoon Ha Lee froge sionk:
> >
> > ObConlang: Are there particular (a)symmetries in y'all's conlangs'
> > kinship
> > terms?  I haven't actually *devised* them, but I suspect that
> > Czevraqis
> > has more for the mother's side of the family as the speakers
> > generally
> > reckon descent matrilineally.
>
> so far narethanaal doesn't have many kinship terms... just the ones i
> use most often (parents and sister)... 'sister'=shalash and
> 'parents'=eziona... when referring to a singular parent it's just
> ezion... no specific word distinguishing mother or father...
[snip]

My conlang, despite its impoverished (i.e., as-yet non-existent)
vocabulary for kinship except for parents and children, actually have two
groups of terms for parents:

1)
        `ymai'  "Mother" (colloquial). Literally, carries the effect of
                "Mrs. Mother", _`y_ being the feminine proper name prefix.
        epai'   "Father" (colloquial). Literally, "Mr. Dad", _e_ being the
                masculine proper name prefix.

These two terms are idiosyncratic, since they are technically proper names
and not generic nouns. They only ever refer to one's *own* parents, never
to others' parents. (Hence native speakers like to use them as terms of
endearment, as in "*my* daddy!".)

2)
        bidi'   "Parent" (epicene). Refers to either parent. The plural,
                _3bidii'_ refers to both, obviously. (Or to parents in
                general.)
        bitii'  "mother" - feminine of _bidi'_. This is the general term
                for "mother", and can refer to anyone's mother.
        pii'di  "father" - masculine of _bidi'_. General term for
                "father".

These terms are a bit more technical, although they are the only way one
can refer to another's parent(s).

> similarly when i come up with a word for aunt/uncle it will be one
> word to encompass both genders...
Having gender built into my conlang is nice :-) I only have to coin one
root word in the epicene, and the more specific masculine/feminine forms
fall out naturally.

> i don't even want to worry about
> all the twice removed junk at this point... i don't use it often
> enough to care... my family is pretty liberal with the labeling of
> distant family members... most adult female relations are aunts
> (including some of my mom's very good friends who are not related)
> and same goes for adult male relations/husbands of my mother's
> friends...
[snip]

I think I'll stick with that too :-) It's much easier to remember, and
puts everyone on the same ground (no inadvertent/deliberate insults by
referring to a relative using a distant term rather than a close term,
such as the IMNSHO ugly distinction in the Chinese languages between
cousins on the father's male siblings side, and everyone else. Such
unnecessary discrimination, sheesh.)


T

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Computer: Don't point at me... you'll leave a mark on the screen!

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