Re: Kinship terminology

"H. S. Teoh" wrote:
> And this is just the beginning... you have a whole other set of terms to
> refer to your "close" cousins (ie. children of your father's siblings or
> children of your mother's siblings, which are addressed *differently*
> from each other!), and THEN, another set for "distant" cousins
Well, we have the ability, "first cousin", "second cousin", etc., but
they're usually just called "cousin".

IMHO, there's an advantage in having that optionality.  If need be, you
can specify "my second cousin once removed" or you can just say "cousin"
if you don't need that preciseness.

And then, on the opposite of the uncle/aunt problem, the word for their
children doesn't even have *optional* gender!  It's all just "cousin".
:-)

> And to make things worse, a whole other set of terms are used for
> step-parents and relatives of step-parents, and so on, ad infinitum.
Completely unrelated to the words for parents?  I had no idea that
remarriage was so common in Chinese society.

> IMHO, the English system is the best. The fact that you acknowledge a
> relative by calling them aunt/uncle/cousin/whatever is, IMHO, sufficient
> to show them the respect due.
Well, I still think there should be at least an optional way of
distinguishing blood-relatives from marriage-relatives.  Not to mention
a generic for uncle/aunt.  All relatives should have male/female/epicene
forms, I think.

> (Of course, all this rant doesn't mean I won't create a similar system in
> my conlang... <evil g>)
But of course!  :-)

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