Re: Kinship terminology

On Tue, Sep 12, 2000 at 09:09:50PM -0400, Nik wrote:
> Adrian Morgan wrote:
[snip]
> (and another thing - the lack of a generic for "parent's sibling" is
> irritating).
[snip]

Ummm.... that's one of the things I LIKE about English... trust me, you do
NOT want a system like in Chinese culture, where every relative, close or
distant, is addressed by a different term. (And in family reunions, people
have this annoying habit of "testing" you to see if you remembered what
you're supposed to call them.) The brothers of your father and the sisters
of your father are called by two *different* terms; and their respective
spouses, and their spouses' parents and siblings are *each* called
differently. And THEN, the brothers and sisters of your mother are called
by two different terms totally different from anything on the father's
side, and *their* respective spouses, spouses' parents/siblings, all have
a different term.

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
(grandchildren of your grandparents' siblings -- and again, different
terms are used depending on whether you're related through a grandfather
or a grandmother, and whether it's your father's parents or your
mother's.)

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.

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. Why bother with all these complex,
convoluted "precise" terms which nobody ever remembers anyway?? And it's
not a matter of laziness to memorize these things -- Chinese families are
traditionally very large (e.g., my grandparents had 9 children and that's
considered *small* by traditional Chinese standards!!), and after a few
generations, it's no joke that you actually have to remember all of these
different terms because you gotta use them for each of your 100
relatives...

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


T