Re: OT: Language & clans? Re: OT: Ukraine

Mark J. Reed wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 30, 2004 at 03:31:37PM -0500, John Cowan wrote:
>
>>It's probably true that all kinship systems have distinct terms for
>>father, mother, son, daughter, brother, and sister, plus terms for
>>more distant kin, but exactly which subset of relatives can be called
>>by any of these terms is very variable.  There are even systems in
>>which kinship terms are used reciprocally in certain cases: you call
>>your <whatever> by the same word he or she calls you.
>
>
> e.g. English "cousin".   After all, I'm the first cousin twice removed
> of my first cousin twice removed, even though we are different
> generations (hypothetically, she may be my grandparents' or
> grandchildrens' generation, although in reality the latter is as yet
> empty in my family.)
I understood John's statement to mean that there exist kinship systems where
all kinship terms are reciprocal, rather then "there exist kinship systems
where there exist terms that are reciprocal". I'm intruiged now as to whether
that's what he meant. It wouldn't seem to fit into the Sudanese-Hawaiian-
Eskimo-Iroquois-Omaha-Crow (SHEIOC? SHECIO? HESICO? SEHICO?) classification,
but maybe it's more a feature of discourse, rather than  of the underlying
kinship system.

s.
--
Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of      Stephen Mulraney
matter at or near the earth's surface relative to       http://ataltane.net
other matter; second, telling other people            ataltane@ataltane.net
to do so.         --  Bertrand Russell     http://livejournal.com/~ataltane

Replies