> It sounds interesting. Unfortunately my computer can't read Word docs.
> Maybe image files? And the pdf is coming up blank, so I can't even see that.
>
> Jeff
>
> On Sun, 28 Dec 2008 01:24:24 -0500, Amanda Babcock Furrow
> <langs@...> wrote:
>
>>Wanting to beef up mërèchi for possible use in a reverse relay, I set out
>>to fill out the kinship terminology. I realized the first task was to
>>choose a kinship system. Next, I changed it up and added (I thought) a
>>dimension (ANADEW, as it turns out), and made it more baroque than my
>>sources, as is the mërèchi way.
>>
>>The result is diagrammed in two Word documents (I know, v. lame, is there
>>an open-source general diagram-drawing program superior to Word's
> AutoShapes?)
>>presenting a full set of grandparents' descendants for a male and a female
>>"ego" (plus some great-grandparents). The basic kinship system I was
>>inspired by was the Iroquois, but with an additional dimension (beyond
>>gender, generation and cross-ness) of relative age whenever siblings are
>>involved. (I considered also marking relative age between endpoints, but
>>decided not to.) I was also keeping in mind that the Dravidian system,
>>said to be a version of the Iroquois, permitted uncle-niece marriage as
>>a type of cross-cousin marriage, which informed my choices about how to
>>represent older branches versus younger branches of the tree.
>>
>>(Tonight I found a fuller description of actual practice among most
>>Dravidian groups said to be using the "Dravidian" system, which indeed
>>does use relative age, and takes it a step farther than I had done -
>>using both seniority-between-parent-and-their-sibling, which I do use,
>>and seniority-between-endpoints, which I didn't, and the system described
>>therein looks fully as complex, though for different reasons, as what I
>>ended up with; at
http://www.csas.ed.ac.uk/fichiers/GOOD_Kinship.pdf
>>for the curious.)
>>
>>I constructed my system along the basic principles that: younger siblings,
>>and relatives reached via younger siblings, are generally referred to by
>>terms which indicate relative gender but not absolute gender; elder
>>siblings, and relatives reached via elder siblings, are generally referred
>>to by terms which indicate absolute rather than relative gender, as a
>>mark of respect; and marriagable cousins have more specific names (all
>>gender-specific) than either parallel or same-gender cousins. Parental-
>>child (and grandparental) names indicate same-genderedness where it exists
>>and also mark gender, thus creating kinds of children, parents and
>>grandparents which can only exist in relationship to one gender or the other.
>>
>>I'm afraid I don't have time tonight to describe the whole system in
>>words, but the charts are at
>>
http://www.quandary.org/~langs/merechi/kinship.tomo.doc for the view from
>>the male viewpoint, and
>>
http://www.quandary.org/~langs/merechi/kinship.tora.doc for the view from
>>the female viewpoint.
>>
>>A few points are not obvious in the chart:
>>
>>. double-ended arrows connect the main, bolded person's parents to their
>> positions among their siblings; each parent is represented twice
>>. grandparents refer to grandchildren as children
>>. relatives by marriage are referred to by the blood-relative's name or
>> title followed by the suffix -dòna for a junior spouse, or -íntat
>> for a senior spouse
>>. the suffix -nídit on a name or title refers to that person's entire
>> descendant tree
>>. the suffix -sèbit on a name or title refers to that person's entire
>> same-gender descendant tree (plus opposite-gender leaf nodes)
>>. the list of marriagable cousins is: cöpíli, úpla, pilúla, súmli, damúl,
>> and símpë
>>. the list of unmarriagable cousins is: mísë, sasàtë, kanlí, mèlë,
>> löpàla, simílë
>>
>>And that's all for tonight.
>>
>>tylakèhlpë'fö,
>>Amanda
>