Re: Words for family groups

On Thu, 20 May 1999, FFlores wrote:

>    "A is the father of B"
>    "B is the son of A"
> ==> "A and B are *X"
> I'd like to know if this sounds likely and natural
> (if some natlang has it, preferably).
>
        I don't know any natlang that have it but I find it not unlikely. In fact,
I use that kind of word in Tj'a-ts'a~n to denote the relationship between a
father and his child. The root used is ~bsoj, and it is used:
- by the father when refering to his child,
- by the child refering to its father,
- as the name of the relation between father and child,
- by other people exactly as you do it Pablo, except that in this case,
"father", "son" and "*X" can be exactly the same (as it can be very
ambiguous, it's in fact your last sentence, with "*X", which is most used).

        Why such a word exist in Tj'a-ts'a~n? Just because of the matriarchal
system of the Sky People. The words used to refer to family relatives only
refer to the mother's family (as the child has never anything to do with
its father's family), but as the father (which doesn't belong to the
mother's family) also raises the child, there must a word to refer to him,
and a word for him to refer to his child.

                                                        Christophe Grandsire
                                                |Sela Jemufan Atlinan C.G.

"Reality is just another point of view."

homepage : http://www.bde.espci.fr/homepage/Christophe.Grandsire/index.html