Re: Words for family groups

In Navajo, the same word is used for "grandchild" and "grandparent."
It must sound something like "bInali", because it gave rise to my
stepfather's surname, "Benally."


Ed Heil -------------------------------- edheil@postmark.net
             "QuchwIj Dayachqang'a' bang-wIj?"
        (KHOOCH-widge da-YATCH-kang-a BANG-widge?)
       Klingon for "Want to stroke my forehead, babe?"
------------------------------------------------------------

Christophe Grandsire wrote:

> 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
>