Re: Words for family groups

Irina Rempt-Drijfhout <ira@...> wrote:

>On Sun, 23 May 1999, Sally Caves wrote:
>
>> I've always lamented the absence, in English, of being
>> able to distinguish your male cousin from your female cousine.
>
>(taking a break from working on a frabjous table with Valdyan
>letters and IPA - an awful lot of work but it seems that the result
>will be worth it)
>
>Dutch does distinguish between male and female (neef/nicht) but not
>between nieces/nephews and cousins: I'm my aunt's "nicht", my
>cousin's "nicht", my great-uncle's "achternicht" and also my second
>or third cousin's "achternicht" (meaning cousins of my parents or
>those cousins' children).
>
>Cousins of my parents are my "achterneef" and "achternicht" as
>well, even though they're one generation higher up than I am.
The terms for cousins in Boreanesian is an interesting case - if I
may say so myself. To Boreanesians, parallel cousins are labelled by
the same kinship term as brother or sister. Cross cousins on the
other hand are labelled differently, and depending on who ego is,
are the same terms for (potential) husband or wife.

This is due to two things; 1) the Boreanesian kinship system follows
the Iroquois classificatory system, and 2) Boreanesians used to
practice (and some still do in tiny isolated villages) a system of
village endogamous cross cousin marriages.

I wrote about all this before (I think it was on conculture), but
I'll gladly repost the details on Boreanesian kinship if anyone
wants a more detailed explanation.

-kristian- 8-)