10 ms·
That is interesting. In many English speaking cultures children will informally refear to their mother's parents and father's parents by different names even if
by teruakohatu 3y ago
That is interesting. In many English speaking cultures children will informally refear to their mother's parents and father's parents by different names even if formally they are both "grandmother", "grandfather" or "grandparent". I like that in China they formalised the names.
- Svip 3y agoScandinavian languages have the same. »Mormor« (lit. mum mum) means maternal grandmother, while »farmor« (lit. dad mum) means paternal grandmother. Unfortunately, it doesn't appear to continue beyond that (so no »mormormor«).
- tobr 3y ago“Mormorsmor” is a Swedish word. https://svenska.se/saol/?sok=mormorsmor https://svenska.se/saol/?sok=mormorsmor
- hyggetrold 3y agoDanish: after “mormor” there is “oldemor.” After that you put “tip” in front just like “great” in English.
- daneel_w 3y agoThere is gammelfarmor, gammelmorfar etc., but those indeed lose track of what side of the family they are on.
- henrikschroder 3y agoSure do, you can just keep stacking, almost like in English. But where English just has "great great grandmother", In Swedish you can specify exactly which one of the eight people you mean, was it your "mormors farmor" or your "farmors mormor" perhaps? Or I could say something like my "farfars farfars mormors mormors morfars morfars farfar" was a Walloon immigrant to Sweden in the early 1600's, unlike my "farfars farfars farfars farfars farfars far" who was a German immigrant to Sweden in the late 1600's. However, in practice, it's very rare for people three generations back or more to be alive, so most people only have one or two of these, if any at all, and people usually prepend "gammel-" (lit. "old") in front. So if you have a "gammelfarmor", that's either your father's father's mother, or your father's mother's mother, or your mother's father's mother for example.
- lainga 3y agoRelated question (not really!) - two dads or moms - who should be called what?
- lynguist 3y agoNot an issue: You already have two grandfathers and two grandmothers, how do you call them?
- lainga 3y agoI'm not sure I follow, I don't want my kids calling me "grandpa"...
- ziofill 3y agoA+ I’m so going to steal this.
- xboxnolifes 3y agoWhile I called my grandmothers by different names, I called both my grandfathers the same name. They were never in the same room together, so it was never an issue.
- smeej 3y agoI called all three of my grandfathers (mom's parents divorced and remarried long before I was born) "Grandpa" to their faces, but if I spoke about "Grandpa" at dinner, I still needed a way to specify which one.
- robofanatic 3y agoEven "Uncle". In english, Mom's brother and Dad's brother both are uncles ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- zarzavat 3y agoAlso mom's sister's husband and dad's sister's husband. You can have a mother-in-law, a brother-in-law, a son-in-law, but there's no such thing as an uncle-in-law.
- retsibsi 3y ago> Also mom's sister's husband and dad's sister's husband. I'm curious to know how common this is. It was always the norm for me, but sometimes I got the feeling I had accidentally mislead people when talking about my 'uncle' (Mum's sister's husband), whom they expected to be a blood relative of mine.
- Jiocus 3y agoLike others noted in the thread about grandparents, in Scandinavia we'd say morbror (mother-brother) and farbror (father-brother). What's fun though is that 'farbror' can also be used (in Swedish) for any neutral/kindly spirited or acquainted old man, so maybe we're not too practical after all.
- munificent 3y ago> What's fun though is that 'farbror' can also be used (in Swedish) for any neutral/kindly spirited or acquainted old man, so maybe we're not too practical after all. English has "avuncular" as an adjective to describe any friendly uncle-like person.
- robofanatic 3y agoIt's similar in most Indian languages. There are specific words for mom/dad side uncles and aunts. Also most of times same words are used for their friends or any known female/male that is around the same age group as mom/dad.
- fiddlerwoaroof 3y agoThere’s also the phrases “{paternal,maternal} {grand{father,mother},uncle,aunt}”
- kulahan 3y agoThe list is blowing my mind. A word for your mom's sibling's daughter if she's older than you, and another one if she's younger? What a dense piece of data!