4 ms·
I don't speak Armenian, but I dated an Armenian woman once, and she told me they have words for familial relationships that we didn't really have concepts for i
by oceanghost 3y ago
I don't speak Armenian, but I dated an Armenian woman once, and she told me they have words for familial relationships that we didn't really have concepts for in English.
- flangola7 3y agoLike what? English already has all the "twice removed" and other definitions that no one actually uses.
- davidgay 3y agoNot Armenian, but, e.g., Bulgarian has a distinct name for the relation of two husbands of (not in-law) sisters. In English, that's just one of the "brother in-law" cases. On the whole, Bulgarian has far more such relationship words than English.
- eitland 3y agoI am fairly sure English doesn't have (or at least does not use) separate everyday words for farmor/farfar (fathers mother / fathers mother) or mormor/morfar (same for mothers parents). Sure in academic language there is probably a way to describe it (edit: and the concept is easy to explain) but there is nothing quick that you can use to tell a kid so they immediately know which of the grandparents we are going to visit without naming them or the location they live in somehow? Even among the words that do exist, like "siblings", I have a feeling that in some dialects or sociolects it isn't used and people say "brothers and sisters" instead. (I'm not sure about this last one but I have worked with a lot of English and American people over the years and it does feel this way).
- hervature 3y agoI can't tell if this is serious. I don't even know which language you're using but it is literally no different than mom's mom and dad's mom other than a space.
- eitland 3y agoIt is Norwegian. And it is serious. And I am not saying the concept doesn't exist, only that as far as I am aware there is no usable everyday word for it. I mean: nobody will tell their kids they are going to visit dads mum and dads dad next week, rather than telling them they are going to visit grandma and granddad "across the country" or something?
- mjochim 3y agoThings like this can be highly family-specific. A friend of mine (German) says that in his family, his grandmothers are distinguished as "Oma" and "Omi". Which are both generic German words for any grandmother, but in his family, they are more specific. Like names. Another friend, they used "Oma" and "Großmutter" (a third generic word) to distinguish the two. So there must certainly be families in the English-speaking world where kids commonly say "dad's dad" and "mom's dad". Even when unlike in Scandinavian languages, it's not the canonical form.
- msrenee 3y agoI think it's more common to call them Grandma and Grandpa Lastname or Grandma Firstname and Grandpa Firstname. I've also seen it where one set of grandparents are Grandma and Grandpa and the other set is Nana and Papa or Mimi and Pop Pop or whatever set of less formal terms they use for the relations. I'm not sure I've met anyone who doesn't have more familiar terms than dad's mom and mom's mom. They're probably out there, but not super common.
- robertlagrant 3y ago"What are you doing this weekend, little Timmy?" "One is repairing to the country where one will be enjoying the company of one's paternal grandmama and grandpapa."
- flangola7 3y agoRepairing?
- eterm 3y agoEnglish has "Paternal grandmother" and "Maternal grandmother" for example, it's just not often used and isn't turned into a compound word.
- eitland 3y agoBut you wouldn't tell your kid: we are going to visit your paternal grandmother, right? That is the distinction I tried to make above between academic and everyday language.
- kawhah 3y agoEnglish doesn't have any way of distinguishing between my wife's sister, my brother's wife, and my wife's brother's wife. They are all sisters-in-law. But these 3 relationships are very different for many people in practice. My wife's sister grew up with someone I'm very close to and unlike most other relatives I can't usually badmouth her to my wife. My brother's wife is someone who, like my wife, entered as an adult into a family which I and my brother have always been part of and so might feel threatened by our closeness. And my wife's brother's wife is someone who I can bond with over "we both married into this crazy family and are not really like the rest of them". And then from my kid's point of view, not only are these all 'auntie' but so is my very own sister.
- Agentlien 3y agoIn Swedish our words for many relationships follow a very simple system of composing relationships. A few examples: Mor = mother Far = father Bror = brother Morfar = mother's father Farfar = father's father Farmor = father's mother Farfar = father's father Farbror = father's brother Morbror = mother's brother ...
- blablablerg 3y agoBrorbror.. your brother's brother?
- onionisafruit 3y agoMy other brother Darryl
- xyproto 3y agoBrorbror and brorbrorbror could be any of the brothers, including yourself.
- lubutu 3y agoThe same is true in Norwegian, but then they go and ruin it all with "oldemor" = "great grandmother", instead of persisting with e.g. "mormormor".
- mgrund 3y agoAt least in danish, we have “bedstemor” which behaves likes “oldemor” in being the mother or fathers mom so it’s really that form that is consistent with the system and not the parent-specific forms.
- kitd 3y agoIn the midnight hour, she cried ....
- Sporktacular 3y agoNice.