Kinship terms have been widely analyzed across languages, which often make quite different distinctions. We broke English kinship terms down into Generation, Sex and Lineage earlier, but to translate terms from other languages we will need to add additional semantic components.
We will outline KinDEEP (KINship Distinctive Elements, Exhaustive Profile) here, a detailed framework for defining kinship terms from different languages. KinDEEP has semantic components for Generation, Lineage, Sex, Side Of Family, Relative Birth Order and Person.
The value for Generation is any number, with 0 indicating the base or current generation, negative numbers indicating ancestors of the base generation, and positive numbers indicating descendants.
One of the more unusual kinship terms in the world is maili, from Njamal, an Australian aborigine language. The word maili means "any relative two generations distant", such as a father's father (two generations before) or a daughter's son's wife's sister (two generations after). KinDEEP expresses this as simply {Generation: +2}{Generation: -2}.
As described in the main article, Lineage can be either Direct, Colineal or Ablineal.
Sex is either Male, Female or Corresponding.
The atom Corresponding is necessary to analyze some Hawaiian terms. For instance, the Hawaiian word kaikaina means "younger sibling of the same sex as the referent". So a man's kaikaina would be his younger brother; a woman's kaikaina would be her younger sister.
Languages often make distinctions between the sides of a family, such as maternal, paternal, step- and half-. The semantic component of Side of Family can take any of these values: {Maternal}, {Paternal}, {Step}, {Half} and {Honorary}.
One difference might be as simple as distinguishing between a mother's brother and a father's brother, as Latin and many other European languages do. Latin has two different words for "uncle" depending on the exact relationship, avunculus for "mother's brother" and patruus for "father's brother". Thus Latin lacks one word to collectively describe what we think of as "uncle" (how did schoolchildren cry "surrender!" we wonder?) or -- for that matter -- "aunt". Like Old French, other Romance languages lost this distinction, adopting the maternal terms to refer to either side of the family; thus, Modern French has oncle and tante, which were adopted into English as uncle and aunt respectively, displacing the Old English tradition of referring to this generation as "father's brother", "mother's sister", etc.
Just as Latin has no single words for either "uncle" or "aunt", Swedish has no single words equivalent to either "grandmother" or "grandfather", but must specify which side of the family the relationship is through. Swedish does this concisely, using far to mean "father", mor to mean "mother", for:
Interestingly, however, Swedish does not use mor and far by themselves for "mother" and "father" respectively, using moder and fader for that instead. No sense taking logic to far in a natural language! (I am not aware of any other European language that distinguishes between maternal and paternal grandparents.)
Besides referring to the maternal or paternal side of a family, it is also possible to refer to other blood distinctions, especially those regarding re-marriage. English uses the prefix step- to refer to relatives related only by re-marriage, not blood, as in the evil stepmother (which is not redundant) and the ungrateful stepdaughter, for instance. English uses the suffix -in-law to refer to relatives related by marriage, as in the evil mother-in-law and the ungrateful daughter-in-law. When all this familial love becomes too much to bear, English uses ex- in front of many or all the other terms, so that you can refer to your ex-husband, your ex-stepdaughter, your ex-mother- in-law, even your ex-great-grandfather-in-law. But you're not likely to hear the terms ex-mother or ex-brother to describe estranged relatives...
English also uses the prefix half- to refer to children who share only one parent (half-brother and half-sister) but the term is not used to refer to other relatives (no *half-mother, *half-grandson).
Families often have unofficial members, as English recognizes by encouraging the use of Aunt and Uncle for close family friends of the same generation as a child's parents. I have an Uncle Bill and Aunt Jill, close friends of my parents' from their college days, who were the only honorary parentsibs that I had. To support this almost metaphoric use of Aunt and Uncle, KinDEEP uses the value {Honorary} as part of the semantic component of Side Of Family.
Japanese also makes distinctions of another variety, distinguishing between younger and elder siblings. For instance, ane, "older sister"; ani, "older brother"; oto/to, "younger brother"; imo/to, "younger sister". Of course, these words also have first- and second-person forms.
In total, therefore, Japanese has six words for "brother", with separate words making the following distinctions:
KinDEEP has the semantic component {Relative Birth Order}, with values for {Older} and {Younger}.
In natural languages, this distinction is almost always used for siblings, but KinDEEP extends it for the common siblings of any generation, making it easy to express terms such as "younger uncle", for instance.
The Japanese are strongly oriented around family and ancestry, and accordingly their language is richer in kinship terms than English. One of the distinctions Japanese makes is that it has separate forms for "my relative" and "your or other's relatives". For instance, mago is "my grandson"; omagosan is "your grandson". Think of this as a combination pronoun/kinship term, with the term specifying either first person ("my") or second person ("your"). All of Japanese' second-person forms end in the -san suffix or a variant of it. The base word may be different, as in haha for "my mother" but oka/san for "your mother" (rather than *hahasan).
Therefore, KinDEEP recognizes the semantic component Person, with values of {First} and {Second}. It would be easy to suggest a third-person form -- e.g., "their mother" -- but I am not aware of any language that makes this distinction.
The following table provides a framework to present the kinship terms of many different languages. If you have a term from a language that does not fit, please pass it on!
When you create your own model language, you can decide which components you want to include. A typical minimal profile involves just three components, as in English's use of Generation, Lineage and Sex, though it is easy to imagine a language that does not distinguish between terms based on sex.
KinDEEP (KINship Distinctive Elements, Exhaustive Profile) is actually exhausting, rather than exhaustive! For instance, it fails to have terms that have been enabled by reproductive science: the womb-mother (she carried the child of another in her womb), the egg-donor (she provided the egg that was fertilized and carried by the womb-mother), the caretaker-mother who actually raised the child but was not biologically related, the sperm donor and caretaker-father!
| L. | Language: | D = Danish, E = English, H = Hawaiian, J = Japanese, L = Latin, M = Malay, N = Njamal (Australia), P = Pitjanjatjara (Australia), S = Swedish | |
| Gen. | Generation | ||
| Ln. | Lineage: | A = Ablineal, C = Colineal, D = Direct | |
| Sx. | Sex: | F = Female, M = Male, S = Corresponding | |
| Sid. | Side of Family | ||
| Per. | Person: | 1 = First, 2 = Second | |
| B. | Relative Birth Order: | O = Older, Y = Younger |
| E | great great grandparent | -4 | D | ||||
| E | great grandparent | -3 | D | ||||
| E | great aunt | -2 | A | F | |||
| S | mormor, maternal grandmother | -2 | D | F | maternal | ||
| S | farmor, paternal grandmother | -2 | D | F | paternal | ||
| E | grandmother | -2 | D | F | |||
| S | morfar, maternal grandfather | -2 | D | M | maternal | ||
| S | farfar, paternal grandfather | -2 | D | M | paternal | ||
| E | grandfather | -2 | D | M | |||
| E | grandparent | -2 | D | ||||
| L | amita, maternal aunt | -1 | A | F | maternal | ||
| P | kurntili, paternal aunt | -1 | A | F | paternal | ||
| L | matertera, paternal aunt | -1 | A | F | paternal | ||
| E | aunt | -1 | A | F | |||
| J | haha, my mother | -1 | D | F | 1 | ||
| J | okásan, your mother | -1 | D | F | 2 | ||
| E | mother | -1 | D | F | |||
| P | ngunytju, mother or mother's sister | -1 | D,A | F | maternal | ||
| E | "uncle", man of father's generation | -1 | A | M | honorary | ||
| P | kamura, maternal uncle | -1 | A | M | maternal | ||
| L | avunculus, maternal uncle | -1 | A | M | maternal | ||
| L | patruus, paternal uncle | -1 | A | M | paternal | ||
| E | uncle | -1 | A | M | |||
| E | father | -1 | D | M | |||
| P | mama, father or father's brother | -1 | D,A | M | paternal | ||
| E | father or uncle | -1 | D,A | M | |||
| E | parent's sibling | -1 | A | ||||
| E | parent | -1 | D | ||||
| D | kusine, female cousin | 0 | A | F | |||
| E | stepsister | 0 | C | F | half | ||
| E | stepsister | 0 | C | F | step | ||
| J | [N/A], my sister | 0 | C | F | 1 | ||
| J | [N/A], your sister | 0 | C | F | 2 | ||
| J | ane, older sister | 0 | C | F | O | ||
| J | imóto, younger sister | 0 | C | F | Y | ||
| E | sister | 0 | C | F | |||
| D | fætter, male cousin | 0 | A | M | |||
| E | stepbrother | 0 | C | M | half | ||
| E | stepbrother | 0 | C | M | step | ||
| J | [N/A], my brother | 0 | C | M | 1 | ||
| J | [N/A], your brother | 0 | C | M | 2 | ||
| J | ani, male older brother | 0 | C | M | O | ||
| J | otóto, male younger brother | 0 | C | M | Y | ||
| E | brother | 0 | C | M | |||
| H | kaikaina, younger sibling of my gender | 0 | C | S | Y | ||
| E | cousin, child of aunt or uncle | 0 | A | ||||
| E | sibling | 0 | C | ||||
| M | [N/A], sibling or cousin | 0 | |||||
| E | daughter | 1 | D | F | |||
| E | son | 1 | D | M | |||
| E | cousin, first cousin once removed | 1 | A | ||||
| E | offspring | 1 | D | ||||
| E | granddaughter | 2 | D | F | |||
| J | mago, my grandson | 2 | D | M | 1 | ||
| J | omagosan, your grandson | 2 | D | M | 2 | ||
| E | grandson | 2 | D | M | |||
| E | grandchild | 2 | D | ||||
| E | family, parents and siblings | [-1,0] | D,C | ||||
| E | ancestor | [ | |||||
| E | descendant | [>0] | |||||
| N | maili, anyone two generations removed | [2,-2] | |||||
| E | cousin, relative from common ancestor* | A | |||||
| E | cousin, member of kindred group | honorary | |||||
| E | cousin, relative by blood or marriage | ||||||
| E | relative | ||||||
| E | kin |
For my model language Sen:esepera, which is designed to fulfill the role of an interlanguage for use by people of all the world's linguistic backgrounds, I chose a maximally expressive way of forming kinship terms. All kinship terms are compounded from roots representing each symantic component and its atoms, as shown in the following table.
| excl. | excl. | excl. | incl. | excl. | incl. |
| my | male | paternal | -3 | older | direct |
| your | female | maternal | -2 | younger | ablineal |
| corres. | half- | -1 | colineal | ||
| step- | 0 | unspecified | |||
| honorary | 1 | ||||
| 2 | |||||
| 3 | |||||
| imun | eman | pam | intensin | tempan | pa |
| tun | fem | fam | inten | im:tempan | ta |
| sim | duen | in | sa | ||
| tepim | u | coganta | |||
| belim | dim | ||||
| dimin | |||||
| diminten | |||||
[afo:] before intensin, diminten means "great-"
[afo:] before in, dim means "all" (e.g., "afo:in"
means "all ancestors")
Thus an English speaker can talk about his cousin, u:ta in Sen:esepera, if that is the term he is most comfortable with, while a Dutch speaker can talk about her nicht ("female cousin"), fem:u:ta in Sen:esepera, if that is the term she is most comfortable with. The word fem:u:ta will stand out to the English-speaker reading Sen:esepera, who does not habitually make the distinction of sex for cousin, but he will immediately know the meaning of the word.
| afo:intensin:pa | great great grandparent | -4 | D | |||||
| intensin:pa | great grandparent | -3 | D | |||||
| fem:inten:ta | great aunt | -2 | F | A | ||||
| fem:fam:inten:pa | maternal grandmother | -2 | F | D | mater | |||
| fem:pam:inten:pa | paternal grandmother | -2 | F | D | pater | |||
| fem:inten:pa | grandmother | -2 | F | D | ||||
| eman:fam:inten:pa | maternal grandfather | -2 | M | D | mater | |||
| eman:pam:inten:pa | paternal grandfather | -2 | M | D | pater | |||
| eman:inten:pa | grandfather | -2 | M | D | ||||
| inten:pa | grandparent | -2 | D | |||||
| fem:fam:in:ta | maternal aunt | -1 | F | A | mater | |||
| fem:pam:in:ta | paternal aunt | -1 | F | A | pater | |||
| fem:pam:in:ta | paternal aunt | -1 | F | A | pater | |||
| fem:in:ta | aunt | -1 | F | A | ||||
| imun:fem:in:pa | my mother | -1 | F | D | 1 | |||
| tun:fem:in:pa | your mother | -1 | F | D | 2 | |||
| fem:in:pa | mother | -1 | F | D | ||||
| fem:fam:in:ta:pa | mother or mother's sister | -1 | F | D,A | mater | |||
| eman:belim:in:ta | man of father's generation | -1 | M | A | honor | |||
| eman:fam:in:ta | maternal uncle | -1 | M | A | mater | |||
| eman:fam:in:ta | maternal uncle | -1 | M | A | mater | |||
| eman:pam:in:ta | paternal uncle | -1 | M | A | pater | |||
| eman:in:ta | uncle | -1 | M | A | ||||
| eman:in:pa | father | -1 | M | D | ||||
| eman:pam:in:ta:pa | father or father's brother | -1 | M | D,A | pater | |||
| eman:in:ta:pa | father or uncle | -1 | M | D,A | ||||
| in:ta | parent's sibling | -1 | A | |||||
| in:pa | parent | -1 | D | |||||
| fem:u:ta | female cousin | 0 | F | A | ||||
| fem:duen:u:sa | stepsister | 0 | F | C | half | |||
| fem:tepim:u:sa | stepsister | 0 | F | C | step | |||
| imun:fem:u:sa | my sister | 0 | F | C | 1 | |||
| tun:fem:u:sa | your sister | 0 | F | C | 2 | |||
| fem:u:tempan:sa | older sister | 0 | F | C | O | |||
| fem:u:im:tempan:sa | younger sister | 0 | F | C | Y | |||
| fem:u:sa | sister | 0 | F | C | ||||
| eman:u:ta | male cousin | 0 | M | A | ||||
| eman:duen:u:sa | stepbrother | 0 | M | C | half | |||
| eman:tepim:u:sa | stepbrother | 0 | M | C | step | |||
| imun:eman:u:sa | my brother | 0 | M | C | 1 | |||
| tun:eman:u:sa | your brother | 0 | M | C | 2 | |||
| eman:u:tempan:sa | male older brother | 0 | M | C | O | |||
| eman:u:im:tempan:sa | male younger brother | 0 | M | C | Y | |||
| eman:u:sa | brother | 0 | M | C | ||||
| sim:u:im:tempan:sa | younger sibling of my gender | 0 | S | C | Y | |||
| u:ta | child of aunt or uncle | 0 | A | |||||
| u:sa | sibling | 0 | C | |||||
| u:coganta | sibling or cousin | 0 | ||||||
| fem:dim:pa | daughter | 1 | F | D | ||||
| eman:dim:pa | son | 1 | M | D | ||||
| dim:ta | first cousin once removed | 1 | A | |||||
| dim:pa | offspring | 1 | D | |||||
| fem:dimin:pa | granddaughter | 2 | F | D | ||||
| imun:eman:dimin:pa | my grandson | 2 | M | D | 1 | |||
| tun:eman:dimin:pa | your grandson | 2 | M | D | 2 | |||
| eman:dimin:pa | grandson | 2 | M | D | ||||
| dimin:pa | grandchild | 2 | D | |||||
| in:ta:o:u:sa | parents and siblings | [-1,0] | D,C | |||||
| afo:in:coganta | ancestor | [ | ||||||
| afo:dim:coganta | descendant | [>0] | ||||||
| inten:dimin:coganta | anyone two generations removed | [2,-2] | ||||||
| ta | relative from common ancestor* | A | ||||||
| belim:coganta | member of kindred group or nati | honor | ||||||
| coganta | relative by blood or marriage | |||||||
| coganta | relative | |||||||
| coganta | kin |