What kind of uncle am I?

re: What kind of uncle am I?

l duvall — Mon, 04 May 2009 01:05:22 GMT

I have yet to read this, but I SHALL! It is a question that has nagged at the depths of my mind for a long time - and it kind of fits into the conundrums I have when trying to understand relationships when talking with friends from other countries and cultures.

Thanks! (I think)

re: What kind of uncle am I?

Cooney — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 01:34:03 GMT

@Abishek

>>>>

@Cooney: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanskrit#Influence

"Words originating in Sanskrit are estimated to constitute roughly fifty percent of the vocabulary of modern Indo-Aryan languages, and the literary forms of (Dravidian) Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada."

<<<<

This is the part that doesn't jive. From reading some stuff on linguistics, it appears that the influence flowed the other way, and that the image of sanskrit as some holy tongue (well, it is) with dravidian being a common or degraded form of it was promulgated by a bunch of priests who happened to be the first guys that european anthropologists talked to back in the 19th ct.

Further, from looking at available information on the region, I would say that unbiased info is hard to come by and frequently unavailable; the best methods seem to be to regard all biased sources as liars until supported through what is basically linguistic archaeology.

It reminds me of trying to map out the history of japanese martial arts styles - you end up with a big hairball full of people claiming to be the one true master of some obscure style.

re: What kind of uncle am I?

Keith B — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 18:19:08 GMT

The beset cousins diagram I ever saw (and the one that made it click for me) is:

http://www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/arts/anthropology/tutor/descent/cognatic/collateral.html#cousins

If you explore that set of pages a bit, there's talk about how different cultures title things.

re: What kind of uncle am I?

阿皮 — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 17:01:03 GMT

Using Google Translate (or Microsoft Translate) is the wrong tactic for Chinese. Using a Chinese-speaking person is good, but the explanations may be incomplete.

MDBG.net gives the following translation: eldest husband of paternal aunt.

http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?dss=1&wdrst=0&wdqchs=%E5%A4%A7%E5%A7%91%E4%B8%88

re: What kind of uncle am I?

Cheong — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 11:14:53 GMT

If it's just plain Chinese, the list of "Family-title" in the link is sufficient.

If your family happens to use certain other dialects, the list of family goes twice to 3-times longer... (I have some relatives that I can only speck how to address them, but never know the words to write them out...)

Also note that because of one-child policy, for most families the hierarchy would be much much simpler.

Re: What kind of uncle am I?

Abhishek — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 08:52:07 GMT

>> "The pronoun to address "You (respected form)" and "you (same aged person)" is present in all Sanskrit derived languages."

Don't forget the third pronoun to refer to a younger person or one of a lower status. For example, in Hindi, one would refer to an elder or one of a higher status with the pronoun "aap", a person of the same age/status with "tum", and a person of lesser age/status with "tu" (though "tu" can also be used in informal situations to refer to one's close friends, irrespective of age/status).

>> "I thought that Sanskrit was mostly a dead end and that most indian languages were dravidian"

@Cooney: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanskrit#Influence

re: What kind of uncle am I?

Andreas — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 00:28:45 GMT

While you're at it, fix the whole grandmother/grandfather issue in English.

Seriously talking about your third cousin twice removed isn't nearly as common as wanting to specify whether you talk about your maternal or paternal grandparents. For once Swedish has the ideal solution that English should adopt:

"Farfar" means father's father ("far" is the word for father), "Farmor" father's mother ("mor" is the word for mother), "Mormor" - mother's mother and "Morfar" mother's father. The nice thing is that (although not commonly used) these could in fact be stringed together for longer hierarchies: "Farmorfar" and so on.

This bug needs to be fixed ASAP.

re: What kind of uncle am I?

Lucas — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 23:22:57 GMT

me.Mother.Father.Brother.Daughter

me.Father.Sister.Son.Son

So these two persons would be calls cousins once removed in English? I learned to call them "primo segundo", literally "second cousin" in (Puerto Rican) Spanish.

So what you call Nth removed is for me (N+1)th cousin, which then means something different to you? Confusing...

And @Cooney, I think that can be said of any language by their native speakers.

re: What kind of uncle am I?

Cooney — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 21:31:28 GMT

[While you're at it, could you simplify the language some more? Like get rid of this irrelevant gender-specific crap and have a single gender-neutral pronoun. Oh, and the irrelevant verb tenses too. Actually, verb conjugation in general is pointless. And noun plurals are redundant. And the definite vs indefinite article is also irrelevant most of the time. They all drive native Chinese speakers nuts. -Raymond]

I dunno - english is a mushy mongrel. It's easy to be understood since almost anything goes, but there are a lot of habits (not rules) you have to learn in order to get really good at it. Also, you can usually tell someone's native tongue (or narrow it down) by observing which mistakes they make.

re: What kind of uncle am I?

Cooney — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 21:29:16 GMT

This is pretty cool - do the more complicated relations end up looking like path expressions?

> Nearly all Sanskrit derived languages have distinct words for "maternal uncle", "maternal aunt", "paternal uncle" and "paternal aunt"

I thought that Sanskrit was mostly a dead end and that most indian languages were dravidian - there's a fair amount of info on wikipedia, but it conflicts in part with some of what I know regarding language evolution around india.