Re: Kinterms In Your Conlangs (And Natlangs)
Posted: Thu Oct 20, 2011 6:32 pm
BTW Adpihi's kinship system is more Iroquois than Sudanese. I'll edit the post where I made the mistake.
WE ARE MOVING - see Ephemera
http://www.incatena.org/
el flokratisson wrote:This is the kinterm of "Flokrati":
family = ela
....
woman = janima
Latinist13 wrote:Is there any way to draw a family tree or kinship diagram in three dimensions to show polyamorous unions? That would make it easier for me to see any gaps in my conlang's kinship system.
That works great if nobody has more than two spice.Astraios wrote:Just put extra = signs around the person? I did that in the female Ego in the first picture.
The problem comes in that the wives are sisters and the husbands are brothers, and that the husbands are the women's paternal second cousins- the women's fathers are the maternal cross cousins of the men's mothers.TomHChappell wrote:Latinist13 wrote:Is there any way to draw a family tree or kinship diagram in three dimensions to show polyamorous unions? That would make it easier for me to see any gaps in my conlang's kinship system.That works great if nobody has more than two spice.Astraios wrote:Just put extra = signs around the person? I did that in the female Ego in the first picture.
But you need something more flexible for people with three or four or more marital partners.
(As long as you stick to the convention of having people in one generation all on the same horizontal level, with people of an earlier generation in levels above and those of later generations in levels below, it's going to be difficult to draw all the marriages of a person with more than two marriages.)
If there are five people each of whom is related to each of the other four, you can't draw that without having lines cross.
If there are two sets of three people, with each person in each set being related to each person in the other set, again you can't draw that without having lines cross.
You only need to show the most immediate relationships, those that you're already showing; namely, who is whose parent, who is whose child, and who is whose spouse.Latinist13 wrote:The problem comes in that the wives are sisters and the husbands are brothers, and that the husbands are the women's paternal second cousins- the women's fathers are the maternal cross cousins of the men's mothers.
x= male
o= female
Code: Select all
X Bob O Carol X Ted O Alice
|| || || ||
=================================
|
______________________________________________
| | | | |
X Dan O Ellen X Fred O Gladys X Henry
I have a confusion.Latinist13 wrote:Code: Select all
x-o | | o-x o-x-o x-o-x x-o-x | | | o-x-o
Code: Select all
X Abe===O Babs===X Chuck
|| || ||
O Dee===X Eddy===O Fanny
What about;Latinist13 wrote:^^^
The above are the most common marriage arrangements in my conculture.
I'm just wondering, nobody wrote:If there are more than two husbands, then one of them is likely to be "the dominant husband", and to sire all the offspring.
And, if there are more than two wives, then one of them is likely to be "the dominant wife" and only a child she bears can inherit.
Depending upon the arrangement, Abe might not necessarily be considered married to Fanny, nor Chuck to Dee. As far as the other arrangements are concerned it could, theoretically anyway, be:TomHChappell wrote:You only need to show the most immediate relationships, those that you're already showing; namely, who is whose parent, who is whose child, and who is whose spouse.Latinist13 wrote:The problem comes in that the wives are sisters and the husbands are brothers, and that the husbands are the women's paternal second cousins- the women's fathers are the maternal cross cousins of the men's mothers.
x= male
o= female
There's an indirect way also to show who is who's sibling, that you're already using. From the double horiziontal line representing a marriage, you draw a single vertical line to a (possibly long) single horizontal line representing the siblinghood of all that couple's children; then append each such child from that single horizontal line by another, shorter, single vertical line.
If every person in the marriage is regarded as married to every other person in the marriage, and every child of the marriage is regarded as the child of every person in the marriage, one way (don't know how easy it would be) to work things would be to draw a (possibly long) horizontal double line to represent the marriage, and adjoin the spouses from above to the marriage by a short vertical (possibly double) line.
Here's an example:Each of the five children (three sons, Dan, Fred, and Henry, and two daughters, Ellen and Gladys), has two fathers -- Bob and Ted -- and two mothers -- Carol and Alice. The diagram doesn't bother to tell whether a given child was biologically begotten by Bob or by Ted, nor whether a given child was borne by Carol or by Alice.Code: Select all
X Bob O Carol X Ted O Alice || || || || ================================= | ______________________________________________ | | | | | X Dan O Ellen X Fred O Gladys X Henry
Bob is married to Carol and to Ted and to Alice; Carol is married to Bob and to Ted and to Alice; Ted is married to Bob and to Carol and to Alice; and Alice is married to Bob and to Carol and to Ted.
Bob is Ted's brother and Ted is Bob's brother; Carol is Alice's sister and Alice is Carol's sister.
I have a confusion.Latinist13 wrote:Code: Select all
x-o | | o-x o-x-o x-o-x x-o-x | | | o-x-o
In your last diagram, suppose I give the particpants names;I understand Abe, Chuck and Eddy are each others' brothers, and Babs, Dee, and Fanny are each others' sisters.Code: Select all
X Abe===O Babs===X Chuck || || || O Dee===X Eddy===O Fanny
I understand Abe is married both to Babs and to Dee; Chuck is married both to Babs and to Fanny; Dee is married both to Abe and to Eddy; and Fanny is married both to Chuck and to Eddy.
But, is Abe married to Fanny? And, is Chuck married to Dee?
Your "one wife two husbands" and "one husband two wives" examples wouldn't be any problem to handle as Astraios suggested, IMO, unless you insist on explicitly showing that a wife's cohusbands are each the other's brother and/or that a husband's cowives are each the other's sister.
If you just assume, and let your diagram-reader assume, that two people with the same spouse must be one another's sibling, I don't see why the "two husbands two wives" example should be a problem either.
What about;Latinist13 wrote:^^^
The above are the most common marriage arrangements in my conculture.?
- one husband, three wives
- one wife, three husbands
- two husbands, three wives
- two wives, three husbands
And BTW: Is the following true?I'm just wondering, nobody wrote:If there are more than two husbands, then one of them is likely to be "the dominant husband", and to sire all the offspring.
And, if there are more than two wives, then one of them is likely to be "the dominant wife" and only a child she bears can inherit.
well, when I was taking Anthropology classes, one thing I learned was that, in India, there is at least one group where it's the youngest (sometimes the youngest daughter) who inherits the home and property.Latinist13 wrote:As far as family dynamics are concerned, the division of labor and power is not so much men vs women, as it is head spouses (or alpha-male and alpha-female) vs younger spouses. However, strangely enough, property is passed down to the youngest sibling. It is figured that while the older spouses know best how to run a household, they also have had more time to establish themselves and the youngest children are rewarded for caring for their elderly parents in their youth.
I realize that I might need to revise things for my later concultures, as the Xorfavoi might be a little unrealistic compared to most human cultures, but a lot of the decisions I made seemed like good ideas at the time, until I realized that the dynamics could go horribly wrong and such a culture might prove to be unstable.
The answer to that would depend on the particular culture – even within Latinist's own system his answer is "depends on the arrangement", after all. You would get some cultures with multiple marriage where it is obligatory for everyone in an arrangement to be married to everyone else, and some cultures where it's not. IRL, Western polyamory circles, while not legally recognised, tend to follow the more flexible rule that anyone can be in a relationship with anyone else, and as many as they like, hence A=B=C doesn't mean that A and C are also in a relationship, but could. Then theoretically there's probably a difference between [ABC] (using ad hoc notation) all in one relationship as a triad, and A=B=C=A where there are three individual relationships; A and B are together and C forms a relationship with both of them separately, and there isn't a single relationship uniting them. However, at this point it's pointless nitpicking, to be honest.TomHChappell wrote:I understand Abe, Chuck and Eddy are each others' brothers, and Babs, Dee, and Fanny are each others' sisters.Code: Select all
X Abe===O Babs===X Chuck || || || O Dee===X Eddy===O Fanny
I understand Abe is married both to Babs and to Dee; Chuck is married both to Babs and to Fanny; Dee is married both to Abe and to Eddy; and Fanny is married both to Chuck and to Eddy.
But, is Abe married to Fanny? And, is Chuck married to Dee?
Thanks for the answers!Latinist13 wrote:(answers to my questions)
I don't think it's so strange.Latinist13 wrote:As far as family dynamics are concerned, the division of labor and power is not so much men vs women, as it is head spouses (or alpha-male and alpha-female) vs younger spouses. However, strangely enough, property is passed down to the youngest sibling. It is figured that while the older spouses know best how to run a household, they also have had more time to establish themselves and the youngest children are rewarded for caring for their elderly parents in their youth.
From my notes:
Property is passed on Mother to daughter & Father to son. Sons generally cannot inherit their mother's property (unless there are extenuating circumstances) and daughters may not inherit their father's (again, unless there are extenuating circumstances). In the case of multiple sons and daughters, property is passed on the basis of ultimogeniture where the youngest child or subset of children (in the case of multiple births) of size m in a set of n children inherits m/(n-1) fraction of the property to be passed on.
I realize that I might need to revise things for my later concultures, as the Xorfavoi might be a little unrealistic compared to most human cultures, but a lot of the decisions I made seemed like good ideas at the time, until I realized that the dynamics could go horribly wrong and such a culture might prove to be unstable.
Thanks!Rodlox wrote:well, when I was taking Anthropology classes, one thing I learned was that, in India, there is at least one group where it's the youngest (sometimes the youngest daughter) who inherits the home and property.
I guess the reason I thought it was unrealistic is that I was trapped in Western societal schemas, so I had trouble imagining such a society. The leadership of the clans (the sovereign units of society) is passed along through agnatic seniority (the chieftain's brother inherits the position) in the patriclans, and uterine seniority (the chieftainess' sister inherits the position) in the matriclans, inheritance is based upon ultimogeniture, lineage, thus citizenship, is traced through dual descent, polygynandry is practiced by the culture. The only instances when a child would inherit property from the opposite sex parent would be in the event that they are the last surviving member of their lineage due to disease or genocide or those who would be allowed to inherit decline their birthright. The idea about houses and boats sounds like a good one that would be oddly appropriate to my conculture as they are sea faring complex gatherers and garden agriculturalists. Would it be appropriate for an Iroquois kinship system to be used by such a culture?TomHChappell wrote:Thanks for the answers!Latinist13 wrote:(answers to my questions)
I don't think it's so strange.Latinist13 wrote:As far as family dynamics are concerned, the division of labor and power is not so much men vs women, as it is head spouses (or alpha-male and alpha-female) vs younger spouses. However, strangely enough, property is passed down to the youngest sibling. It is figured that while the older spouses know best how to run a household, they also have had more time to establish themselves and the youngest children are rewarded for caring for their elderly parents in their youth.
From my notes:
Property is passed on Mother to daughter & Father to son. Sons generally cannot inherit their mother's property (unless there are extenuating circumstances) and daughters may not inherit their father's (again, unless there are extenuating circumstances). In the case of multiple sons and daughters, property is passed on the basis of ultimogeniture where the youngest child or subset of children (in the case of multiple births) of size m in a set of n children inherits m/(n-1) fraction of the property to be passed on.
I realize that I might need to revise things for my later concultures, as the Xorfavoi might be a little unrealistic compared to most human cultures, but a lot of the decisions I made seemed like good ideas at the time, until I realized that the dynamics could go horribly wrong and such a culture might prove to be unstable.
I never heard of a RealLife culture in which the youngest child, regardless of sex, inherited something from both parents. But "youngest daughter inherits" and "youngest son inherits" are both existing systems in real life.
There's a reason you didn't have to coin the term "ultimogeniture".
In the modern United States of America the most common pattern is, and for some time has been, that the youngest daughter stays at home and unmarried while the parents live, and takes care of the aging parents. As compensation for this she inherits the home when her parents die (also, then she can marry).
(Of course, the U.S.A. is so diverse that "the most common pattern" isn't very common.)
In Martin Luther's time German farmers practiced ultimogeniture; the youngest son inherited the farm.
Also: there are plenty of natcultures in which there is bilateral inheritance; some things are passed mother-to-daughter (especially including things thought to be "women's things", useful and/or valuable to women but not to men), and some things are passed down father-to-son (especially including things thought to be "men's things", useful and/or valuable to men but not to women).
There's some island culture in the Mediterranean, near Greece I think, in which all the men earn their livings on boats, and in consequence spend the daylight hours on the sea most days. Among them, houses are passed from mother to daughter, but boats are passed father to son.
I think in our own culture wedding dresses and wedding rings are passed down mother-to-daughter, at least in certain families; they may go mother-in-law to daughter-in-law if the mother-in-law has no daughters and the bride's own mother has already bequeathed hers. My father's mother gave her wedding ring to my mother; she had two sons and no daughters, so she gave it to the younger of her two daughters-in-law.
If the Mapudungu really have a set of unilineal descent groups they call "the ropes", in which membership is passed father-to-daughter and mother-to-son, then, names and kingroup-memberships, at least, can be systematically passed to opposite-sex children.
In my own conculture, portable goods are passed father-to-son; nonportable concrete goods are passed mother-to-daughter; and intangibles such as offices are passed along the "rope".
Thanks!Rodlox wrote:well, when I was taking Anthropology classes, one thing I learned was that, in India, there is at least one group where it's the youngest (sometimes the youngest daughter) who inherits the home and property.
Can you tell us more?
Do you have a reference?
Can you give us a link?
I don't really know enough to say, but, I don't see why not. I'd think they'd be a natural fit for each other, and either of them would be a natural fit for dual descent.Latinist13 wrote:Would it be appropriate for an Iroquois kinship system to be used by such a culture?
I guess you have a point. I've tried to find information on how cultures incorporating various features work, but it can get difficult. I created the Xorfavoi with the idea that there would be a degree of gender equality. Now, from what I read in the PCK, the degree of patriarchy or matriarchy depends upon what elements you include. Thus, if you have a patrilineal naming system, the father giving a dowry to the groom's family, property and titles are passed patrilineally or through agnatic seniority, you have the makings of a patriarchal culture. So, I can see the marriage rituals would include exchange of gifts by both sides- the groom(s) pays a brideprice to the family/families of the wife/wives, and the family of the wife/wives gives a dowry to the groom. This would reinforce the economic order, which is primarily a gift economy, but also resembles a barter system in the larger cities. I can only imagine how the Europeans would react to my conpeople, who I have located in the mid Atlantic. I actually would find it interesting to write a few stories that describe the encounters that Muslim and Christian explorers, merchants, and conquerors had with the Xorfic people.TomHChappell wrote:I don't really know enough to say, but, I don't see why not. I'd think they'd be a natural fit for each other, and either of them would be a natural fit for dual descent.Latinist13 wrote:Would it be appropriate for an Iroquois kinship system to be used by such a culture?
Part of the reason to conculture is to conduct "thought experiments" to see what could work together. I'll bet there's a "natculture" like what you've described in your last post; but even if there isn't, if you can make it work in your conculture, why not do so?
sadly no - it was 10 years ago, and my notes are in storage.TomHChappell wrote:Thanks!Rodlox wrote:well, when I was taking Anthropology classes, one thing I learned was that, in India, there is at least one group where it's the youngest (sometimes the youngest daughter) who inherits the home and property.
Can you tell us more?
Do you have a reference?
Can you give us a link?
I'm not Rodlox, and don't know about that example from India, but:TomHChappell wrote:Thanks!Rodlox wrote:well, when I was taking Anthropology classes, one thing I learned was that, in India, there is at least one group where it's the youngest (sometimes the youngest daughter) who inherits the home and property.
Can you tell us more?
Do you have a reference?
Can you give us a link?
So, your parent-in-law is almost a Cassandra?Izambri wrote:n cassandro –s cassandre –s "father-in-law, mother-in-law".
Interesting that these terms are already built-in to the language. What cultural feature does that reflect?Izambri wrote:m tusdombre –s "ex-husband".
f tusdeune –s "ex-wife".
Sons can have husbands? Daughters can have wives? Interesting.Izambri wrote:m neu –s "son-in-law", my son's/daughter's husband.
f noce –s "daughter-in-law", my son's/daughter's wife.
Thanks, TomH! I spent the whole night working on it.TomHChappell wrote:Thanks, Izambri and WeepingElf.
@Izambri, that looks cool.
(You might want to spell-check it. "Apternal" looks like a typo for "paternal". Is it?)
Yep, it was funny to find that cassandre [kə'sandɾə]. It's from cam– "together" + sandro, sandre "father-in-law, mother-in-law".So, your parent-in-law is almost a Cassandra?Izambri wrote:n cassandro –s cassandre –s "father-in-law, mother-in-law".
(The Cassandra in Homer's Iliad didn't have children AFAIK; did she even have a husband?)
Well, the etymology for these words are curious because tus– means "no" and is equivalent in its meaning and use to Catalan, Occitan and French pas (negative particle).Interesting that these terms are already built-in to the language. What cultural feature does that reflect?Izambri wrote:m tusdombre –s "ex-husband".
f tusdeune –s "ex-wife".
Neat! Thanks!Izambri wrote:responses
IIANM Turkish has a term with that meaning, that sounds like it's related to the Turkish word for "wedding". I think it's düğün or something like that.Izambri wrote:I'm not sure the translation for cassandro, cassandre is correct, since "father-in-law, mother-in-law" is sandro, sandre. The specific meaning for cassandro, cassandre is "my son's/daughter's parents-in-law".