zompist bboard

That's just filler though, not to be taken as gospel. I know much less about the Proto-Argundran and earlier peoples than I do about the Imperial Arêndrons. Same goes for the history really; I'm happy to revise it if it turns out to be inconsistent with a more developed view of the society when I reach that point.


Yes, that's what I think at the moment. I guess -- but it is only a guess -- that as the society became more prosperous it might have become more common for men to start their own homes?


True, but polygynous households were only a small minority (perhaps 5%-ish?), provided that that can be plausibly justified. However, I guess that the proportion may have been higher earlier on and might have had an effect on the kinship system.

_________________

I don't buy the idea that when babies are needed, women become 'baby-making machines'. It assumes that men are 100% in control of everything. In reality, while men have advantages, women are also a factor. In societies where women have lots to offer, their situation is usually better, and babies are an important thing to offer.

I think it's unlikely that a high land price society would be matrilinear, matriarchal, or anything like that, given the low status of women. However, places like Tibet are probably exceptions - I seem to recall that altitude and food shortages result in lower life expectancies for women, reducing the pressure. Where polyandry exists, that too will cut the pressure.

The low land price --> matrilinear link does seem more tenuous.

And I could be wrong, anyway.


Did Isreal really have low land prices, though? I'd have thought, what with relatively high population density and not exactly an abundance of land, that land would have been expensive.

_________________
Blog: http://vacuouswastrel.wordpress.com/

But the river tripped on her by and by, lapping
as though her heart was brook: Why, why, why! Weh, O weh
I'se so silly to be flowing but I no canna stay!

More-or-less what I was thinking.

But since I'm an armchair amateur, I thought it possible the poster who thought he'd read that (Downtimer) actually had read it from a professional who'd done some actual research to back it up.

If that turns out not to be the case, I feel free to continue to assume, as you have, that anything only women can do that men very much want done is going to help women's status;
and that regardless of that women are not just going to be, as a general rule, helpless victims of men.



Not knowing any better, I also think Tibet is possibly an exception. My earlier caveat was just to say that what you said usually happens, doesn't always happen.


If Tibet is indeed an exception (as we both suspect), then I at least don't know why they are an exception. Your guess is better than any I've come up with.


Tibet has both widespread "fraternal polyandry" (one wife has two-or-more husbands; likely two-or-more of these husbands are brothers to each other); and widespread celibacy (monasticism is very popular there, and the majority of the major orders of lamas are supposed to be celibate (though some major orders are not celibate IIUC)).
As a result men are at a premium on the marriage market, and so wives are usually older than husbands.
A typical love-song in Tibet is a lament by a fourteen-year-old woman that her husband is "still a baby drinking milk". The typical first marriage in Tibet is for a woman just finished with puberty to "adopt" a boy who is barely pubescent, if that old, and finish raising him. (Of course this is a "marriage" rather than an "adoption" in the eyes of the Tibetans.)


Thanks for not making me be the first to admit I could be wrong!



Remember we're talking about patriarchal times; and we're talking about pastoral nomads.

It is my impression that throughout that part of the Fertile Crescent that was away from the settlements -- the parts where the pastoral nomads roamed -- there was a great deal of not-very-fertile land, and not-very-many people in it. (Actually that land was pretty fertile compared to land outside the Fertile Crescent; it was relatively less fertile than land in settled areas, however.)

They fit nearly everything you said about a low-land-price situation; a group's limiting resource in extracting sustenance and wealth from the land was more probably labor than land. The land there was very productive if worked and not very productive if not worked.

A bride brought a dowery; but a very valuable and highly-prized part of her dowry was likely to be a hand-maiden. In most of the Old Testament stories, the hand-maiden turns out to be the only part of her dowery that was ever mentioned twice.

Polygyny was widely practiced among successful men, and was likely to be "sororal polygyny", where two or more of the man's wives were each other's sisters.

A man's wife's hand-maiden might be lent to him by his wife in order for him to impregnate her and get another child. If two of his wives were competing to see which could give him the most children (or the most sons), these hand-maidens were very likely to be thus recruited into their mistress's side of the competition.

-----------



Monogamy is mostly a way of reducing competition among the less-successful males; the more-successful men agree to limit themselves to one wife in order to leave more potential wives for the less-successful men. The reason for reducing this competition is so that the more-successful men can turn the fighting tendencies of the less-successful men away from each other and toward outside enemies (a.k.a. the rivals of the more-successful men).

Or so I've read hypothesized. Maybe that's hogwash. I tend to believe it is at least partly (or even largely) true in at least some (or even many) situations. But I've done no research myself.

-----
Tom H.C. in MI

Well, the source I read (can't remember the name for the life of me) said that when women have to have 10 or 12 kids to keep the population stable, they have to marry young, which creates an imbalance of power within the marriage because they often have to marry older men (sometimes even twice their age, as with the ancient Romans). Also (according to the source) women have to spend their reproductive lives pregnant or nursing in such societies, and some die in childbirth; some husbands went through 2 or 3 wives in preindustrial times because of this. Maybe this is just my perspective form a modern society where families are small, but I can't imagine such an environment being conducive to women having a high status.

_________________

Such a situation was typical in the rural United States for a time.
Older women in such circumstances were indeed quite powerful; sometimes as powerful as men, sometimes even moreso.
(In Republican Rome, for instance, a woman had power in two families -- the one she was born into and the one she was married into -- whereas a man had power in only one.)
The hard part for the women would be to be one of the one-out-of-three who survived her childbearing years. (In pre-technological societies there is a 25% mortality rate among mothers during childbirth. Men who are not specially trained usually flee a battle once their side's casualty rate rises to 10%. So you can see why the ancient Aztecs gave military honors to women who died in childbirth.)

Tsaran (and Etora, which borrows a lot of Tsaran vocabulary) has matrilineal kinship; most terms in the language are gender-neutral, but kinship terms are perhaps an expected exception.

Not to actually put terms, but English equivalents:

sibling / brother / sister
parent
spouse
significant other
fiancé(e)
half-sibling (same male parent)
half-sibling (same female parent)
matrilineal aunt (sister of one's mother)
aunt (sister of one's parent)
uncle (brother of one's parent)
grandmother
great-grandmother
cousin (via one's parent's sister)
cousin (via one's parent's brother)
niece/nephew (child of one's brother)
niece/nephew (child of one's sister)

* child of your sister's daughter (child of your niece) -- archaic

* child of your mother's sister's daughter (child of your matrilineal first female cousin) -- archaic

_________________

Pretty interesting! Pretty complete, too.
Thanks.



I see. Thanks.



Thanks. Interesting!


I think I see.


I wish I had some. Does anyone else? I think it's an interesting problem.



Thanks.



Interesting! Thanks.



Very interesting!
Thanks.




Thanks.



Thanks.



Very interesting!
Thanks.
When you do get the "actual" terms, we'd be interested in hearing them.

Oh, I have them, I was just being lazy. Here ya go:

_________________

Xwffh! i forgot to expand upon this:

Yionyooxscer is a matriarchal society. ownership of property passes from mother to oldest daughter. there are to words that show this fact. the 2nd one is an informal, pet name, like "mommy" and "sissy". boys that have older sisters, basically have extra mothers.
Mother amà or anà
Older Sister famà or fanà

the stem-change for "younger" is to add the diminuative -ny nyt nynt or -ym
Younger Sister famynttàn
Younger Brother jlynttèn

because Yionyooxsceri families are more collective than nuclear, it's not uncommon to have many "God" parents, that serve the function of a co-parent. although the term isn't "God" but more like "tribe" the cl- determinant is used. can be used with any friend treated as a family member.
tribe-father claneettèn
tribe-mother clanaamà
tribe-son clhsáawsà
tribe-daughter clhséeymè

_________________

Thanks! Interesting, consistent, and complete.



That seems well-explained. Thanks.


-----
Tom H.C. in MI

See
http://www.spinnoff.com/zbb/viewtopic.php?t=20676

Fnásesca kinship terms:



Notes:

1. Other in-laws aren't distinguished in common speech.
2. Older and younger relatives simply use those adjectives.
3. Relatives past the grandparents or grandchildren are indicated with the phrase "of the Xth level".
4. Step-relatives other than the ones listed are indicated with the word "jorosonos", which means "of addition" (e.g. "suno jorosonos", lit. "son of addition").
5. Maternal and paternal relatives are represented by the prefixes me- and pe- respectively. These contract with "ava" and "áuve" to form "m'ava/p'ava" and "m'áuve/p'áuve".

Thanks for making this thread. It finally gave me an excuse to work all this stuff out

_________________
AKA Benjaburns

Thanks! Interesting.


Great! I'm always pleased to find out anyone likes anything I did; especially that anyone was helped by it. Thanks for saying so.

Kinship Terms In Itlani:

--- genetic kin ---
Father - ushór
Mother - ushél
Older Brother - zurhanorún
Older Sister - zurhanelún
Younger Brother - zurhanorís
Younger Sister - zurhanelís
Son - kurudjór
Daughter - kurudjél

--- fictive kin ---
Husband - uramór
Wife - uramél
Godfather - talianór
Godmother -talianél
Godson - talshrekanór
Goddaughter -talshrekanél
Blood-Brother - uramór

_________________
Ta Miara, ta Varem vey ta Parem! Ta Mabugú Shey Dzevarun!
Hope, Love and Respect! The Beginnings of All Journeys!

Well in Persian they're

By Blood

father - pedar
mother - mádar
brother - barádar
sister - xáhar
son - pesar (lit: boy)
daughter - doxtar (lit: girl)
uncle - dáyi
aunt - xáleh
cousin (male) - pesar(e) dáyi/xáleh
cousin (female) - doxtar(e) dáyi/xáleh
grandma - mádar bozorg
grandpa - pedar bozorg

By Marriage

husband - shohar
wife - zan (lit: woman)
fiancé(e) - námzad
uncle - amu
aunt - ammeh
cousin (male) - pesar(e) amu/ammeh
cousin (female) - doxtar(e) amu/ammeh

Thank you, Tsiasuk-Pron.


Oh, wow! A natlang! Thank you, AppleRouge.

Thanks.

"father - mádar
mother - pedar"
seems backwards from most I.E. languages, doesn't it? Going on sound alone, one would expect
"pedar - father
mádar - mother".

Is "doxtar" cognate to "daughter"? Is this an ancient survival from P.I.E.?

Does Persian have any terms for, say, "stepfather" or "stepmother" or "stepson" or "stepdaughter" or "stepbrother" or "stepsister"?
Those would be "by marriage".

Does Persian have any terms for, say, "godfather" or "godmother" or "godson" or "goddaughter"? Or "gossip" (god-sib)? Or "compadre" or "commadre" or "padrino"? Or "blood-brother"?
Those would be other "fictive" kin.

Thanks, AppleRouge.

My bad! That was a typo. Father is pedar and mother is mádar. Further elaboration, father is colloquially <bábá> and mother <mámán>.



I dunno. I've thought about that too.



I had to ask my mom for the "god-" and "step-" family ones, because I've always used the Spanish and English words. In fact, my cousins son mis primos y primas (I'd say <Amirali primo'm e> for "Amirali is my cousin").

Step- family is literally "part [relation]." So <pedar nátani> is "partly my father."

pedar nátani - stepfather
mádar nátani - stepmother
barádar nátani - stepbrother
xáhar nátani - stepsister

For "ficative kin," xándeh (lit: "read") is suffixed.

pedar xándeh - godfather
mádar xándeh - godmother
barádar xándeh - gossip (male)
xáhar xándeh - gossip (female)

(Of course, we render xándeh as [xundEh] in our dialect)

Since Iran is a generally Muslim society, I don't think there'd be an equivilent to "compadre." I don't know if there's a term for boys who've been circumcized together. I'd just use "compadre."

[EDIT: I forgot to disable the HTML, ugh.]

Thanks. Would you like to edit your previous post?


Like Turkish, or almost like it.


Like French, or almost like it.


Is Iranian your mother's L1? Are English and Spanish your L1s, or is one of them an L2 for you?


Interesting!

Does Iranian have terms for half-brother and half-sister? Are they the same as those for stepbrother and stepsister? Or different?

Does Iranian distinguish between a same-father-different-mother half-sibling and a same-mother-different-father half-sibling?


I'd have said:
barádar xándeh - godbrother
xáhar xándeh - godsister

Are there terms like "pesar xándeh" and/or "doxtar xándeh" for "godson" and "goddaughter"?

Are there distinct words for adoptive relationships, like "adopted mother" and/or "adopted daughter"?

What about terms for a child's spouse or a sibling's spouse or a spouse's parent or a spouse's sibling?

Does Iranian culture have the notion of "blood-brother", and, if so, is it the same as "barádar xándeh"? OT Hebrew culture, and pre-Islamic Arab culture, had that notion; and I had the impression it was more geographically widespread than that, also appearing in, for instance, Anatolia; so I would have expected it to show up in Iran and Afghanistan, for instance, as well. Also I had the impression it was still present after the use of firearms and gunpowder became prevalent there.


"Godparent" and "godchild" and related terms such as "compadre" are based on the notion of having sponsors at baptism. Christianity isn't the only religion to have baptism; does Islam?

As I mentioned at the start of this thread, the term for "godfather" or "godmother" might be more exactly translated "name-father" or "name-mother" in some cultures, since the "back-up parents" or sponsors would be declared at the christening, or whatever the naming-ceremony is called in case the culture isn't Christian.

When do boys receive their names in Iran? At the time of their circumcision, perhaps?

When is a child initiated into the faith? When that happens, are there sponsors who promise to bring them up in the faith in case the parents can't (or won't, if the parents aren't Muslim)?

For the last two paragraphs, does the same apply for an adult convert? I know that in the late first and early second millenia, when someone converted to Islam they usually changed their name.


One might expect "barádar xándeh" to stand in for this notion; or maybe not.

Two men are "compadres" if one is the father and the other the godfather of the same child. Is there a word for "pedar of someone of whom I am the pedar xándeh", or, "pedar xándeh of my pesar or doxtar"?

Two women are "commadres" if one is the mother and the other the godmother of the same child. Is there a word for "mádar of someone of whom I am the mádar xándeh", or, "mádar xándeh of my pesar or doxtar"?

As I mentioned, Turkish has a term for "father of my child's spouse". Does Iranian?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks, AppleRouge.

Done.



Arabic also has <bábá> and Hebrew has <abba>. I believe the Persian <mámán> could be on loan from French, the most common version of "thank you" is <mersi> directly from French.



Persian is my mom's first language, yeah. Spanish is my first language, the one that frames my mind. English and Persian were both languages I just used at home until we moved to the US.



Half- and step- are rendered the same, and there's no father/mother distinction like that.



Nope, just like English there.



In-laws from the husband's side are suffixed with <shohar> and from the wife's side with <zan>. So brother-in-law from the husband's side is <barádar shohar> (lit: husband's brother) and mother-in-law from the wife's side is <mádar zan> (lit: wife's mother).




It's <barádar xáni> (lit: blood brother), but that's quite an archaic practice.



Godmother and godfather are essentially "backup parents," yeah. It's something like "contractual parents."



Boys are generally named at birth. Circumcision takes place around age 10, around the same time a child affirms their faith so that they can participate in religious activities. (This is traditional, going by what my stepdad tells me. Now adays this is done medically around birth).



Many converts keep their names, some change them in order to emphasize a new identity, etc. But I think the historical practice is due to Sunni Islam's entrenchment in Arabic culture, so in adopting Islam they were also adopting a new culture. I read quite a compelling article about Shi'a Islam (the majority religion in Iran) being a Persianization of Islam, a syncrenism of pre-Islamic mysticism and Islamic faith.



There'd be prepositional phrases building up "godparent." And I don't think there's a distinct term of affinity for "father of my child's spouse."

I'm working on my conlang kinship terms, but for now, delving into the Chinese kinship terms. Chinese kinship is akin to the Sudanese system, in which nearly every relative has a different term. To start with your basic terms:

--- genetic kin ---
Father- 父親/爸爸 fùqīn/bàba
Mother- 母親/媽媽 mŭqīn/māma
Older Brother- 哥哥 gēge
Older Sister- 姊姊 jiĕjie
Younger Brother- 弟第 dìdi
Younger Sister- 妹妹 mèimei
Son- 兒子 érzi
Daughter- 女兒 nǚ’ér

--- fictive kin ---
Husband- 丈夫 zhàngfū
Wife- 妻子 qīzi
Godfather- 教父 jiàofù
Godmother- 教母 jiàomŭ
Godson- 教子 jiàozi
Goddaughter- 教女 jiàonǚ
Blood-Brother- ?

But like the Sudanese system, the Chinese kinship system basically differentiates relatives based on the following criteria:

(1) Father's vs. mother's side- in perhaps a reflection of traditional culture, many of the maternal relatives start with 外 wài, which means 'other' or 'foreign' or 'besides': reflecting the traditional paternal-ness of Chinese culture.
(2) Gender, like English, but more specific: male cousins vs. female cousins, just like male siblings vs. female siblings, are differentiated.
(3) Age- with reference to siblings. Not only does Chinese differentiate between older and younger siblings, it differentiates between the older and younger siblings of both your parents: in effect, aunts and uncles are termed differently depending on whether they are older or younger than your father or mother.
(4) Generation- more or less like English.

To list the complete system would take ages (and besides, there are some good websites, which I just can’t remember at the exact moment, that will tell you exactly how to call your father’s older brother’s wife’s mother in Chinese, for example) but I think it would be instrumental to illustrate some common English terms and show the actual Chinese terms.

Uncle
伯伯 bóbo- father’s older brother
叔叔 shúshu- father’s younger brother
舅舅 jiùjiu- mother’s brother
姑夫 gūfū- father’s sister’s husband
姨丈 yízhàng- mother’s sister’s husband

First cousin (this one is especially complex)
堂哥 tánggē- paternal male cousin older than you
堂弟 tángdì- paternal male cousin younger than you
堂姊 tángjiĕ- paternal female cousin older than you
堂妹 tángmèi- paternal female cousin younger than you
表哥 biăogē- maternal male cousin older than you
表弟 biăodì- maternal male cousin younger than you
表姊 biăojiĕ- maternal female cousin older than you
表妹 biăomèi- maternal female cousin younger than you

As you can see from the set of terms for “first cousin,” the system isn’t entirely irregular; in fact, the words for “first cousin” are perhaps the most regular in the kinship system: they are made up straightforwardly of 堂 vs. 表 paternal vs. maternal and the appropriate sibling term.

Grandparents
祖父 zŭfù / 爺爺 yéye- paternal grandfather
祖母 zŭmŭ / 奶奶 năinai- paternal grandmother
外祖父 wàizŭfù / 外公 wàigōng- maternal grandfather
外祖母 wàizŭmŭ / 外婆 wàipó- maternal grandmother

Here we can see the difference between your father’s parents and your mother’s parents, which are perceived as being secondary, almost, to your paternal grandparents.

Grandchildren (the last one, I’m getting tired!)
孫子 sūnzi- son’s son (paternal grandson)
孫女 sūnnǚ- son’s daughter (paternal granddaughter)
外孫子 wàisūnzi- daughter’s son (maternal grandson)
外孫女 wàisūnnǚ- daughter’s daughter (maternal granddaughter)

Again we see the distinction made using 外 wài to separate the grandchildren.

Perhaps one of the reasons all of these terms have lasted so long in the modern day is that Chinese people generally don’t refer to relatives more senior to themselves by their given name. For example, from my personal experience, I don’t know any of the names of my aunts or uncles: I call them by their relative term. In case there are more than one of them (which is obviously quite possible: your mother could have three older brothers), they are ordered by number:

大舅 dàjiù- “oldest uncle”
二舅 èrjiù- “second-oldest uncle”
三舅 sānjiù- “third-oldest uncle”

A few things that I didn't include in the main body of the post:
- most of the terms I've included here are the familiar terms; I haven't included the formal terms just because of a lack of stamina.
- if I made a mistake, please tell me. I had to look up a bunch of these because I just don't know them (my father doesn't have any older brothers, so I didn't know how they were called)

Hope this is interesting!

_________________
Unfortunately, I don't like this username anymore, but seeing as how I'm too lazy to start a new account, I'll have to stick with this.

Thanks.


Yes; thanks for pointing that out.


I thought it might be.


Makes it seem likely, doesn't it?


Sounds like an interesting story!


Interesting. Thanks.


OK. Thanks.


Thanks. We needed those.


Yep. But I'd asked for terms for fictive kinships; and that is such a term that a modern Iranian would recognize, even though the relationship itself is archaic.


So, they are indeed the cultural equivalents. Thanks.


Thanks.


Hmm.
I think that same difference may have applied to converts to Christianity; at least from the 15th or 16th century, maybe even up to the 18th or 19th century. If the convert only changed faiths, they might keep their original name, but if they also changed cultures, they might adopt a "Christian" (for which read "European") name. (But I could be wrong.)


Well, historically Shiism did begin in Persia; but nowadays there are plenty of Arab Shiites. I don't know whether the pre-Islamic faith(s) of Persia really inform Shi'a much.


I see. Well, "compadre" appears to be a compound that, if analyzed, appears to be a prepositional phrase.


OK. English doesn't either. Thanks.

Yes, indeed, it's very interesting! Thanks.

_________________

Has anyone kept count of how many non-human sets of kinterms have been submitted to this thread?

Has anyone come up with a kinship system for a species with three or more sexes wherein some individuals have three or more parents?

Sano: Do you count the Qatama as non-human? Or are they in the taxonomic "Family" Hominidae, or even in the "Genus" Homo?



Thank you, Sano.

Has anyone kept count of how many non-human sets of kinterms have been submitted to this thread?

Has anyone come up with a kinship system for a species with three or more sexes wherein some individuals have three or more parents?

If anyone on-thread or on-board has thought about the problems of kin-terminology that time-travel might produce; have you gotten anywhere with the language for it?

For instance, one of the simplifying principles for classifying those of my relatives of whom one or more of my parents or grandparents may also be one or more of their parents or grandparents, is that, for instance, I cannot possibly be the grandparent of one of my grandparents.

Telemachus had a son by Circe, and Circe's son by Ulysses had a son by Penelope, so those two boys were simultaneously each others' half-uncles, each others' half-nephews, and each others' half-cousins; but that's as complicated as it can get with real-life humans and no incest.

Speaking of complexity; another simplifying principle is that no-one's father can be anyone's mother, and no-one's mother can be anyone's father. Has anyone given any thought to kinship systems in a culture in which the same person can be both a father and a mother?