Vocative kinship terms and titles

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Viktor77
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Vocative kinship terms and titles

Post by Viktor77 »

Regardless of whether or not your conlang or natlang actually incorporates a vocative case, I'm curious how people within the family and also religious leaders (assuming there are some) are called vocatively by your conpopulace or the population of people who speak your natlang. The POV should be someone privy to the relationship, typically a child's POV of their parents, etc. The key here is the use of the vocative in actually calling the persons.

For an example I'll illustrate my dialect of American English. I'm asking for you to give the equivalents for each bolded relationship:

Brother or Sister: In AE, we call brothers and sisters by their first given name or nickname. I have never heard them called by their full kinship term but the diminutives bro and sis are occasionally used.

Mother and Father: In AE, parents are called by their kinship term. The full terms, mother and father are rarely used and sound antiquated. Used diminutives include mom and dad or mama and daddy or ma and pa or papa. To call a parent by their given first name or nickname is typically unheard of until older age; at which age and if so it varies by family. Step-parents can be called by kinship terms or by their given first name or nickname. It depends on the family and the degree of closeness. Occasionally in divorced families, the less-seen parent is called by their first name.

Son and Daughter: Parents typically call their children by their given first name or nickname. Using kinship terms is, AFAIK, completely unheard of except maybe the occasional use of son by a father, but this is rare.

Grandmother and Grandfather: Grandparents are typically called by their diminutives grandpa and grandma or by these kinship terms plus their surname (given first names or nicknames are very uncommon). To use the full terms is unheard of. Another diminutive is gramps but this may come across as rude or offensive. Calling grandparents by their given first name or nickname is very uncommon. Great grandparents may by called simply by grandma and grandpa plus their surname.

Uncles and Aunts: Uncles and aunts are typically called by their title plus their given first name or nickname, so Uncle Jeromy or Aunt Susie. Using just the kinship terms is unheard of. Uncles and aunts may be called by their given first names or nickname but this is rare. Great uncles and aunts who are privy to their great nephews and nieces may be called by simply uncles and aunts for the sake of simplicity. First cousins once removed are also occasionally called by uncles and aunts.

Cousins: Cousins are most commonly called by their given first name or nickname. The full kinship term is never used but often you may occasionally see someone call their cousins by cuz.

Religious Leaders: For those privy to religious leaders there are a plethora of terms which are used depending on the denomination and the religion. For Christianity the terms are typically, though not exclusively, Father, Pastor, or Reverend. Father is usually used by Catholics, while Pastor by Protestants and Reverend by Baptists though this is not a hard and fast rule. Religious leaders may also be called by their title plus their first or last name.
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Re: Vocative kinship terms and titles

Post by treskro »

Siblings
In Mandarin 哥哥 (older brother) 弟弟 (younger brother) 姐姐 (older sister) 妹妹 (younger sister) are all commonly used. Sometimes simply 哥 弟 姐 妹 may be used as shortened forms in more familiar situations. While the situation may vary from family to family, many siblings are still referred to by their kinship terms especially during childhood. Usage of given names tends to become more prevalent as they become adults.

Parents
爸爸 ba4ba (father) 媽媽 ma1ma (mother) can be used, but simply calling your parents 爸 or 媽 is more common.

Children
Children are usually called by their given names, though sometimes the parent may choose to refer to someone by a sibling term in more familiar contexts. Scolding may involve the family name in addition to the given name.

Grandparents
Grandparents are hardly ever referred to by their names. Instead 爺爺 ye2ye (paternal grandfather) 奶奶 nai3nai (paternal grandmother) 外公 wai4gong1 (maternal grandfather) 外婆 wai4po2 (maternal grandmother) are used. In Taiwan 阿公 a-gong (grandfather) 阿媽 a-ma (grandmother) are more common than the previous set due to Hokkien influence.

Uncles and Aunts
Chinese has a pretty convoluted naming system for Uncles and Aunts, based on factors such as: maternal/paternal side of the family, age in relation to the parent who is his or her sibling, whether or not they've married into the family, etc. They can be called by these names, or by their given name + 叔叔 shu3shu (uncle) 阿姨 a1yi2 (aunt)*

*These two terms can also be used for family friends and others who are close to you but older.

Cousins
Given names are usually used, although terms such as 表哥 表弟 表姐 表妹 (maternal, fe/male, age), 堂哥 堂弟 堂姐 堂妹 (paternal, fe/male, age) are also used.

Not exactly sure about religious leaders, although I would expect them to be called by familyname+title, or just their title.
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Re: Vocative kinship terms and titles

Post by Majortopio »

In Danish:

Brother or Sister: In my dialect of Danish (I live near Copenhagen), brothers and sisters are without exception referred to by first name. Søs, a diminuitive of søster (sister) is (very) rarely used when referring to one's sister, and I have never heard of someone calling their brother bror.

Mother and Father[/b]: The same as in your AE basically. Moder (mother) and fader (father) sound archaic and mostly religious, and are probably never, at most extremely rarely, used. We mostly use mor (mom) and far (dad), but there are of course various nicknames that we use, usually jokingly. German mutti instead of mor is somewhat common in joking contexts, as well as farmand (literally dad-man) instead of far, however this is much less common and was mostly used in our parents'/grandparents' day. Step-parents are mostly called by their first names, but depending on closeness can also be called either mor or far.

Son and Daughter: Children are usually called by their first name or nickname. Søn (son) or min søn (my son) can be used for sons in jokingly serious contexts at times, and was again more popular a half century ago.

Grandmother and Grandfather: Here a variety of words are used. There's farmor and farfar for your grandmother and grandfather on your dad's side, and mormor and morfar for your mother's side (literally dadmom, daddad, mommom and momdad). However, we also use bedstemor and bedstefar for grandmother and grandfather, however this is not nearly as widespread. "Grandparents" are called bedsteforældre, so it can be said the "bedste-" combo is used more neutrally/generally. A diminuitive bedste can be used, but this can like gramps be insulting (though it doesn't carry that context to the same extent, and can be used normally).

Uncles and Aunts: As with grandparetns, there is a word for uncles and aunts on each side of the family. Moster and morbror (which is far less popular than "moster", to the point of almost never being used) for aunts and uncles respectively on your mother's side, and faster for an aunt on your dad's side (I've never heard of "farbror" being used, so I'm not including it). However, it could be said that tante (aunt) and onkel (uncle) combined with their first name are far more widespread in their use than moster, morbror and faster (which also sometimes are used with the first name, but not often). Sometimes just the first name suffices, depending on the closeness of your relationship with them.

Cousins: Here we use primarily the first name or nickname. Sometimes fætter (male cousin) is used, but this word has somewhat negative and/or discriminating connotations (in the way that it can be seen as mockery of a certain race) because of its use by immigrants from the Middle East.

Religious Leaders: I must admit, as a non-Christian/believer, I do not know this. However, by far the majority of students in Denmark call their teachers by either their first name, last name (with no title) or self-invented/existing nickname, usually a derivative of either their first or last name.

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Re: Vocative kinship terms and titles

Post by Mecislau »

Just a few comments/additions, Viktor:
Viktor77 wrote:Grandmother and Grandfather: Grandparents are typically called by their diminutives grandpa and grandma or by these kinship terms plus their surname (given first names or nicknames are very uncommon). To use the full terms is unheard of. Another diminutive is gramps but this may come across as rude or offensive. Calling grandparents by their given first name or nickname is very uncommon. Great grandparents may by called simply by grandma and grandpa plus their surname.
I'll add given how common it is to have a parent or grandparent with an immigrant background in this country, another very common possibility is using their original language's term to refer to them, whether or not you actually speak the language. I can think of lots of people who do this, myself included; I call my American grandparents "grandpa" and "grandma", but my Russian grandparents by Russian diminutive forms.
Viktor77 wrote:Uncles and Aunts: Uncles and aunts are typically called by their title plus their given first name or nickname, so Uncle Jeromy or Aunt Susie. Using just the kinship terms is unheard of. Uncles and aunts may be called by their given first names or nickname but this is rare. Great uncles and aunts who are privy to their great nephews and nieces may be called by simply uncles and aunts for the sake of simplicity. First cousins once removed are also occasionally called by uncles and aunts.
It's "rare" to call uncles and aunts by their first names? I'd beg to differ.

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Re: Vocative kinship terms and titles

Post by finlay »

Viktor77 wrote:Regardless of whether or not your conlang or natlang actually incorporates a vocative case, I'm curious how people within the family and also religious leaders (assuming there are some) are called vocatively by your conpopulace or the population of people who speak your natlang. The POV should be someone privy to the relationship, typically a child's POV of their parents, etc. The key here is the use of the vocative in actually calling the persons.

For an example I'll illustrate my dialect of American English. I'm asking for you to give the equivalents for each bolded relationship:
I find English ones to be very idiosyncratic and pretty much done on a family-by-family basis. I always call my mum and dad "Mum" and "Dad" and my grandmother "Grandma", and everyone else by name. I know a lot of people who give one diminuitive to one set of grandparents and another to their other set (I only ever had one set though) – like "grandma" and "nana", or "granny" and "gran". Within my family, my deceased grandfather was almost always referred to as "Grandpa" while alive but is now almost always referred to (including by me, for instance) by his full name (I think this is a. because there are other Ians who we could be referring to and b. because I think all my other cousins still have grandfathers who we could potentially confuse them with if we still referred to him as Grandpa, especially the younger ones who were born since he died).

When I was younger, it was "Mummy", "Daddy", and my aunts were always "Auntie Lindsay" and so on – some of my cousins still do the "Auntie" thing. We never did it with our uncles, though, since they mostly married into the family after I and my brother and sister had grown out of that.

As for those outside the family, I've never had pastors or ministers to refer to – the only one I know is a friend of my dad's, so I've only ever met him in a non-church related situation, and just call him by his name. With teachers, it's probably worth noting that I'm fairly sure it's considered normal in other places to refer to teachers in school as Sir or Miss, but I never did this at school – we called them Mr ___ or Mrs/Miss ___ (and people would always get Mrs and Miss wrong, guaranteed). I'm not sure if you do Sir and Miss in America... and I'm not sure whether what I grew up with is something that's limited to Scotland, or if it happens in other parts of the UK. I've certainly grown up watching British TV shows where they call their teachers Sir and Miss. At university (in England this time, at least) – and I'm fairly sure this is different from America – we called our teachers by their first names. I liked that informality that we had...

Oh yeah, and step-parents – again, varies by family, and the divide tends to be when a step-parent actually raises a child as though they were their own, in which case they're thought of and referred to as if they were a parent. In my case, my stepmother was never considered our mother, since we had a mother who we actually lived with; I think if she'd expected us to start calling her "Mum" after they got married, even if it was 13 years ago rather than 3, I'd have told her to get stuffed. She basically feels the same; step-parent and step-child are now simply the most convenient terms that either of us would use to describe our relationship with the other to anyone else.

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Re: Vocative kinship terms and titles

Post by Astraios »

finlay wrote:I find English ones to be very idiosyncratic and pretty much done on a family-by-family basis.
This. I'll give my own, because I'm bored:

Siblings
I call my sisters by their real first names, or by their baby-names for jokeyness. ("Bibba" and "Ninnie". I was "Dossib".)

Parents
I call my mother "Mama ['m@m@]" (or "Mother" if I'm feeling cranky), and I don't have a vocative word for my father any more because I cannot stand the sight of him. I used to call him "Daddy".

Children
I don't have any, but if I did they'd just get called their (nick-)name. Or "child" if I'm cranky.

Grandparents
My maternal ones were "Grandma and Grandad" (until my grandmother died), my paternal ones are "Nannie and Grandad" (or "Grandad B." if distinguishing between the two grandfathers is necessary). My great-grandmother was "Grandma Pickering".

Uncles and Aunts
They used to be "Uncle X and Auntie Y", now they're just "X and Y" (except for Auntie Sarah, who's always going to be "Auntie Sarah", because there's a close family friend called Sarah who she would be confused with).

Cousins
First names or nicknames. I'd never ever call them "cuz" ever ever ever.

Religious Leaders
I'm not religious but I know a few rabbis, who are "Rabbi Surname" or "Reb Surname", or just "Firstname" depending on the individual.

Teachers
"Mr/Mrs/Miss Surname" in primary school, "Sir/Miss" in high school, first names from sixth form upwards.

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Re: Vocative kinship terms and titles

Post by vampireshark »

I don't fall under specific dialects, but I use the following:
Brother: Either by his first name or diminutives such as "asshole", "bitch", "whore", and other such terms.

Mother and Father: Depending on how I'm feeling, "dad" or "father". My mother is either "mum", "mother", or "overlord".

Son and Daughter: My parents normally use first names or a diminutive. Since I've no children, no response.

Grandmother and Grandfather: "Grandfather" or "grandmother". It's incredibly easy since I have only one of each remaining.

Uncles and Aunts: Normally title plus first name; for example, "Aunt Nancy" and "Uncle Douglas".

Cousins: By first name, but if they're substantially older than I am, it's prefixed by "cousin". Examples include "Cousin Janice".

Religious Leaders: I don't deal with many at all, so I just refer to them by Mr, Mrs, or Dr, depending on the situation, unless they correct me otherwise.

Teachers, Professors, and Lecturers: Title and surname, never first name. "Sir" and "Ma'am" are also commonly used.

In General: Title and surname if they are substantially older than I am or in a position of authority. "Sir" and "Ma'am" are commonly used.

I should also add that I don't refer to adults who are substantially older than I am by their first names unless they request otherwise, and even then it just doesn't seem right to me.

I'll also consider adding some conworld stuff.

Question for Mecislau: Out of curiosity, how do the terms you use for family, friends, and otherwise differ with your Russian relatives as opposed to the ones in the US? Would you think that they're generally more formal here in the US or in Russia?
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Re: Vocative kinship terms and titles

Post by vec »

In Icelandic, moms and dads are always mamma and pabbi.

Siblings, sons/daughters, cousins, uncles/aunts, nephews/nieces, teachers are always called with their given name only.

Grandparents are referred to as (by me and my brother) [name] amma and [name] afi, (or by most other people in my extended family as) amma [name] and afi [name], but when speaking to them simply as amma and afi.

Pretty simple: name unless parent or grandparent.
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Re: Vocative kinship terms and titles

Post by sirred »

Ego's Father's Parents, Ego's Mother's Parents: I called my grandparents "grandpa" and "grandma". I did not use given names, not out of respect but because for mos of my life I only had one of each still living.

Father of Ego, Mother of Ego: I use "mom" or "dad". Whenever I make them possessive, I use "my father" or "my mother" nearly exclusively.

Also, on useage, have you ever heard a male refer to their father as "daddy" after early childhood? From my experience this is overwhelmingly a female thing.

Brother of Ego: I share the need to call by brother "bitch". I also add "cocksucker" and "pig fucker" to the list.

Sister of Ego's Mother, Husband of Ego's Mother's Sister: I called them by title and given name until some point in my teens when I dropped the titles.

Ficticious Sister of Ego's Mother: I have a ficticious aunt whom I call Aunt + Given name. She called me Baby + My given name for years. She has an interesting diminuative for my brother. She calls him "Nicholas". His legal name is "Nick".
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Re: Vocative kinship terms and titles

Post by Cedh »

In Germany:

Brother and sister: First name or nickname. It is quite common to have different nicknames within the family and outside of it, but IME that's common elsewhere too.

Mother and father: Typically "Mama" and "Papa". The full terms "Mutter" and "Vater" and their direct diminutives "Mutti"/"Vati" are relatively rare, and sound antiquated and overly formal to my ears. (In fact, you're probably more likely to hear them from people aged 50 or older than from children or adolescents.) I've personally addressed my parents with their first names since I was seven or so. I perceived that as highly unusual at that time, but apparently many people make that switch at some point, though mostly during puberty or after moving out.

Son and daughter: First name or nickname. Real diminutives seem less common to me than other types of nicknames, but that varies a lot by region and social background.

Grandmother and grandfather: Most commonly you hear the diminutives "Oma" and "Opa". (In my family, there was a distinction between /ɔma/ and /ɔpa/ on my mother's side, and /oːma/ and /oːpa/ on my father's side.) When combined with a name, typically the first name will be used; using them with the last name is rare and sounds much too formal to me, unless the same-gender grandparents happen to share a given name. I've also heard people address their grandparents by "Oma"/"Opa" plus the name of the place where they (the grandparents) lived.

Uncles and aunts: Normally just the first name. Title ("Onkel"/"Tante") plus first name is also seen, but again it feels overly formal. In my family, these appellations were reserved for the siblings and cousins of my grandmother, where they actually felt like an integral part of the name, probably due to the fact that they were combined with highly distinctive nicknames, and were even used by my grandmother herself.

Cousins: First name, or occasionally a nickname (but less commonly so than for siblings or friends). Adding or replacing that by "Cousin" or "Vetter" (male) or "Cousine" (female) may appear in 3rd person, but almost never as a vocative.

Religious leaders: Just the generic non-familiar method of address: "Herr"/"Frau" (Mr/Ms) plus surname. With priests you might say the title "Pfarrer" (typically Catholic) or "Pastor" (typically Protestant) instead of the surname, but that's mostly if you don't know their name.

Teachers, professors, lecturers etc: "Herr"/"Frau" plus surname. Adding an academic title ("Herr Professor Friedrich"/"Frau Doktor Müller") is rather uncommon, but not all that rare either, at least for "Professor". ("Doktor" is mostly associated with, well, doctors of medicine, even though the title is the same for a Ph.D. in all academic fields.) In certain fields, mostly art, design, music etc., it is quite common for university lecturers (even professors) to be addressed with their first name by all of their students, often combined with the familiar pronoun "du" instead of the formal "Sie". This depends on the person and his/her department though; you should never assume that you may address them that way unless they have explicitly invited you to do so.

In general: Titles only where specified by a particular family's tradition or when absolutely necessary; diminutive titles only for parents and grandparents (and that mostly only if you're not yet an adult yourself). Otherwise, personal names are preferred; first name or nickname for relatives and friends, first name for co-workers of equal status or in small companies; surname for people you don't know or who are in a position of authority.

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Re: Vocative kinship terms and titles

Post by Niedokonany »

Polish:

siblings: mostly the first name, I suppose; I think I've also heard kinship terms used to deliberately sound a little pretentious (there's e.g. the beautiful, coarse siora for siostra)

parents: kinship term, diminutive/hypocoristic form (tata, mamuś for me)

children: first name, an occasional synu! 'son' (or diminutive synku!), córciu 'daughter! (dim.)' is also acceptable

grandparents: kinship term, diminutive/hypocoristic form

aunt/uncle: kinship term as well

cousins: first name

religious leader: proszę księdza!
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Re: Vocative kinship terms and titles

Post by LinguistCat »

American English for me.

I am closer to my mother's side of my family than my father's side.

Grandparents - Personally, I had one living grandmother, one grandfather and a step-grandmother growing up. I used just "Gramma" for mom's mother and "Gramma" first name or "Grampa" and first name for my father's dad and step mother. When talking with someone about my deceased grandfather I'd grampa and his last name.

Grandparents siblings or sibs-in-law - The are all great uncle or great aunt with first name, or in the case both "Great Uncle Bobs" are around I use last names.

Parents - I tend to call my mother Mom in almost all cases. My father is Dad when I speak to him but my father when I speak about him.

Aunts and Uncles - All my aunts and uncles are Aunt/Uncle first name. The exceptions are my father's siblings, who I'm not as close with who I might speak to/about as just first name in some cases.

Cousins, cousins "once removed" and second cousins - I group these by their first names. I refer to my mom's cousin by his first name, my cousins by their first names and my second cousins by their first names.

Sibling - First name, when he was alive. I also refer to my sister-in-law and their children by first name. As a note, I also call my sister-in-laws aunt and uncle, by title and first name.

I think the only time I use last names for family at all is, as in the case of my two great uncles, they share first names and I need to differentiate.
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Re: Vocative kinship terms and titles

Post by Declan »

finlay wrote:I find English ones to be very idiosyncratic and pretty much done on a family-by-family basis.
Fully agree. I would never call my parents by their first name, it's just odd, but I know some families that have done that from really young. The register affects it hugely too, at home they're Ma and Paw (inside joke!) or Mammy and Daddy, but that will quickly become my mother and my father if I leave home, or even if people I know fairly well are there. Grandparents (which I didn't really have) are often Granny, Nanny, Granddad or something like that. Aunts, uncles and cousins are by their names, or "my Aunt whoever" if that clarification is necessary.
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Re: Vocative kinship terms and titles

Post by finlay »

Astraios wrote: Grandparents
My maternal ones were "Grandma and Grandad" (until my grandmother died), my paternal ones are "Nannie and Grandad" (or "Grandad B." if distinguishing between the two grandfathers is necessary). My great-grandmother was "Grandma Pickering".
My grandma does this too – we have Grandpa Homer and Grandpa Firth for the two great-grandfathers on that side. (and as I say, my actual grandpa is now usually referred to as Ian Firth. Actually, to disambiguate we usually refer to his father as Leslie Firth. We don't seem to talk about the great-grandmothers for some reason. In fact I only even know the name of one of them. Maybe they just never did anything worthwhile... :P)

My dad's family doesn't really have specialised names for any of them – although it's always a bit confusing for me that we refer to my dad's aunts and uncles as "Aunt Janet" and "Uncle David" rather than my aunt and uncle. But I've only met two of his uncles in the past, once each, and Aunt Janet died when I was young, so we sort of need the title so that we know who the hell the other person's talking about. Come to think of it, it's kind of similar on my mum's side, in that we have an Auntie Mary and Auntie Rose, who are actually my mum's aunts/my grandma's sisters, who we've never met, but send us Christmas cards. So when we only refer to them in passing they get the title. Strange. Or maybe it's a generational thing.

This has suddenly got me wondering what the hell will happen if any of me and my siblings have children. Maybe it's just because we're all young adults and not old enough for that shit yet, but I just can't imagine it for any of the three. That said, my mum was married at the age I am now and had me at 24. I don't even know which is the most likely... I mean, I can't have children accidentally unless I suddenly turn bi, and I think my sister's sensible enough not to get pregnant accidentally, so that leaves my brother with the highest chance of accidental children. But then my sister's probably marginally the one who's most likely to settle down later in life with a husband and children. Just, though. In fact, while I profess to hating children now, it's probably just as likely that I will do that later in life. Can't imagine it though.

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Re: Vocative kinship terms and titles

Post by finlay »

Declan wrote:
finlay wrote:I find English ones to be very idiosyncratic and pretty much done on a family-by-family basis.
Fully agree. I would never call my parents by their first name, it's just odd, but I know some families that have done that from really young. The register affects it hugely too, at home they're Ma and Paw (inside joke!) or Mammy and Daddy, but that will quickly become my mother and my father if I leave home, or even if people I know fairly well are there. Grandparents (which I didn't really have) are often Granny, Nanny, Granddad or something like that. Aunts, uncles and cousins are by their names, or "my Aunt whoever" if that clarification is necessary.
One of my cousins learnt how to say "Guy" before he learnt how to say "Daddy", so he calls his dad by his first name half the time. His mum is called Gabrielle, though, so it's understandable that he grew up just calling her Mummy.

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Re: Vocative kinship terms and titles

Post by Mecislau »

vampireshark wrote:Question for Mecislau: Out of curiosity, how do the terms you use for family, friends, and otherwise differ with your Russian relatives as opposed to the ones in the US? Would you think that they're generally more formal here in the US or in Russia?
Probably a bit more formal in the US, actually. I use diminutives/hypocoristic forms for all of my Russian relatives, whereas I'll use actual names (or nicknames) for most of my American relatives.

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Re: Vocative kinship terms and titles

Post by Ser »

El Salvador. (People are free to differ of course, these are just generalizations.)

Mother and Father: Mamá, papá, or the pronouns usted and vos. (Lipski in his dialectological survey Latin American Spanish notes how pronouns are notably commonly used as vocatives in El Salvador in contrast with other places). In older times they were generally addressed with usted, though now there's a notable number of kids who address them with vos. They generally limit themselves to one of the two pronouns though: if they use usted they don't use vos, and vice-versa. This also goes along their corresponding verbal conjugations. I don't think it has anything to do with closeness to the parent, just in-family conventions.

Step-parents may be called mamá/papá or by their first name depending on the degree of closeness. I don't think kids in a divorced family generally call their less-seen parent by their first name, but continue to call them mamá/papá (at least vocatively in front of them, though they may when speaking of them and they aren't present).

Son and daughter: generally addressed by their first names or nicknames (which can be shortened forms of their names e.g. Renato > Rena in my case, or completely different, Adrián > cuqui in my brother's case), usted or vos (the same as above applies). My parents are an interesting pair: my father addresses me with usted and my mother with vos — I address them both with vos.

Brother or Sister: First names, nicknames or vos. Never seen any brothers/sisters addressing each other with usted. Another option between brothers only is to use the Salvadoran vocatives maje or men [meN] (the latter of which is often said to come from English man), both meaning 'dude', generally used between male friends as well.

Grandmother and Grandfather: Traditionally they're generally addressed by a nickname form of their first name composed of two open syllables preceded by (M)Ama (for grandmothers) or Papa (for grandparents) (both syllables unstressed). The nickname may be the common nickname form wherever it exists e.g. José > Chepe, Ignacio > Nacho, otherwise derived in strange ways (strange as in not clearly defined), often involving the suffix -ito and then loss of most of the lexeme: Consuelo > Consuelito > Ito, Ángela > Ángelita > Lita, Ángel > Ángelito > Tito, or simple shortening of the name e.g. Isabel > Isa. E.g. Papa Chepe [pa.pa."tSe.pe], Ama Ito [a.ma."i.to].

It seems to me new generations growingly don't like the idea of getting their name in the future, case in point: I joked one day with my parents that I'm gonna tell my kids to call them Mama Chana (< Susana) and Papa Memo (< Guillermo). He said he doesn't care, she got mad (even though she had no qualms of me calling her parents Mama Tita (< Marta) and Papa Chico (< Francisco); similar experiences with my cousins. I've no idea what the conventions are gonna change to when it happens.

Also possible: abue, usted.

Uncles and Aunts: Generally their first name or nickname preceded by Tío or Tía, e.g. Hernán > Tío Nan, Reynaldo > Tío Rey, Patricia > Tía Pati/Patty ["pa.ti]. They may be addressed with either usted or vos too depending on the family's conventions.

Cousins: Same as between brothers and sisters.

Religious Leaders: Padre 'Father' (Catholics), Hermano/Hermana followed by his/her first name or nickname (Protestants) e.g. Hermano Andrés. No idea about Baptists (I don't know any Baptist to consult this with unfortunately either). Also a simple usted.
Last edited by Ser on Fri Jun 17, 2011 12:40 am, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: Vocative kinship terms and titles

Post by Soap »

One thing Ive noticed is that whereas my dad calls my mother by her given name, Ive never heard her call him by any name and Im honeslty not sure why that is. Once I saw her walk up a long ways (100 feet or so) to get his attention instead of yelling from where she was. I suppose maybe she just doesnt like using a loud voice. Anyway my family did the immigrant names thing, where my Greek grandparents were 'yiayia' and 'papou' (we even have a family dish called 'papou soup') and the American ones were just Gramma and Grampa. My parents used those names too, and even (at least when I saw them) they used them among thesmselves, so when I was young I didnt even know my own grandparents' names ... we rarely met them in person, since we live 1000+ miles away from our nearest relative, so there werent many chances for me to learn and remember their names.

I never used sis/sissy/sister to refer to my sister, but she called me "bro" a lot. I used 'Dad' and 'Mom' until I was about 11 and started using 'Ma' because my best friend did for his mother. So now Mom seems like something a little boy would say. But I still use Dad for Dad. I also went through a bizarre stage of making up my own names for people and pets, most of whom didnt seem to like it, except of course for the pets who didnt know anything.
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Re: Vocative kinship terms and titles

Post by Viktor77 »

Yea, my apologies for forgetting the immigrant thing. I mean my own cousins call their grandma Oma (only Oma though, no name) so I should've realised. :x

Two Mexican Spanish kinship terms I've heard are Abuelita for grandma and Jefe/Jefita for parents.
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Re: Vocative kinship terms and titles

Post by Cathbad »

Slovene (note that this is all for my generation; YMMHV 50 years ago):

Father: oči, or ati in some families (the split seems to be around 30/70; I'm of the oči type), also fotr (from German Vater) if you're rude or 16
Mother: mami; the contracted mt [m@t] is mainly used for third-person reference

Grandfather: dedi, also nono in Primorska (Littoral, the region closest to Italy). A friend of mine (who is from Ribnica, in the south, roughly Dolenjska/Notranjska) also used oča, although I have no idea whether this is more widespread or only a family idiosyncrasy.
Grandmother: babi, also nona in Primorska; oma may also be heard by people from the north-east (but don't take my word for it)

Note that the variant Primorska terms for grandparents are really useful if only one of your parents is from Primorska, as it is then easy to differentiate between maternal and paternal grandparents (because nobody from outside Primorska would call any grandparent nona/o).

Sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, cousins, etc. are always called by their names; when they are not present, however, use of kin terms is preferred, often even if the interlocutors know the names of the relations. A son may be called sine as a form endearment, although this is not particularly frequent. Similarly, a younger sibling or cousin may be called mali (masculine) or (ta)mala (feminine) (literally 'small one'), although this is less frequent vocatively than in third person reference (especially in the colloquial form tamau, as I call my cousin for instance). I've even heard an older sister being called this way by a younger one, but this was probably very specific to the relationship/family.

Husbands and wives usually call each other by name, although some husbands call their wives žena 'wife' or ženika (diminutive), often as a form of endearment. Except jokingly, I've never heard wives refer to their husbands as mož 'husband'.

I have no data on terms used in non-heteronormative relationships, but I suspect they don't contradict the data presented above.

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Re: Vocative kinship terms and titles

Post by Cathbad »

Soap wrote:One thing Ive noticed is that whereas my dad calls my mother by her given name, Ive never heard her call him by any name and Im honeslty not sure why that is.
I for one hate calling anybody by their given name, except close family members, and would probably use your mother's strategy instead of calling somebody's name to get a person's attention if at all possible.

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Re: Vocative kinship terms and titles

Post by Viktor77 »

The natlangs are wonderful, but what about some conlangs now?
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Re: Vocative kinship terms and titles

Post by MisterBernie »

For Baranxe'i, the easiest would be to post the kinship chart:
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Disregard siblings, nephews/nieces, grandchildren and cousins, but for the first two tiers, the kinship term for one's own kin are the same as what you would call them (Baranxe'i has a separate set of terms to talk about someone else's kin, but to use those as a term of adress would be almost always considered insulting).

Brothers and sister: Most commonly called by their name, or their name + -ðē/-ði. The use of ðēme/ðini to adress them directly is highly formal, and potentially even offensive.

Mother and Father: Usually adressed as ma and pa. Reduplicated forms are used by very young children. 'Parents' are mapavu, a dual dvandva, which can be used as a form of adress (usually as mapavuham, 'my parents').

Sons and daughters: The use of the first name is the regular way of adressing them. asana and ra'i are limited to certain contexts (or when talking about them), outside of which their use would be weird.

Grandparents: Alternative forms exist regionally, but the maternal-paternal distinction is commonly maintained even in adress.

Uncles and aunts: Are usually adressed with their respective titles, although the form 'first name'+vamī/famī exists, especially when multiple uncles/aunts on the same side have to be distinguished.

Cousins: Older cousins are called by their title, younger ones generally are adressed by first name (though this is highly dependant on closeness).
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Re: Vocative kinship terms and titles

Post by Davoush »

This is what I know about Kuwaiti (and probably the rest of the Gulf) kinship terms.

Mother and Father:
Children directly addressing parents use 'yumma' (mother) and 'yuba' (father). When not directly addressing them, 'ubuuy' (my father) and 'ummi' (my mother) are used.

Brother and Sister:
Siblings generally call each other using a diminutive of their given name, so '3ali' would be called '3leewi', 'yuusif' would be 'yuweesif' etc. Rarely you may hear 'yuxuuy' (My brother) and 'yuxti' (My sister) with the original meaning. Rather 'yuxuuy, yuxti' tend to be used when addressing someone unfamiliar around your own age.

Parents to Children:
Nowadays most parents tend to call their children by diminutive forms or nicknames, however there is also another strange way of parents addressing their children. A father may call his children by 'yuba' (father) and a mother would call them by 'yumma' (mother). This is extended to elders addressing younger people. This seems to only be used for emphasis, for example a child is annoying his father, the father might say 'yuba, la tsawwi chidhii 3aad!' (Son/Daughter (literally: father!), don't do that!)

Uncles and Aunts:
Uncles and Aunts are usually referred to as '3ammi, 5aali' (My Uncle) and '3ammiti, 5aalti' (My Aunty). Sometimes the personal name might be added after the title, '3ammi ma7moud' (Uncle Mahmoud). The 2 different forms are for paternal/maternal aunts and uncles.

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Re: Vocative kinship terms and titles

Post by Ser »

Viktor77 wrote:Jefe/Jefita for parents.
Instant Mexican giveaways indeed. Also: jefa.

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