zompist bboard

I've never seen a kinship chart that includes this particular relationship (they only ever seem to include children of siblings), so I wondered the obvious: does any natural language have dedicated terms for children of cousins?

In English, and I believe in most European languages, they are called "cousins". Although admittedly that usage is declining - in some places more rapidly than others - with the rise of more nuclear families.

Children of your cousins are, more technically, your "first cousins once removed".

Those kids, and your own kids, are "second cousins". (I.e. second cousins are people whose parents are first cousins.)

zompist wrote:Children of your cousins are, more technically, your "first cousins once removed".

Those kids, and your own kids, are "second cousins". (I.e. second cousins are people whose parents are first cousins.)

Well, more technically, children of your first cousins without remove are your first cousins once removed. Children of your other cousins will of course be other things...

[the point being, traditionally a cousin at a remove is still a type of cousin, rather than an additional type of thing]

Wait, can first cousins once removed still be called first cousins (without further qualification)?

Vijay wrote:Wait, can first cousins once removed still be called first cousins (without further qualification)?

Yes but Ive never heard that. "first cousin" and "cousin once removed" are two different things and its rare that one would need to talk about someone who happens to be both without just mentioning them by name. Also I think it goes both ways: cousin once removed can be either the parent or child of a cousin. Twice removed can, therefore, be the child of a child, the parent of a parent, or the parent of a child. it basically just means how many branches do you have to follow to get there.

Pabappa wrote:parent of a child

Afaik this one is excluded, since this would either be the original cousin, or their spouse.

Pabappa wrote:Also I think it goes both ways: cousin once removed can be either the parent or child of a cousin.

Yes; I didn't mention it simply because the question asked about children. But it's weird, isn't it? It makes me wonder why the system was devised, since for questions of law or genealogy I'd expect age to be important. Since there's a reference to canon law, it's probably a matter of who you can or can't marry.

Wikipedia has a nice chart on this. French has a very similar system; I assume English basically borrowed it. Unfortunately most of the other translations are too vague to be of help.

Oh, and take a gander at

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_kinship

Chinese has extremely finicky kinship terms (it's Sudanese plus relative-age terms), and it does not disappoint in this area; look under "Larger extended family".

This diagram is how I finally figured out how the whole "Mth cousin Nth removed" thing works in English. It's actually a pretty logical system: count up on both sides to the most recent common ancestor; the minimum count is M, the difference is N.

Also, the whole "kinship tutorial" is pretty cool, and I'd recommend reading through it.

zompist wrote:Children of your cousins are, more technically, your "first cousins once removed".

Those kids, and your own kids, are "second cousins". (I.e. second cousins are people whose parents are first cousins.)

I am well aware of that, but these fall into the same opposition between english in-laws and the actual separate words from Spanish. I want to know if examples of the latter exist. If I wanted wanted examples of the former, I wouldn't need to ask.

Circeus wrote:If I wanted wanted examples of the former, I wouldn't need to ask.

With respect, you asked for languages with dedicated terms for the children of cousins. We gave an example of a language (English) with dedicated terms for the children of cousins. If that's not the answer you wanted, perhaps you should have asked a different question.

If I were, say, introducing someone to a mixed group of my first cousins and their children (and/or my cousins once removed who are my parents' first cousins, and/or second cousins and their children), I would say "These are my cousins." If instead, I was introducing a specific "cousin" to someone, I would probably specify if they are first or second cousin or if there were any removes. So for example, I might say, "This is my cousin once removed, T____. She's my mom's cousin."

But I also tend to call that individual "Cousin T____" in casual conversations.or when it's not important to know she isn't my first cousin specifically. Likewise, I have "Cousin(once removed) K____" who's kids are also "my cousins" even though his children are my second cousins. And likely, if I ever got to know any of their children, they would also be "Cousins". So I understand where cousin being a generic term for "this person and I trace our lineage back to a common ancestor at some point" comes from, but at the same time I would still disambiguate if necessary.

In Chinese, a compound of "Cousin-Nephew/Niece" is used, but the actual component differs depending on whether it's an agnatic cousin (agnatic - 堂 tang2 / otherwise - 表 biao3), the gender of the cousin (male - 姪 or 侄 zhi2 / female - 甥 sheng1), and the gender of the said person (male - ø / female - 女 nü3)

Not everyone use this set of rules though. For some, the first criterion checks for your relation with the said person, not their parents, effectively invalidating 堂甥, or in other words, checks if you and the said person share the same surname. Yet others check if you belong to the same household, though it's rare nowadays with the decline of big families.

In Dutch we have the words achterneef and achternicht for this. Their literal meanings are "behind-male.cousin" and "behind-female.cousin" respectively.

I can't wrap my head around the names of relatives even in Finnish, so English (let alone any other language) makes me feel like an idiot (probably because I am one). Anyway, Wiktionary lists in the translations for "first cousin once removed" the Altai word шаны, which I then googled and found this Altai-Russian dictionary that includes it as well along with шанызы, both translated as двоюродный племянник (also on Wiktionary as a translation for "first cousin once removed"), which apparently means "uncle's grandson". I don't know if an uncle's grandson is the same as a cousin's son, though, since I'm literally that ridiculously stupid...

It is.