Monday, July 22, 2013
இ Baŋäŋaz இ
Two men struck up a conversation in a pub and one of them kept complaining of family problems with 同父異母 *tóng fù yì mǔ* 'same father but different mothers'. Finally the other man said: "You think you have family problems? Listen to my situation". "A few years ago, I met a young widow with a grown-up daughter, we got married and I got myself a step-daughter. Later, my father married my step-daughter. That made my step-daughter my step-mother and my father became my step-son. Also, my wife became mother-in-law of her father-in-law."
"Much later the daughter of my wife, my step-mother had a son. This boy was my half brother because he was my father's son. But he was also the son of my wife's daughter which made him my wife's grandson. That made me the grandfather of my half brother."
"This was nothing until my wife and I had a son. Now the half sister of my son, my step-mother is also the Grandmother. That makes my father, the brother-in-law of my child, whose step-sister is my father's wife, I am my step-mother's brother-in-law, my wife is her own child's aunt, my son is my father's nephew and I am my OWN GRANDFATHER!"
"And you think you have FAMILY PROBLEMS!?"
It was a pleasant Sunday morning, so nice to 𨅝檯腳 *jaang3 toi4 goek3* 'stretch table leg' 'Cantonese: lit. stretch one's legs over the dining table legs' with Mango enjoying a simple dimsum breakfast. We noticed a family of four sitting across the next table having similarity in their facial features. Out of curiosity we 'played' Sherlock Holmes in guessing their relationship. Bingo! When the kid uttered two words, he solved the mystery for us by just calling out 叔公 *shūgōng* to the guy wearing the checked shirt. On the boy's right is his father and the older man on the far left is his grandfather and the guy at the center with checked shirt whom the kid called out as 叔公 *shūgōng* is his grandfather's younger brother aka Great Uncle.
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| sisters, brother, 舅 *jiù* 'uncle', 姨 *yí* 'aunt', 表 *biǎo* 'cousins' |
Excerpt from Wikipedia: The Chinese kinship system (traditional Chinese: 親屬系統; pinyin: qīn shǔ xì tǒng) is classified as a Sudanese kinship system (also referred to as the "Descriptive system") used to define family. Identified by Lewis Henry Morgan in his 1871 work Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family, the Sudanese system is one of the six major kinship systems together with Eskimo, Hawaiian, Iroquois, Crow, and Omaha. The Sudanese kinship system (and hence the Chinese kinship system), is the most complicated of all kinship systems. It maintains a separate designation for almost every one of ego's kin based on their generation, their lineage, their relative age, and their gender.
In the Chinese kinship system:
Maternal and paternal lineages are distinguished. For example, a mother's brother and a father's brother have different terms.
The relative age of a sibling relation is considered. For example, a father's younger brother has a different terminology than his older brother.
伯 *bó* dad's elder brother [paternal elder uncle]
叔 *shū* dad's younger brother [paternal younger uncle]
姑 *gū* dad's elder or younger sister [paternal aunt]
堂 *táng* dad's brothers' children (sons & daughters) [paternal cousins]
Bananaz Maternal lineages:
舅 *jiù* mom's elder or younger brother [maternal uncle]
姨 *yí* mom's elder or younger sister [maternal aunt]
表 *biǎo* mom's brother or sister's children (no seniority) [maternal cousins]
The above may be very confusing and would better stop here for the time being if not it could be stretched to a mile long and that would be even more complicated. For easier understanding the surname of each individual and age factor in terms of seniority from the paternal lineage would determine a different terminology where else for the maternal lineage surname, age and seniority does not apply.
