Thursday, September 9, 2010

Words for Family

Here's an interesting discussion about language and how different languages express familial relations. (For example, in Spanish concuñado is "the brother of the spouse of my sibling" (my brother-in-law's brother?), easily expressing the connection without having to worry about such a mouthful).

English seems quite bland and simplistic in comparison to some of the examples given. I recently also learned about Bininj gun-wok, an indigenous Australian language, which has a collection of familial terminology so complex that it can take more than 20 years for native speakers to fully acquire them all!

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