Words for grandparents

[Jan Ivarsson]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Odegard" <markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: den 21 oktober 2000 10:12
Subject: Re: Words for grandparents



> Mormor, morfar, farmor, and farfar are transparent even in
> English. Swedish has four words four 'grandparent' while
> English only has two. I don't know how otherwise 'Sudanese'
> Swedish gets.

Well, Swedish gets rather Sudanese:
There are words also for parent's brothers and sisters, i.e. "morbror", "moster", "farbror" and "faster".
Their children are ego's "kusin" (strangely enough not specified on which side) and their grandchildren are ego's "kusinbarn".
Ego's children call ego's "kusinbarn" "syssling" or (in some parts of the country) "tremänning" (three generation relationship). The children of "sysslingar" are "bryllingar" or "fyrmänningar", and their children "pysslingar" or "femmänningar" (rarely used, though I have met people in northern Sweden who actually keep trace of even such distant relatives).

Jan Ivarsson, Sweden