LL-L: "Kinship terms" LOWLANDS-L, 20.OCT.1999 (05) [E]
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Wed Oct 20 23:26:28 UTC 1999
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L O W L A N D S - L * 20.OCT.1999 (05) * ISSN 1089-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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From: Sandy Fleming [sandy at fleimin.demon.co.uk]
Subject: "Kinship terms"
> From: R. F. Hahn [sassisch at yahoo.com]
> Subject: Kinship terms
>
> is what our friends on the British Isles might call "very
> Continental." (But
> I also know of such cases in England, such as "Auntie Mable" in a
> South London
> suburb who turned out to be someone's mother's friend.) Thus,
I think this is perfectly normal all over the UK. Certainly I have a fair
number of "Aunties", "Uncles" and "Cousins" in Scotland who are only distant
blood relations or not blood relations at all. In England/Wales I've also
come across friends who encourage their kids to call me "uncle" (I
discourage it!).
Anent the fact that there seems to be no English word for the relationship
between parents of the same child, surely this is nothing special? There are
vast numbers of quite concrete concepts for which there won't be a word in
some given language.
For example, Scots has words for "morning twilight" ("ochenin") and "evening
twilight" ("gloamin") but there don't seem to be words for those in English.
I don't think those words are needed in Scotland any more than they are in
England, somehow we just happen to have them.
English West Country dialects also have words so useful that one wonders why
on earth the standard language never takes them up. In the West Country, for
example, there's the word "butty", obviously the scource of the USA "buddy",
but with a specialised meaning: someone is your "butty" if you and they are
close friends and confidant(e)s in work, but don't see each other much
outside of work. There seems to be no word for this in standard English,
where a "workmate" is simply someone you work with. Another example of a
useful West Country word not found in standard English would be "didicoy",
which means someone who lives a traveller's lifestyle, but isn't of Romani
descent.
The point I'm making is that these _concepts_ exist all over Britain, but
that doesn't automatically guarantee that there'll be a word for them
everywhere. Just because a culture lacks a word for something doesn't mean
the concept is less significant in that culture. I don't think the fact that
we don't have a _word_ for the relationship between the parents of the same
child can lead us to conclude that it's not a traditional _concept_. There
have always been plenty of unmarried parents.
Sandy
http://scotstext.org
----------
From: R. F. Hahn [sassisch at yahoo.com]
Subject: Kinship terms
Sandy wrote:
> The point I'm making is that these _concepts_ exist all over Britain, but
> that doesn't automatically guarantee that there'll be a word for them
> everywhere. Just because a culture lacks a word for something doesn't mean
> the concept is less significant in that culture. I don't think the fact that
> we don't have a _word_ for the relationship between the parents of the same
vchild can lead us to conclude that it's not a traditional _concept_. There
> have always been plenty of unmarried parents.
I agree with you in general, Sandy. But I'm not sure anyone specifically
claimed that the concepts don't exist, only that there are no specific terms
for them (at least as far as Ted's original question is concerned). Maybe I
just missed something. Obviously we do have the concept of biological parents
with no social ties, but we don't seem to have a name for them. Perhaps
because the concepts are relatively new (at least as far as artificial
insemination is concerned)? Does it mean that the concept is not important
or not yet important enough to warrant creating a special term?
Does the existence or creation of specific terms signal increased cultural
importance on the specific concepts they denote? You don't seem to think so,
unless I misunderstood you. You may have heard about the famous (or infamous)
Worffian example of "Eskimo" having a vast and complex terminology for what we
lump together as "snow" (i.e., various textural and temporal forms of snow)
with no cover term equivalent of "snow," and a similar situation regarding
"ice." This kind of thing has been said about concepts of "sand" in North
African languages. If this were correct (and apparently some revisions to
this needed to be made later), does this not mean that not the *concepts* are
important but the *differentiation*, that paraphrasing (i.e., compound
expressions) are not good enough?
A highly complex kinship terminology usually is a sign of an intricately
structured kinship system in which a lot of differentiation needs to be made
because kin-internal structure demands labeling of various states, roles and
interrelationships. Thus, in one kinship terminology you may have different
terms for elder and younger sons and elder and younger daugthers, and there is
no collective term for 'child', while there is only one collective term for
all types of grandchildren. This seems to indicate, and it usually does, that
differentiation by sex and relative age among your children is important while
those among your grandchildren is not. Does this mean that there is no
concept of sex and age differences among grandchildren? No. It simply means
that sex and age are of little consequence among grandchildren, and you would
use descriptive phrases if you needed to distinguish among them. In the
Scandinavian languages there is no cover label 'grandparent', but you have to
say the equivalents of "father's mother," "mother's father," etc. Obviously
differentiation was or is important in those cultures and a generic concept
was or is not. I have come across African kinship systems in which there is
only one collective name for 'husband' and 'husband's brother' because a woman
traditionally would have sex with all of them, though they surely knew to
which of them she got married. In another system there is only one term for
grandchild *and* great-grandchild* and also one's siblings', with no gender
differentiation, but there is no collective term for 'child', 'offspring'.
Surely all this must tell us something about the culture or original culture.
So, in brief, I don't quite agree with your statement "Just because a culture
lacks a word for something doesn't mean the concept is less significant in
that culture." I would rewrite it to read "Just because a culture lacks a
word for a specific thing doesn't necessarily mean that the culture lacks that
concept, but it does mean that differentiating between this thing and related
things is not considered important enough to warrant a specific term."
> For example, Scots has words for "morning twilight" ("ochenin")
Low Saxon (Low German) _Ucht_ [?UXt] (f., mostly farwestern) Hey! Any
etymological link between _ochenin_ and _Ucht_?
> and "evening
> twilight" ("gloamin")
Low Saxon _Schummern_ ['SUmVn] (n.), _Schummeree_ [SUme'rEI] (f.),
_Schummertied_ ['SUmVti:t] (f.), _Schummerstünd_ ['SUmVstYn(d)] (f.) (<
/Sumer-/ _schummern_ 'to grow dark (in the evening)'), _Sniederfier_
['sni:dV,fi.V] (f., "tailor's knocking-off time"). Cf. Dutch _schemer_,
_schemerdonker_ and _halfdonker_.
But you can collectively say _Tweedüüster_ ['tvEI,dy:stV] "twi-dark" =
'twilight', or _Dämmern_ (< German _Dämmerung_?) if the time of day is not as
important as the amount of light.
> but there don't seem to be words for those in English.
> I don't think those words are needed in Scotland any more than they are in
> England, somehow we just happen to have them.
Do you really believe it's just a coincident that they exist? Could it not be
a hang-over from a certain way of life in times gone by in which in this
particular culture and environment the two types of twilight were considered
quite distinct ("growing light" vs "growing dark") and were associated with
different activities and moods?
Of course, in English you have 'dusk' and 'dawn' respectively, though they may
not be exact equivalents. Perhaps "twilight at dusk" and "twilight at dawn"
would be, as would be German _Morgendämmerung_ and _Abenddämmerung_.
> English West Country dialects also have words so useful that one wonders why
> on earth the standard language never takes them up. In the West Country, for
> example, there's the word "butty", obviously the scource of the USA "buddy",
> but with a specialised meaning: someone is your "butty" if you and they are
> close friends and confidant(e)s in work, but don't see each other much
> outside of work.
Low Saxon _Kumpel_ ['khUmp=l] (which has also entered German). It can be used
to denote a fellow worker with whom one is on friendly terms and also
socializes with in one's free time. (This is how my father used the word.)
In certain contexts, certainly in German, it has come to simply denote 'fellow
worker' (usually laborers), originally apparently 'fellow miner'. I have
heard it used, in German, to simply mean 'miner' (e.g., _Die Kumpel haben with
Streik gedroht_ 'The miners threatened to go on strike'). I am not sure, but
I think this term originated in the mining industry and thus may well have
come from Westphalian Low Saxon.
I wrote:
> Psst! Talking of such, folks, it's going to be eightieth birthday of the
> sweet lady in question (<101477.2611 at compuserve.com>,
> <http://www.geocities.com/~sassisch/rhahn/kramer/>) on November 3!
Sorry. That URL didn't work. It should be
<http://www.geocities.com/Athens/1615/rhahn/kramer/>,
<http://online.sh/freudenthal> or <online.sh/platt>.
Best regards,
Reinhard/Ron
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