kinship

[Waruno Mahdi]

> Does anyone know if there is a word for "kinship" or "relative" in Yapese?
> And in other AN languages?

Don't know about Yapese, but for other AN languages, here's the
situation in Indonesian Malay:

There are two words for "relative", but both are loanwords: _saudara_
(from Sanskrit), _kerabat_ (from Arabic). In coloquial speech one can
furthermore say that someone is _pamili_ (from Dutch), meaning that
he/she is related to oneself. The standard word for "family" is however
_keluarga_ (from Sanskrit). Also of Sanskrit origin is the bookish
_kulawangsa_ "family, clan, dynasty".

There are three words for "kinship", all derivations of above-mentioned:
_kekerabatan_, _persaudaraan_, _kekeluargaan_.

The archaic word _pupu_ "ancestor" (authentic Austronesian) has a specific
usage still current in the modern language: _saudara se-pupu_ "(direct)
cousin" (_se_ "one"), _saudara dua-pupu "cousins twice removed" (_dua_ "two")
(or should it be "once removed"?, I mean the relationship between children
of direct cousins). As many modern speakers are no longer aware of the
original meaning of the word which practically no longer occurs in the
language other than in the indicated phrases, many tend to perceive the
word as a reference to some degree of kinship.

Regards,   Waruno


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Waruno Mahdi                  tel:   +49 30 8413-5411
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