[Lingtyp] Kinship systems that distinguish age but not gender

[Joshua Birchall]

Hello Hedvig!

Tupian languages, especially from the Tupi-Guarani branch, often have
sibling terms would best be translated as 'same sex younger sibling', 'same
sex older sibling' and 'opposite sex sibling'. Kin terms tend to have
different male and female speech forms, but it is somewhat common for the
elder same sex sibling term to be same in both male and female speech
(Araweté) or very similar (Kamayurá, Tupinambá).

There is also something similar going on in Cariban languages, but since my
database is still small (but growing!) I can't say much yet. The one thing
that comes to mind is that Tiriyó has a sibling system like the TG
languages, just the the younger same sex sibling term is the one shared
across male and female speech.

Cheers,
Josh

On Wed, Jul 19, 2017 at 7:51 AM, Nick Enfield <nick.enfield at sydney.edu.au>
wrote:

> Lao has qaaj4 older brother, qùaj4 older sister and nòòng4 younger sibling.
>
> This system has a neat affordance. When talking to a child whose mother is
> pregnant, one often wants to refer to the unborn child, the soon-to-arrive
> younger sibling. The word nòòng4 allows you to leave the sex unspecified,
> and avoid a disjunction (brother or sister) as is needed in English. This
> issue does not arise when talking to children about their older siblings
> because of course the sex is known. This could contribute to a bias towards
> the typological prediction.
>
> Nick
>
> --
> Sent from phone
>
> On 19 Jul 2017, at 20:02, Rik DB <rdbusser at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Dear Hedvig,
>
> In case you need another one: Bunun (Austronesian) has tuqas 'older
> sibling' and nauba 'younger sibling'.
>
> Am I wrong to assume that this is quite common in Western Austronesian?
>
> Best,
>
> Rik
>
> ———————————————
> Rik De Busser, Assistant Professor
> Graduate Institute of Linguistics
> National Chengchi University
> ORCID: 0000-0003-2750-3364
> www.rdbusser.com
>
> On 19/07/2017 16:31, Hedvig Skirgård wrote:
>
> Dear LINGTYP,
>
> Does anyone know of a language that has a distinction in the kinship
> system for age of referent (younger/older) without also having a
> distinction for gender of referent? For example, a language that marks
> siblings as being younger or older to ego without reference to being sister
> or brother.
>
> The hypothesis is that this doesn't happen/is very rare. We'd like to know
> if you've come across any examples of this.
>
> I'm asking for my friend Alex (cc:ed) who is not on the list. Please
> direct any responses or comments to her.
>
> *****
>
> *Tōfā soifua,*
>
> *Hedvig Skirgård*
>
>
> PhD Candidate
> The Wellsprings of Linguistic Diversity
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>
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