[Lingtyp] Kinship systems that distinguish age but not gender
m.m.jocelyne.fernandez-vest at vjf.cnrs.fr
m.m.jocelyne.fernandez-vest at vjf.cnrs.fr
Wed Jul 19 14:02:29 UTC 2017
Just to add a word about a "non exotic language" (or very exotic, depending on the starting point of typology), Indo-European,
Siva's remark is not exact:
French "aîné(e)" is not restricted to sibling terms.
You can often be confronted to a recently met person who declares:
"Puisque je suis l'aîné(e), je me permets de proposer qu'on se tutoie."
(Since I am the elder one, I allow myself to propose that we say 'tu' (you in singular) to each other),
which by no way reveals a kinship.
M.M.Jocelyne FERNANDEZ-VEST
CNRS & Université
Sorbonne Nouvelle,
Linguistique Générale,
Finno-Ougrienne et
Scandinave
Envoyé de mon iPhone
Le 19 juil. 2017 à 13:06, Siva Kalyan <sivakalyan.princeton at gmail.com> a écrit :
>
> I'm not convinced, though, that "elder brother" (and its equivalents in other European languages) shouldn't be granted their own lexical entries. After all, "elder" is pretty much restricted to kin terms (and for an even more extreme case, French aîné(e) is I think restricted to sibling terms).
>
> Perhaps what is at stake (when deciding what constitutes a "kinship term") is not, in fact, whether a given term is part of the lexicon, but rather whether it is a "basic-level" term.
>
> Siva
>
> On 19 July 2017 at 19:42, David Gil <gil at shh.mpg.de> wrote:
>> Still on the topic of age and gender in siblings, here's a descriptive problem that I've been puzzling over and have no solution for; I wonder if anybody has any suggestions:
>>
>> Like many other varieties of Malay/Indonesian, Papuan Malay has a simple two-way distinction based on age:
>>
>> kaka - 'older sibling'
>> ade - 'younger brother'
>>
>> But where it differs from other similar varieties of Malay/Indonesian is in what I guess I would call "usage": speakers very often use collocations which serve to differentiate gender:
>>
>> kaka laki-laki 'older.sibling male'
>> kaka perempuan 'older.sibling female'
>> ade laki-laki 'younger.sibling male'
>> ade perempuan 'younger.sibling female'
>>
>> Similar collocations are available in other dialects, except that they're much less frequent, and one would not be tempted to enter these into a lexicon of kinship terms (any more than one would think of saying that English has a kinship term 'older brother' on the basis of the phrasal collocation used to express the concept).
>>
>> But Papuan Malay feels different, in Papuan Malay people use these collocations more frequently, and in contexts where they would not be used in other varieties of Malay/Indonesian. So where in a description of the language would this fact be represented? And where would this fact be expressed in a cross-linguistic typology of kinship terms?
>>
>> (At present, I am not aware of any properties other than those pertaining to usage that would distinguish collocations such as "kaka laki-laki" in Papuan Malay from its counterparts in other varieties of Malay/Indonesian. In particular, I doubt that there is any phonological evidence to the effect that such collocations are more closely bound in Papuan Malay than in other varieties.)
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 19/07/2017 11:21, Kyla Quinn wrote:
>>> Okay, so looking through the parabank kin data we have so far....
>>>
>>> For Alex' question....out of 300 odd languages there are 82 that don't distinguish gender for younger siblings. There are 52 that don't distinguish gender for older siblings. There is a 51 language cross over between these two sets. Most of these are Austronesian and North American languages, with a few Australian and others scattered through.
>>>
>>> For Siva's question...
>>>
>>> There are some languages in the data set that exhibit this pattern but as a cross pattern, so if you are male you distinguish for older brother and younger brother but no age distinction for sisters and vice versa. There are three languages that exhibit precisely what you've asked and there are several other variations.
>>>
>>> Happy to answer any other questions based on our data!!
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>>
>>> Kyla
>>>
>>> On Wed, Jul 19, 2017 at 6:57 PM, Siva Kalyan <sivakalyan.princeton at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> On a slight tangent, are there languages where male siblings are distinguished for age but female siblings aren't (or vice versa)?
>>>>
>>>> Siva
>>>>
>>>>> On 19 Jul 2017, at 6:50 pm, David Gil <gil at shh.mpg.de> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Matt beat me to it on Malay/Indonesian! I would just like to add that while many (most?) varieties that I am familiar with work the way Matt describes, some exhibit an asymmetry in which elder siblings are distinguished for gender while younger ones are not. This pattern is also evident in closely-related Minangkabau:
>>>>>
>>>>> adiak - 'younger sibling'
>>>>> uda - 'elder brother'
>>>>> uni - 'elder sister'
>>>>>
>>>>> And I suspect that it is common in other languages of the region.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On 19/07/2017 10:40, Matthew Carroll wrote:
>>>>>> Hi Guys
>>>>>>
>>>>>> What about Indonesian/Malay? kakak/adik for elder/younger sibling respectively.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Best,
>>>>>> Matt
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Wed, Jul 19, 2017 at 9:31 AM, Hedvig Skirgård <hedvig.skirgard at gmail.com> 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
>>>>>>> ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language
>>>>>>> School of Culture, History and Language
>>>>>>> College of Asia and the Pacific
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>>>>>>> The Australian National University
>>>>>>> Acton ACT 2601
>>>>>>> Australia
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Co-chair of Public Relations
>>>>>>> Board of the International Olympiad of Linguistics
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>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
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>>>>> --
>>>>> David Gil
>>>>>
>>>>> Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution
>>>>> Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
>>>>> Kahlaische Strasse 10, 07745 Jena, Germany
>>>>>
>>>>> Email: gil at shh.mpg.de
>>>>> Office Phone (Germany): +49-3641686834
>>>>> Mobile Phone (Indonesia): +62-81281162816
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________ Lingtyp mailing list Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
>>> --
>>> Kyla Quinn
>>>
>>>
>>> PhD Candidate
>>>
>>> ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language
>>>
>>> College of Asia and the Pacific | The Australian National University
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> <mime-attachment.jpg>
>> --
>> David Gil
>>
>> Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution
>> Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
>> Kahlaische Strasse 10, 07745 Jena, Germany
>>
>> Email: gil at shh.mpg.de
>> Office Phone (Germany): +49-3641686834
>> Mobile Phone (Indonesia): +62-81281162816
>
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