Swedish, English and grandparents

Factual Questions
1

Yesterday I finally started to look at someting that has been bugging me for a bunch of years. The way english denotes(?) family relations compared to swedish.

Swedish is so much easier and logical and natural, well so I thought until yesterday when I started looking through dictionaries. I have not found one language so far that denotes(?) family relations in the same way as swedish.

Look at what I got so far.

Swedish - English
far - father
mor - mother
farfar - paternal grandfather
morfar - maternal grandfather
farmor - paternal grandmother
mormor - maternal grandmother

this works with brother, sister and son, but limited myself to grandparents. Its simple enough, fathers-father, mothers-father, fathers-mother, mothers-mother.

English uses prefix grand.
French uses grand. grand-pere, grand-mere.
German uses Gross, Grossvater, Grossmutter.
Danish uses bedste(best), bedstefar, bedstemoder.
Spanish uses ab? abuelo, abuela.
Turkish uses büyük(something like “great praises”). büyükbaba. But uses babaanne, anneanne for fathermother,mothermother. So close!
Croatian - djed, baka for grandfather, grandmother.
Finnish uses iso(large, great), isoisä, isoäiti.
Dutch uses groot, Grootvater, Grootmoder.
Portugese uses avô, avó for grandfather, grandmother.

Couldn´t figure out greek or russian alphabet. And couldn´t find any more decent dictionaries.

Strange that swedish is alone in a sea of ‘grands and greats’? Even finnish which is not even a germanic language uses ‘great’. Are there any language out there that uses fatherfather like swedish? And why are french and spanish so different? They are both romance languages right? Are there some lost words in old english (Viking influences) that uses fatherfather?

I´m pretty sure denote is not the word I´m looking for…

2

… eh :dubious: actually it’s the same in danish as well. We also use “bedstemor” and “bedstefar”, but the “swedish” version is more common. “Bedste” can also be used for someone who has the role of grandfather/mother but isn’t as closely related.

My fathers brother would be “farbror”, but his wife would be my aunt (tante) - and so on. Is it also like this in Sweden? (Your username suggests that you’re swedish)

3

Actually, for father’s or mother’s sister, we also have special words: faster and moster. It sure is a convenient construction, being able to use one word and not having to say “on my mother’s side” when wanting to make a distinction.

4

well, not sure what you’re looking for. In chinese, maternal/paternal are very clearly deliniated and use different words. Chinese is very detailed on relationships, older sister, younger sister, all the extended relationships are clearly label maternal or paternal, etc.

5

Again, it’s the same in danish. “Faster” and “moster” is shortenings/abbreviations of fathers sister and mothers sister.

6

Latin avunculus specifically refers to the mother’s brother. Avunculus is the root for the english uncle. So at least in Roman times there was some importance placed on how families were related.

I suspect that in cultures where these relationships are important they have words for those relationships, and in cultures that don’t - well there is no need for them. Language does not create words because it can but because it has to.

7

august9
Thank god, I was feeling lonely there for a while.

My farbrors wife, I suppose I could say tant, but that is relations by marriage not blood so there is probably no special farbrorsfru word.

And as far as I know. faster, moster comes from far-syster and mor-syster.

China Guy

Are chinese relationships determined by a father-mother(paternal grandmother), father-brother, father-sister joining of words? Can you write them out in a latin alphabet or would that screw things up?

adirondack_mike
Latin that is the good stuff, more of that please.

Does not all cultures come from a tribal origin were kinship and seperating maternal and paternal would be pretty important. I don´t know?

8

zumu (paternal grandmother) and zufu (paternal grandfather).

Waipo (maternal grandmother) and waigong (maternal grandfather). “Wai” literally means “outside” in chinese.

Inside the clan (wife joins the husbands clan) and outside the clan

9

The Languages Formerly Known as Serbo-Croatian don’t distinguish grandparents by maternal and paternal relationships, but they do distinguish aunts and uncles in this way - your mother’s brother is your ujak while your father’s brother is your stric, etc.

10

China Guy, my brother’s wife is Chinese, and their kids have always called their Chinese grandmother “Po-po.” Does this mean something else, or is it baby talk, or what?

11

The ‘ab’ in abuelo isn’t a prefix exactly. Abuelo comes from Latin ‘aviolus’, a form of ‘avus’ (grandfather, or ancestor). Avus probably is related to ‘ab’ (from), but in Spanish the word can’t be broken down like that. On the other hand, bisabuelo/bisabuela (great grandfather/mother) can be broken down into bis (meaning twice, two, double) + abuelo.