Kinship terminology
Kinship terminology is the system used in languages to refer to the persons to whom an individual is related through kinship. Different societies classify kinship relations differently and therefore use different systems of kinship terminology; for example, some languages distinguish between consanguine and affinal uncles, whereas others have only one word to refer to both a father and his brothers. Kinship terminologies include the terms of address used in different languages or communities for different relatives and the terms of reference used to identify the relationship of these relatives to ego or to each other.
Historical view
performed the first survey of kinship terminologies in use around the world. Though much of his work is now considered dated, he argued that kinship terminologies reflect different sets of distinctions. For example, most kinship terminologies distinguish between sexes and between generations. Moreover, he argued, kinship terminologies distinguish between relatives by blood and marriage.However, Morgan also observed that different languages organize these distinctions differently. He proposed to describe kinship terms and terminologies as either descriptive or classificatory. When a descriptive term is used, it can only represent one type of relationship between two people, while a classificatory term represents one of many different types of relationships. For example, the word brother in English-speaking societies indicates a son of the same parent; thus, English-speaking societies use the word brother as a descriptive term. A person's male first cousin could be the mother's brother's son, mother's sister's son, father's brother's son, father's sister's son, and so on; English-speaking societies therefore use the word cousin as a classificatory term.
Morgan discovered that a descriptive term in one society can become a classificatory term in another society. For example, in some societies, one would refer to many different people as "mother". Moreover, some societies do not group together relatives which the English-speaking societies classify together. For example, some languages have no one-word equivalent to cousin, because different terms refer to one's mother's sister's children and to one's father's sister's children.
Six basic patterns of kinship
Using these different terms, Murdock identified six basic patterns of kinship terminologies:The diagram depicts a two-generation comparison of the six major kinship systems. Circles correspond to female relatives while triangles correspond to male ones. Relatives marked with the same non-gray color are called by the same kinship term.
Note that in some versions of the Crow and Omaha systems, the relatives shown as "cousin" in the Crow and Omaha boxes of the chart are actually referred to as either "son/daughter" or "nephew/niece".
Also, in some languages with an Iroquois type of system, the relatives shown as "cousin" on the chart are referred to by the same terms used for "sister-in-law"/"brother-in-law". Similarly, the term for father's sister can be the same as that for mother-in-law, and the term for mother's brother the same as father-in-law.
Hawaiian kinship
- Hawaiian kinship: the most classificatory; only distinguishes between sex and generation. Thus, siblings and cousins are not distinguished.
Sudanese kinship
- Sudanese kinship: the most descriptive; no two types of relatives share the same term. Siblings are distinguished from cousins, and different terms are used for each type of cousin.
Eskimo kinship
- Eskimo kinship: has both classificatory and descriptive terms; in addition to sex and generation, it also distinguishes between lineal relatives and collateral relatives. Lineal relatives have highly descriptive terms; collateral relatives have highly classificatory terms. Thus, siblings are distinguished from cousins, while all types of cousins are grouped together. The system of English language kinship terms falls into the Eskimo type.
Iroquois kinship and its variations
- Iroquois kinship: has both classificatory and descriptive terms; in addition to sex and generation, it also distinguishes between siblings of opposite sexes in the parental generation. A genealogical relationship traced through a pair of siblings of the same sex is classed as a blood relationship, but one traced though a pair of siblings of the opposite sex can be considered an in-law relationship. In other words, siblings are grouped together with parallel cousins, while separate terms are used for cross-cousins. Also, one calls one's mother's sister "mother" and one's father's brother "father". However, one refers to one's mother's brother and one's father's sister by separate terms.
Crow kinship
- Crow kinship: like Iroquois, but further distinguishes between one's mother's side and one's father's side. Relatives on the mother's side of the family have more descriptive terms, and relatives on the father's side have more classificatory terms. Thus, Crow kinship is like Iroquois kinship, with the addition that a number of relatives belonging to one's father's matrilineage are grouped together, ignoring generational differences, so that the same term is used for both one's father's sister and one's father's sister's daughter, etc.
Omaha kinship
- Omaha kinship: like Iroquois, but further distinguishes between one's mother's side and one's father's side. Relatives on the mother's side of the family have more classificatory terms, and relatives on the father's side have more descriptive terms. Thus, Omaha kinship is like Iroquois, with the addition that a number of relatives belonging to one's mother's patrilineage are grouped together, ignoring generational differences, so that the same term is used for both one's mother's brother and one's mother's brother's son, etc.
Tri-relational kin-terms
Dual Propositus Tri-relational Kin-terms
Terms of this type can be found in Murrinh-patha and Bininj Kunwok. The speaker and the addressee form two distinct propositi who have unique relations to the referent. An example in Murrinh-patha is the term yilamarna. This term refers to the speaker's brother, who is also the uncle of the addressee; it is therefore also encoded in this term that the addressee is the child of the speaker. The term could be elaborated thus:
- The person who is my brother who is your uncle by virtue of you being my child.
- The person who is your maternal uncle and who is my nephew by virtue of you being my grandchild.
In this kind of tri-relation, two referents form a dyad via some relation, and this dyad is in turn related to the speaker in some way. An example of a tri-relational dyadic term can be found in Gooniyandi. Marralangi one way of referring to a husband and wife pair is specific to when either the husband or the wife is the opposite-sex sibling of the speaker. The denotation of marralangi is thus:
- Those two who are a married couple wherein the husband is my brother.
Group/dyadic kin terms and pronouns
Dyadic Kin-terms
tend to have extensive vocabularies for denoting kin-relations, including for referring to and addressing dyads and groups based on their relation to one another or to the speaker. For example, see below the complete inventory of group kin-terms in BardiThe size of this dyadic kin-term inventory is not atypical of Australian languages. Though smaller, the Dyirbal dyadic kin-term inventory is also extensive :
| Term | Kin Denoted |
| gumbu-jirr | MM+DC |
| ngagi-jirr | MF+DC |
| babi-jirr | FM+SC |
| bulu-jirr | FF+SC |
| ngumay-girr | F+C FyB+eBC FyZ+eBC |
| gina-girr | M+C MyC+eZC MeZ+yZC MeB+yZC |
| ngalman-girr | B+Z B+B Z+Z |
| ngaybirr / mulba | H+W |
| dadiny-garra | WB+ZH HZ+BW etc. |
| dunggarr-jirr | MeBD+FyZD/S MeBS+FyZD/S |
In Murrinh-patha, nonsingular pronouns are differentiated not only by the gender makeup of the group, but also by the members' interrelation. If the members are in a sibling-like relation, a third pronoun will be chosen distinct from the Masculine and Feminine/Neuter.