Conlangery #08: Kinship Terms

Conlangery #08: Kinship Terms

Published: Mon, 25 Jul 2011 16:00:50 +0000 \

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utterance-id1 hey this is george wanted to correct uh small error i made in this episode i keep referring to the future <unk> as tampa the correct pronunciation is to ah there's a <unk> rule and phonology that's not reflected in the roman <unk> thank you [noise] mm [noise] well um two <unk> two trucks of languages and the people who create george quarterly and over there a little bit closer to washington to me is we are coming up [noise] hello i'm finding more creative ways to save maryland and uh just south of americans had we had <unk> [laughter] hello yeah like my head [laughter] wow [laughter] so today we have power [laughter] i'm very excited about this topic [noise] hit him ship terminology so there's <unk> made that can carry a huge amount of information about your culture one group of words they shouldn't be kids shipped her how does your language divided up her siblings uncles and cousins and those pesky inlaws [noise] having a well developed <unk> terminology can go hand in hand with developing the family structure of the <unk> so we can talk a little bit about both sides of it but we're going to lean more towards the actual term but you know those terms has to be understood within the family structure william you gave us this really interesting reference i think i've seen this before or anything like that so this is all based on the work of an anthropology just actually working in the late eighteen hundreds lewis henry morgan who divided the kinship systems of the world into basically six <unk> wages that write six or seven people come differently and then sometimes you add in um the australian <unk> original systems [noise] and there seems to be um a modest link between the society is organized and what sort of kinship terminology um what's system you pick i think it's interesting that these systems pop up all over so you might have you know <unk> similar system used in china as is used in you know south america or someplace like that [noise] so that's interesting and most of them are named after native american groups um just because that was the data he had the most complex of the systems is the suit knees one [laughter] so that one's not [noise] not a native one but the rest of them are there the hawaiian the eskimo ear according to omaha and the crow [noise] um [noise] the hawaiian looks interesting to me mainly because big groups all all the all the people at the same generation is the ego as one thing right so yeah they when we say ego that's special terminology that we don't say hi which gets confusing [laughter] yeah which i say so huh ego is the point of reference to the kinship just yeah ego is the guy who's pocket yeah basically what we should say yeah she looks like the <unk> ripped off and now [laughter] yeah or you go [laughter] not necessarily the guy who's talking but the guy who's your point of reference so whoever's who whoever you're defining somebody in relation to the ego and so from there you get to what you call mother and father and then what do you call grandparents and why do you call uh aunts and uncles and cousins brothers and sisters and all that there's a very large number of different but well there's these various basic system i can't find one necessarily that exactly matches none or <unk> yeah well the chinese one is yeah a little <unk> little wacky but i i would consider it a variation of the cities [laughter] so the hawaiian kinship system is awfully simple yeah of your siblings and cousins are the same word yeah i've read and all of your your father and all of your mail relatives all of the male siblings have your father and mother have the same words so uncle maternal or paternal and father are all the same word and my mother [laughter] mother or aunts on either side or all the same we're so <unk> so that's like free terms for two generations [laughter] yeah the only thing i'm not like him at the <unk> if they don't put like a grandmother and grandfather or have <unk> uh well okay how'd you get high and yeah and i just say my pet peeve <unk> alive for people and not actually <unk> like my <unk> my boyfriend found that just want to call them my inlaws if not we're not married [laughter] [laughter] wow well that deals with uh cultural issue of what of uh marriage versus uh and fun [noise] [laughter] yeah versus um other arrangements but uh anyway so that our society puts a higher value our formal marriage for oh no that's not really for any particular reason that's rational just [laughter] [noise] that takes us out of the purview of this <unk> [laughter] [laughter] well okay i'll i'll i'll start keep it like political opinions on you know what let's let's let's move back to kinship term so the <unk> like hawaiian skin [laughter] that we have one here looks like the suit knees is the most complex yes let's say <unk> [laughter] [noise] so and the suny system it's your mothers and fathers uh whether you're uncles and aunts or maternal or paternal have different vocabulary yeah and you're maternal uncles children have different cousin words then you're maternal than your paternal aunts [laughter] right cousin so you've got one two three four sets of cousin and four sets of cousin words tiller yeah [laughter] basically you what what he said is a son or daughter of your brother or sister and her daughter of your brothers brother son or daughter of your mother's brother's son or daughter of your mother's sister that's all different i love <unk> in a language that doesn't have a delightful what's interesting is that the old english language what we know of that system where we're missing some vocabulary seems to be following this very complex suny system so that your father's sisters and brothers have different terms from your mother sisters and brothers that's interesting right and that reminds me a little bit of chinese except the chinese does not it's not that complex what's called excellent [noise] except chinese has a whole different dimension that he hasn't reflected in his system that distinguishes relative age when you're talking about the same rate it within the generation right nah because go god d._v._d. and all that stuff yeah and that extent cousin and it also wrists but extends to your brothers siblings or your father siblings sorry your father's siblings or your father's brothers actually [laughter] [laughter] <unk> referring to them i guess your father [noise] yeah for for the chinese system when i saw that appendix to my chinese dictionary i i just yeah it scared me a little [laughter] <unk> <unk> ah a little frightening for the cousin terms aren't that hard once you learn the brother and sister her because they use those and uh the cousin terms or actually it's divides cousin's cousin's that are related to you only by man and then all the rest of them we have in a crash talks about the um kinship systems of average in australia that can be pretty complex too and they have other [noise] um [noise] little fill agrees added on top we can talk about and a bit but i remember reading in dixon and i forget if it was in in one of his sort of overviews or if it was his his memoirs of of doing field work in australia [noise] some ab original groups like to talk about these systems they know that they're kinship system is complex [laughter] entailed and they like to sit around and this is a way for people to indulge in some some intellectual pastime and to to show off and went up your friends is to to try to think about these very complicated kinship systems that they have [noise] so that's interesting to me that if you if you have a system is complex and it becomes an object of discussion in itself [laughter] uh i don't know if uh i some of my chinese friends i've had discussions about their kids ship system but i don't know if they do that amongst themselves or just one more year so right that's <unk> i'm sure is a granny though uh chinese granny who knows everything oh i'm sure they like an old <unk> man i i'm guessing i guess in they can calculate any relationship necessary headlines names like how they [noise] [laughter] some old granny or some <unk> pre somewhere or or stuff like that [laughter] i think this is more the preview grannies but yeah yeah yeah <unk> i don't imagine mine caring and extended family should be like as <unk> you know a a grandmother may i would i would say one thing is that it makes cross cultural communication interesting because when you're learning a language like like this when i was like i need i ask my mom how i was related specifically to different cousins and when i was unsure about whether they were older or younger kids are close to me i would ask her about that stuff like that it makes for a lot of interesting stuff [noise] but anyway pulling back to how do you make this <unk> obviously <unk> from what we've been talking about these basic formulas that are on this site which i'll lincoln the show show notes uh systematic <unk> terminology basically with uh [noise] these are for or you're starting point to go from right and then you can even expand it from their depending on what you need or what you want because as we said there's languages that have even more distinctions on top of these ah sure sure it's like for example the distinction between elder and younger which chinese system and certainly some other systems do this typically it's it's the closest relative ease you in the sense of more closely related is more likely that you are to care about that [noise] another thing i want to mention which is is really interesting and quite common [noise] on the planet is systems of more u. t. <unk> a funky french drive were meaning have um ah the simplest <unk> systems there are two <unk> so for example that they're clean good in the pacific northwest have two more eighties and whatever your mother is you inherit <unk> so you can either be i think it's raven is one of the money to use and [noise] he goes the other well <unk> there's raven and then there's another one which in some places will be eagles so we'll stick with reagan <unk> raven an equal [noise] are you cannot plans or what will know there'll be multiple clans within a <unk> the point is you must marry outside your <unk> uh i can get good basis like hell bye bye [laughter] that's actually a very interesting things to talk about is ah <unk> and on them all give me can't affect or to uh to lay <unk> [noise] what the <unk> culture requires for marriage whether it's how far they are outside of the group or how far they are inside of the group ah can affect this i know that a lot of the chinese stuff i was mentioning this with cousin but it affects other things is uh a lot of people who are related to you through through women who are considered outside of your family and therefore okay to marry but within the parent her line you're not allowed this whole chinese stuff this is not sure and and and that too now but [noise] but this is normally you either you pick one you pick a petra loyalty or a <unk> and the whole point is to avoid marrying people who were too close to you so long as everyone is following the same system it doesn't matter yeah <unk> because although it's kind of thing um [noise] change ah <unk> and <unk> you don't have any <unk> usually <unk> kevin hawaiian uh last [noise] um my now people i <unk> <unk> <unk> named teasing <unk> name [noise] so <unk> uh marrying someone outside as a <unk> [noise] <unk> [noise] that's that's very interesting thing and there's a lot of things that control uh who you're supposed to marry even outside of just family considerations i believe there's i read about like group of languages where most of the culture that speak these they they asked they require you to marry someone who has a different native language from you oh that's interesting [noise] yeah so the the two separate tribes there <unk> and the high to who live in the pacific northwest have the same <unk> systems 'cause they've been living together next to each other for so long and and then in australia it gets even more complicated so in addition to the complicated kinship system [laughter] they have split some of them some of them have a simple you know <unk> system was you know just two groups but you'll find some systems that have divided up further into four [noise] or even eight <unk> except they're called skin systems in them and australian english so something like the <unk> there's this complicated system of [noise] if your mother and your father have to be a particular skins and then the child is if it if you had a different skin and then you're usually the same skin is your maternal grandfather or something like that and and who you can marry is highly constrained and this constraints was not optional rain is as strong as a taboo on incest to break that pattern so [noise] any even bought a soap opera [laughter] these days the the the skin systems falling apart and people are getting married who wouldn't before and within the past if you know been dealt with but [laughter] [laughter] no but that that that's that's something that <unk> from mistakes [noise] oh dealt with yeah yeah but i mean you know you know so there's really a lot of different ways you could go and it a lot of times it'll depend on different cultural things or you know if they follow ah hey matrimonial sort of more eighty or a <unk> that can't affect how people put distinctions into the language that seems like a very logical thing to me is that what ever distinctions are more important culturally too you are going to affect how you classify people even within your own family and within the australian system what skinnier in may determine certain um [noise] a ritual obligations you may be the people who are responsible for particular seasonal rituals you may be forbidding certain kinds of food interesting right it it becomes a starting point that that leads out into the totality of the culture [noise] yeah they <unk> last and last everything he tells me up [laughter] just 'cause the complexity of it you mean like the complexity and like you know how to sex just any printing weiner [noise] oh well [laughter] well that's the way it is [noise] that's <unk> you don't we don't get to choose their parents we don't get to choose their skin [laughter] we don't get to choose our <unk> yeah [laughter] [noise] ah well we don't have the time to discuss all of this but if if people are interested they should definitely check out some buildings we gift because [noise] particular <unk> ah kinship systems are associated with the life style of the people who it's attached to you do not expect the full on sue denise can ship system in a small almost nuclear family oriented hunter gatherer group that just isn't going to happen [noise] you know the kind of don't really need it so right if you if you're feeling in the mood to invent a suit in these can ship just to make sure that you've attached to to people who make sense for [noise] <unk> [noise] probably people with i'd say people with large extended families are tend to live in large extended family groups like like the ancient chinese did at least among the richer <unk> [laughter] so and you know there's gonna be a little quirks in it that reflect other parts of the culture so i think that's about all we have to say about that but there was a very good overview of what what you can expect with kinship systems and i put a lake in the show notes to this these ah different basic types that we were talking about and also people can look up <unk> some specific languages we were talking about so why don't we move on to uh our future <unk> is everybody's still here yeah yeah okay we're just waiting for you to chew through whatever it is you're trying to say okay well uh they may not have an evil <unk> <unk> <unk> well this was this was suggested by ah william <unk> caught lying is tap out temple was created by dirk <unk> uh <unk> american <unk> american indian languages and he uses the conceive a fictional mormon missionaries notes present hey language isolated that i'm presuming would have been spoken in utah what is it what a bean or did they ever give any specific place <unk> ah <unk> it was close probably around there since they said that they live close to the youth yeah in south east any <unk> yep oh okay can i say how much <unk> the <unk> yeah that was that was the main thing <unk> great movie [laughter] i and then they can put the language in that movie and i be entertained [laughter] [noise] as long as it gets the actors to speak it properly [laughter] the class not [noise] [laughter] that's a whole other discussion [laughter] william you suggest this are there any like specific features or anything about the language i just know it looks very very well developed yeah [noise] oh well the parts of it that are developed are very well developed there there's plenty missing [noise] um of course so [noise] the documentation for this languages appeared multiple places on the web and it has finally landed at the <unk> which hopefully we'll exist longer than some of it's other homes [noise] the languages invented in nineteen ninety six [noise] and i've been running into it occasionally for a large part of my language invention career and i have to say the first time i saw the phonology and the spelling system my head almost exploded [noise] it's a radically phony make system [noise] so it represents the underlying phonemes and doesn't bother to change the spelling for all of these conditions changes have i <unk> i guess so that for example the letter the letter tea maybe pronounced <unk> it may be pronounced law inter dental or it may be <unk> to asia [noise] oh gee you would only occur before uh before uh [noise] an <unk> or yeah [noise] so i could not understand what madness would inspire someone to produce language in which the word spelled s. a. t. i would be pronounced <unk> [laughter] having subsequently studied [noise] utah has taken languages i have a deeper appreciation for what he was on about [noise] uh so it does it have a strong resemblance too you took a stick you testing some parts of it do um hopi so for example in hopi adjunct uh attributed adjectives are <unk> you don't they just get slammed onto the now so that worked for dog is so cool and the word for white by itself is good see and when you smash white onto dog you could could solve vocal so vocal in addition to the <unk> changes has become vocal [noise] you know hopi because they're friendly they write that change [laughter] the p. is no reason like a piece when it occurs between about <unk> [noise] so [noise] this sort of process happens in a lot of the northern <unk> second languages and so the the sound system this love and clinics and and something some things about the <unk> are quite like utah has taken the verb is not like any you to us that can language i've ever seen the verb is altogether weird [laughter] um and it has never to sort of a mix of utah has taken and algonquin [noise] maybe well which it kind of makes sense though because this language is supposed to be according to his fictional history of it it's supposed to be an islip so it probably would have heavy <unk> these aerial features yes aerial features something you do a second and then it's own [noise] um [noise] it's <unk> the thing that is so interesting about the verbs that it's so on you to as a second [noise] is you have uh a few pre fixes it indicates both the subject and the direct object this is for for transit of verbs [noise] so you have second person does something to first person second person does something to third person first person does second or third person okay yeah i see these right well that's that's what they mean so for example i see him uses the <unk> plus see which i've not concocted here [noise] to make it say he sees me there is not a different prefix you use a different verb stemmed that indicates that those rules have been in first <unk> [laughter] oh that's right [laughter] 'cause that's like evil <unk> completely standard behavior in oakland languages except they use the <unk> different verbs them [noise] so <unk> enron at all [laughter] right [laughter] so yes the <unk> so he <unk> it involves a an l. in fix is when you to to the verbs them [noise] his <unk> to to switch those things around [noise] to flip the hierarchy so [noise] yes i don't quite understand why you would why would be constructed that way but you know seeing as it occurs natural language is in a slightly different matter it's plausible [noise] well <unk> there's this and i'm a c. or agency hierarchy the idea is if i'm talking i'm more luckily <unk> likely to talk about what i'm doing rather than what other people are doing so first person has primacy by default oh okay second person has the next level and third person slows down no eight different languages tweak this a little bit but you take the most common case and make that the fault and then do something special to say that the most common case has been inverted i may have to try to use this in a life [laughter] or to fully understand that [laughter] right sure if that's the the best way to to to play with it but unfortunately his documentation <unk> verbs is doesn't have as many examples that that might like [noise] um i <unk> <unk> you didn't go looking for them into the annotated texts right he's got to tax that are nicely glossed <unk> with <unk> which will make bianca happy yes they do have losses yeah has off of so so you can go you know look at at these things [noise] um and and and and see them a little bit more see them at work but uh yeah [noise] <unk> [laughter] but they but it is interesting but one is just <unk> and then the other is some coyote mess [noise] <unk> i'm not sure if he borrowed it from one of their tribe or came up with it on his uh there are so many coyote tales i have no idea [laughter] yeah it's hard to say so [noise] anyway so there this is just wonder if uh you know it uses post positions and and there's interesting changes to [noise] the verbs excuse me that the <unk> as well [noise] that all combined together to make a really magnificent thing is this is i would put this language on the top ten oh things beginning calming or should see both in terms of description and in really doing something quite different from relaxing english i may grave this actually like a <unk> no not <unk> <unk> it has like it's on <unk> <unk> <unk> <unk> maybe it's because i don't know much about like [noise] you know that language is at that age and then it has to have i haven't seen [noise] god i during china's side to that [laughter] yeah i didn't really down rush into the grammer like that that has some can have said passionate use this demonstrative rights i guess i'm too lazy to ever like today or whatever [noise] it's a nice thing to me it's v. o. s. or [noise] though he <unk> he defines is set the structure a little bit more than just via whereas but has a very specific structure uh verbal object interact object that subject or whatever but um yeah it looks very interesting it it looks fairly well thought out it it's not necessarily the information presented here is not necessarily complete but it's enough to be for you to go over it for hours and hours oh easily and you know and just the fact that he has this whole back story of how the brother josephs guy vowel sort of uh lived with the pet by and then all of this is supposedly from his notes and all that [laughter] i was gonna say he's uh he's currently a professor of linguistics so i assume [laughter] and and since i i just did a quick check he doesn't have an interest in utah has taken languages so [laughter] i am i yes is this language as a result of him his studies in graduate school perhaps <unk> mixed of of things like i was just looking at the derivation of morphology uh-huh [noise] and he has a special suffix that he's used to produce words for small bussing animal or insect and several second languages do seem to have special word creation stems for some bugs really yes the <unk> [laughter] [noise] right i [noise] he doesn't i don't necessarily think of bugs when i think of that area unless you if you include down in mexico but that whole different thing but uh it's definitely a very interesting language before we go i want to do a feedback uh unless somebody who has more to say on that language nope no and when it's ten <unk> okay let's let's do the feedback so we have we had a comment on episode or this is our episode about getting started on line and from peter and he says suggestions for word generation singing i've found that uh different melodies lead to different results classical music works best for me [noise] you do need to have a good grasp of your languages phonology and it takes practice to not end up relaxing your native language is uh phonology but it's little more intimate personal than running a random origin or ah plus one on <unk> linguistic classics classes and <unk> definitely agree that you should use i. p. a. in this day and age uh blah blah blah [laughter] cry or foe syntax by thomas pain has a scary title but as a gold mine for the <unk> is full of good ideas for unusual features not commonly found in your standard indoor european languages numerous examples from many different languages aren't included and many topics are explored in that uh without this sometimes overwhelming attention to detail that can lose and the amateur linguist additionally it has a very comprehensive list of questions that make you really think about how language yeah i was so happy to see this comment because um [noise] not more than two months ago i've managed to acquire a copier <unk> acts and i've been <unk> my <unk> grandma i need fell year for like they're in <unk> and i hadn't even nowadays [noise] like <unk> <unk> ah guy area and a ball and <unk> and even though i mean i had gone bad with <unk> [laughter] hell i highly recommend it [noise] [noise] yeah i i actually bought describing more hosts it takes a while ago but i only recently actually cracked it open and took a look at it and i think yeah it's very good resource it's a little more advanced than the other things that we were mentioning and our cat hey matt begin began <unk> they get to the point where you want to like sit down and like sammy describe like don yeah and it's not written for language creation it's it's written language description it's tastes in light of what i used to and i said my share methods class that i wish i had had it in my field methods clash pilot i mean my life easier [laughter] well that's what it's for exactly via linguistics and but it it gives you a very good step by step guided how to write a grammar so when you're you're ready to caught a fire the grammar of your language you you can look through this some things might not be relevant to you but something but it's definitely a very good resource yeah william you have an opinion on describing workforce in fact i've never seen it but i certainly lots of people recommended highly thank you very much for commenting peter and we we read comments from the site uh if you email <unk> dot com you could be read on on the show and we also have a voice mail line which nobody has used yet [laughter] also don't forget they cannot <unk> something to hide and then <unk> <unk> box or something yeah or just send it as the attachment or ah so you can record her body of yourself and just email it to me and i i my i may use it on the show i really would like to see a little bit more the audience is i think that that would make the show butter i enjoy it and i can't really happy run everything happens for when i say comments [laughter] i know and so i think that <unk> uh any less we're william nope bianca pamper heck [laughter] all right well [laughter] you can cut that out [noise] <unk> and we'll see you next time thank you for listening to con lying or you can find all our episodes and show notes as well subscribed to r. i. too or are assess speeds through con larry dot <unk> dot org you can also like our face book page or follow at con library on put her if you would like to contact us with corrections comets questions or suggestions or even suggest your own <unk> please a male hotline angry at g. e. mail dot com more hall is to our new voicemail la brea zero eight seven three six and a one we also have a more and more on our <unk> our name was created by then during the day is [noise]

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Conlangery Podcast/Conlangery 08 Kinship Terms (last edited 2017-09-05 23:14:54 by TranscriBot)