Familial Relations

[joliecanard.livejournal.com]

I've been studying Russian for 4 years and had to look up the words for nephew and cousin, because I've never heard anyone use them. Tell me, Russians, do you use the words племянник and двоюродный брат, and I've just never talked to russians about their cousins, or is it, as I was thinking, that you usually just say сын моего дяди, etc.?

x-posted

Comments

[dalyeth-ok.livejournal.com]

Nobody says "сын/дочь моего дядя/моей тети". We also very seldom use the words кузен, кузина. The correct variant is племянник/племянница, двоюродный брат/двоюродная сестра. There are also such terms as троюродный and четвероюродный to denote more distant relations. For instance, if my mother has a cousin, his children are троюродные братья/сестры to me :)

[freedomcry.livejournal.com]

No. Hardly anyone would ever say «сын моего дяди» instead of «мой двоюродный брат», or «дочь моего брата» instead of «моя племянница».

The only kinship terms that have gone quite out of use are "brother-in-law" and "sister-in-law" — «деверь» and «золовка» for the husband's siblings, «шурин» and «свояченица» for the wife's. I had to look them up and check which is which, because normally, like most people nowadays, I wouldn't remember. People just say «брат жены», «сестра мужа», etc.

[freedomcry.livejournal.com]

Кузен and кузина are a 19th-century gentry thing that never quite caught on. And yes, the rule is that the English "nth cousin" is the Russian «(n+1)юродный брат»/«(n+1)юродная сестра».

[apakin.livejournal.com]

Yep. But the most often word for "nth cousin" is simply "брат". For example I never use word "двоюродный брат", talking about my cousin ))) Just "брат"
Sorry for terrible English.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Wife's brother is шурин, believe me. I used to have one, and their family was quite old-fashioned, so I had to memorize it :) And I was his деверь, of course. Wife's mother is тёща, wife's father is тесть, husband's father is свёкор and husband's mother is свекровь. To wife's parents, their daugher's husband is зять, and to husband's parents, their son's wife is невестка (for the father) and сноха (for the mother). All those terms are quite widely used. As of золовка and свояк/свояченица, I was never really sure who exactly they were :))

The whole list of Russian kinship terms consists of 54 positions, and includes such degrees of kinship like пасынок (adopted son,) падчерица (adopted daughter,) сват (father of one of spouses for the parents of the other spouse,) сватья (mother .... ... ... ...the rest is the same,) отчим (once widowed or divorced mother's new husband) etc. etc. etc., including my favorite внучатый племянник (brother's grandson.)

[nemica.livejournal.com]

I call my cousin "кузен" but it's a little humorously. Because it sounds old-fashioned. And the most common variant is of course "двоюродный брат".

[monarchistka.livejournal.com]

Only women can have a деверь because he is husband's brother. :)
And the husband of someone's sister is зять.
*
Золовка - husband's sister.
Свояченница - wife's sister.
Деверь - husband's brother.
Шурин - wife's brother.
Зять - both sister's husband and daughter's husband.
Невестка - brother's or son's wife (for both parents).
Сноха - son's wife (for the father).

[boy-onthewing.livejournal.com]

You know, in Italian, you can pretty much say "nipote/nipota" and you can get across that you're related to someone. Russian just amazes me sometimes.

[boy-onthewing.livejournal.com]

Oh, no, your English is very good--and honestly, if you try to speak it, people will only applaud you.

[ekeme-ndiba.livejournal.com]

You forgot to mention кум (godfather of a child/father of a godchild), кума (godmother of a child/mother of a godchild), крёстный [отец]/крёстная [мать] (godfather/godmother), крестник/крестница (godson/goddaughther).

[onodera.livejournal.com]

I've only seen members of really close-knit extended families refer to their cousins like that. Either they were from Caucasus, or cousins' parents lived close enough to see each other almost every day.
My cousins live on the other edge of Moscow, so I don't call them брат or сестра without adding the degree of родство.

[onodera.livejournal.com]

No, you were his зять. Зять is woman's husband for both her parents and siblings.

This article is good for knowing how to call all those throngs of your relatives: http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Родственные_отношения

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

I did not forget it, I just did not feel like completing the list. Something should be left to the curious ones ;-)

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

I do, though I see my cousin only a few times a year. Each of us doesn't have "real" brothers or sisters, we are the only, er, children in our families, so we grew up calling each other "brothers" - an, of course, we know that we are only cousins to each other.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

The link didn't work. I have checked it with Gramma.Ru (http://www.gramma.ru/RUS/?id=13.22). Yes you're right. Might be my "momentary lapse of reason" :) Though I'm divorced for five years now, so I could simply forget :))

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Yes you're right, I've mixed up things. Gramma.ru (http://www.gramma.ru/RUS/?id=13.22) does have a nice aticle on that subject.

Note that it's not своячеННица but своячеНица.

[onodera.livejournal.com]

Yes, the LJ autourl engine did not include the Russian part of the URL.
http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Родственные_отношения (http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Родственные_отношения)

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Yeah, now it worked. Still, I liked ramma.Ru's version better, though it wasn't this detailed. For some reason, the whole Wiki's objectivist attitude sometimes looks quite non-human to me :))

[monarchistka.livejournal.com]

>Note that it's not своячеННица but своячеНица.
Thank you! It wasn't a typo, I really didn't know that.