Family member titles

[kimpossible]

I'm somewhat familiar with the mother's side of the family in Mandarin because I'm around them most of the time, but what about the father's? Sorry if pinyin sucks.

Mother's mother: wai puo
Mother's father: wai gong
Mother's older brother: Da Jo
Mother's older brother's wife: Da Jo Ma
Mother's older sister: Da Ai I
Mother's older sister's husband: Da Ai I Zhang
Second son (mother's brother): Er Jo
Second son's wife: Er Jo Ma
Default other uncles: jo jo
Defalut other aunts: ai i

Father's mother: puo puo
Father's father: gong gong
Father's older brother: Da Be
Father's older brother's wife: Su Su? I know there's a Su Su somewhere

What's the rest? Help a foreigner out here. I have another trip coming up in January.

And we don't need to limit this to Mandarin. I'd like to hear other than Chinese. I know most of the Japanese ones but it's for inside and outside honorificky terms. It's not as specific as Chinese is. I mean, how often do you use haha and sobo?

[kitty]

i really only know on mother's side since my dad isn't close to his family.

you missed your mother's younger sister: xiao ai i (i think... at least that's what i call her).

what other relations are you looking for?

is biao je your older female cousin? bah... my mandarin is nowhere near as good as it used to be.

[SunWuKong]

is biao je your older female cousin?

yes, but that's used for maternal cousins only.

[kimpossible]

For my personal use, the dad's side; extended. In general I'm curious about family titles in Korean, Vietnamese, etc.

[SunWuKong]

some of the Cantonese titles are different, not meaning pronounciation, but the titles themselves. you can probably ask bunboy about the Mandarin ones.

i'll try to list off some Cantonese titles...

father's father: yeh yeh
father's mother: ma ma (um... it's a downward tone, different from "mother")
father's older brother: baak baak (i think...)
father's older brother's wife: (no idea...)
father's younger brother: sohk sohk
father's younger brother's wife: sum sum (my sum sum told me to call her by her name because this title makes her sound old, hahhah)
father's older sister: goo ma
father's younger sister: goo jeh
father's sister's husband: goo jeung

mother's father: gong gong
mother's mother: poh poh
mother's brother: kau fu
mother's brother's wife: kum mo (i think it's the same for both older and younger)
mother's older sister: yi ma
mother's younger sister: yi yi
mother's sister's husband: yi jeung

for those titles that are twice-repeat of the same word, you can replace the first instance of the word with "ah" - but that's a cruder and less child-like form.

__________________

[kasia]

father's father: yeh yeh
father's mother: ma ma (um... it's a downward tone, different from "mother")


my darn abc cousins can't pronounce it properly. i'm always like, "stop calling gramma mom."

i spell it "mah-mah"

[kasia]

some of the Cantonese titles are different, not meaning pronounciation, but the titles themselves. you can probably ask bunboy about the Mandarin ones.

i'll try to list off some Cantonese titles...

father's older brother: baak baak (i think...)

dai baak fu, yee baak fu, etc. but baak baak for short if there is only one.

father's older brother's wife: (no idea...)

dai baak mo, yee baak mo, etc.

mother's brother's wife: kum mo (i think it's the same for both older and younger)

yup



now do the toisan =)

i think it's funny when ppl call their paternal grandmother's "ngin ngin".

[ChinaLama]

i always thpought father's mother was nai nai and father's father is yeh yeh. It's proly cuz in Shanghainese, we call our father's mother "uh-niang" and father's father "uh-yah". Ok, that totally spelled out poorly. :-P

[lethal]

I'll do the Vietnamese later. It is as complex, if not moreso, than Chinese because not only is each individual person given a title, the title changes from region to region using similar, if not the same, words.

[kasia]

we can do in-laws too (cantonese):

husband's mother = nai nai

husband's father = lo yeh

husband's older sister = dai gu lai

husband's older sister's husband = dai bahk

husband's older brother = dai bahk

husband's older brother's wife = ah so

husband's younger sister = shiu gu

husband's younger sister's husband = gu yeh

husband's younger brother = shui sohk

wife's mother = ngoi mo

wife's father = ngoi fu

[Chris]

father's older brother's wife: BAK LIEUNG..

__________________

[deez nuts]

I'm somewhat familiar with the mother's side of the family in Mandarin because I'm around them most of the time, but what about the father's? Sorry if pinyin sucks.

Mother's mother: wai puo
Mother's father: wai gong
Mother's older brother: Da Jo
Mother's older brother's wife: Da Jo Ma
Mother's older sister: Da Ai I
Mother's older sister's husband: Da Ai I Zhang
Second son (mother's brother): Er Jo
Second son's wife: Er Jo Ma
Default other uncles: jo jo
Defalut other aunts: ai i

Father's mother: puo puo
Father's father: gong gong
Father's older brother: Da Be
Father's older brother's wife: Su Su? I know there's a Su Su somewhere

What's the rest? Help a foreigner out here. I have another trip coming up in January.

And we don't need to limit this to Mandarin. I'd like to hear other than Chinese. I know most of the Japanese ones but it's for inside and outside honorificky terms. It's not as specific as Chinese is. I mean, how often do you use haha and sobo?

father's father: yeh yeh
father's mother: nai nai
father's older brother: ber ber or da ber
father's older brother's wife: ber ma
father's younger brother: xiao su
father's younger brother's wife: sen sen

the usual disclaimer: it's in mandarin and the pinyin is off.

[kasia]

bak lerng

i stand corrected. father's older brother's wife is bak lerng.

my head is going to explode.

[SunWuKong]

i stand corrected. father's older brother's wife is bak lerng.

my head is going to explode.

can't both of them work?

[kimpossible]

we can do in-laws too (cantonese):



yikes, that means there's another set? i wonder if i've been using the wrong one, though the big uncle's wife calls her father in law baba. i like to think positive but there's no way i can manage another set for in-laws.

[seanp]

The interesting fact about family titles is in the south vietnam, the first daughter/son is usually called anh/chi "hai"--- Hai means two. There is the word for first daughter/son which is "CA" but the south vietnamese people don't use it because there was a prince called Ca in the Nguyen dynasty and he died at the river in some south provinces. They believed using the word "ca" is very unlucky :/

[SunWuKong]

yikes, that means there's another set? i wonder if i've been using the wrong one, though the big uncle's wife calls her father in law baba. i like to think positive but there's no way i can manage another set for in-laws.

i'm not sure, but i think the in-law titles are used if you want to be formal. probably some families use them on a regular basis, but my parents and their siblings don't. they either use the same titles for as if they weren't in-laws (like how my mother uses the same titles that my father uses for my grandparents, etc), or they just use the relatives' names. and actually amongst my parents and their siblings, they usually just address their older siblings by their names. but maybe that's more informal than the average Chinese families.

here is a HK Chinglish title that some HKers use for their mothers: ma da

hahhah

[deez nuts]

bah

make it easy on yourself, HH and do what i do:

i call them by their full names.

too much chinese formality and mannerism bullshit.

[kimpossible]

yeah, I'm pretty mentally tapped with what terms i know now. might have been a different story if i had grown up with it or had some official studying rather than just trying to pick it up environmentally. i feel bad for not being fluent by now (i have no real excuses) but that's life i suppose. if i was really determined i'd take some damn classes and deal with the northern tongue curling with ensuing mockery of my tongue curling.

[deez nuts]

is it really that much of a formal and strict household?

i mean honestly, you're part of his family now. in my opinion, if someone is gonna get offended cuz you don't know the correct way to call your father in law's younger sister's husband, forget them. it's almost impossible to get along with all your relatives anyways.

don't be so hard on yourself.

[kimpossible]

No, not at all. No one's going to be offended about titles, if they were that strict I wouldn't be accepted as a family member. I was bemoaning my linguistic impotence. You'd think I'd have my shit more together about it after nealy ten years. General frustration because I'm a grown woman and I can't even express myself properly around my own (in-law) family. I miss out on a lot because I can't communicate like an adult.

((re-read)) I see what the problem was. I shifted subjects mentally from titles to language and didn't express it properly in my post. I was kicking myself in the ass because of lack of language skill.

edit: not every difficulty for me is imposed by someone else. it just takes extra work on my part to adjust which can get frustrating.

[kasia]

it's pretty formal on my dad's side of the family, so my mom actually has to use the formal in-law titles.

luckily, my dad is the only child :)

[AliBabaIncorporated]

my head is going to explode.
that's a well-known danger of reading too much cantonese pinyin :p

[tapestrybabe]

In general I'm curious about family titles in Korean, Vietnamese, etc.

Family titles in korean...

Father: Appa

Mother: Umma

Older Brother: Oppa
Younger Brother: Nam dong seng

Older Sister: Unni
Younger Sister: Yah dong seng

Grandmother: Halmoni

Grandfather: Halabuji

Thats all i know...

[mr. x]

oh man im taiwanese and i get titles all messed up

i called my uncle (he's married to my mom's sister) "su su" and its actually somethin like "e diun" or somethin

[seanp]

Family's Titles

Father: Ba in South, Bo in North
Mom: Me in South, Ma in North, Ma with a lower tone in Middle region

Mom's
mom: Ba ngoai (ngoai means outside)
dad: Ong ngoai
older/younger brother: bac in north, cau in south
older/younger sister: bac in north (not so sure), di (yi) in south
older brother's wife: mo rhymes with pho
older/younger sister's husband: yuong
youger sister's husband: cau

Father's
mom: Ba noi (noi means inside)
dad: ong no
older brother/sister: bac
younger brother: chu
younger brother's wife: thim
younger sister: is co also

Note that unlike chinese or korean, vietnamese doesn't have a specific term for I and you.

I can be:
con,chau,em,toi,tao,anh....

You can be:
may, ong, ba, ...etc.. The system goes on and on..my list here is not totally right either.