Very interesting! It seems like Sudanese kinship most closely matches the Chinese system. One note on design: Your color palette looks nice, but the distinctions (heh) in it are too subtle, especially for colorblind viewers like me. I couldn't see the difference between parallel cousins and cross cousins until I looked really hard, and in the same segment the difference between mother's sisters and father's sisters while they were still being labeled was nonexistent. I understand that the shades are meant to show things that are similar but different; but to make your videos more accessible, I'd recommend not relying purely on color and adding some sort of shape-based coding system as well. Something like a tiny star for parallel cousins, and a tiny square for cross cousins, for example. Still great content, and family terms are something I'm struggling with while learning Vietnamese, so this definitely helps! Thank you for making this!
That's a great point. I was basing this off other diagrams that used colour and didn't think about if it was accessible. I totally should have considered using additional distinctions and will do in future D: Thank you!
I wonder why kinship systems don't cover lower generations? Or do you have to reverse engineer a term from the kinship system? Like what's the name of your siblings' kids, your cousins' kids, etc? Idk, this just seems like it'd be important information to keep track of as well.
A lot of the resources just don't say much on this D: I believe it generally follows the ways that each system distinguishes the other generations, so just presenting these two generations is enough to work out the rules and extrapolate. But it also seems to vary a lot more by language than the generations above. This page has a really interesting example of how one Omaha language handles it: umanitoba.ca/faculties/arts/anthropology/tutor/kinterms/dani.html
It seems like everyone above you on the tree is a 'parent' and everyone below you, at least in English, is a 'child'. You have parents, and maybe you have children. Then, you add the 'grand-' prefix to separate them another layer, and after that you just keep adding 'great-' to separate them from you even more layers.
Oh, this is fascinating. It took a rewatch to properly parse the asymmetric systems, but this was excellent and I can definitely see the ways that this might shape and be shaped by culture. I seem to remember the seal people (can't remember the name off the top of my head, sorry!) having an asymmetric system, so I suspect I'll end up rewatching that one too haha
Thank you! :D The Sirksey system is actually closer to Iroquois I think, since it tracks both matrilineal and patrilineal lines. In my next video I'm gonna talk about the Elush system, which is very asymmetrical!
This is so interesting! Thank you for sharing. If you haven't yet, I would recommend looking at Vietnamese kinship naming conventions -- I was always confused as a child that I had different names for my mom's mother and my dad's mother, and my mom's siblings all had different titles based on who was born first and when the person who was talking to them was born.
You make all of these concepts so much easier to understand, and it's great learning from someone who's interested in what i'm interested in, has a easy-to-listen-to voice, and often has cute drawings to go along with your content.
I feel like this subject is like what happened with the IPA chart vowels. They studied it and classified things for just long enough to realise there's really no categories to these things and they gave up making new categories and just say new stuff fits into the categories they have now.
I am here because me, my cousin, my manager, and HR ran into a problem relating to this topic lol. So me and my cousin work at the same place and our grandmother died, so we went to HR to ask for the bereavement leave thing. When we came back, my manager asked me "who was she? Your moms mom or your dads mom?" And I said "neither" and he was like "excuse me? what? So how was she your grandmother? Was she like a grandmother to you? Because you know you can't get bereavement for that right?" And I said " no. She IS my grandmother. She is the sister of my mom's mom." So apparently, that is not a considered a grandmother here lol. So my cousin told me he was called into HR and was asked how was our "grandmother" related to him and he said "that's my dad's mom's sister" lol. In the end, management let it slide because that is our culture. It's not our fault we didn't know other peoples' kinship system. (I'm still confused with this "removing" of cousins once or twice). And after watching this video, I see we use the Hawaiian kinship system. It's the same as ours. Your grandparents, your grandparents' siblings, and your grandparents' cousins are all your grandparents. Your parents, your parents' siblings, and your parents' cousins are all your parents. And all of THEIR children are your brothers and sisters.
I just discovered your channel and it's amazing! the historical and anthropological facts you reference are interesting to learn about, and are really inspiring for worldbuilding. also, hope you don't mind me asking, but where are you from? sounds somewhere between aussie and british ahah. keep up the good work dude!
Thank you! :D to be honest I don't think I could cover residence patterns any better than Worldbuilding Notes has (th-cam.com/video/ULUYyeqh2cM/w-d-xo.html) but I'll look out for more stuff to talk about 😅
I was just musing on a civilized dragon species I'm working on and wondered what kind of kinship system this would even be called. When an egg of the marshland dragons is laid, they're laid in large clutches of six to nine eggs (though not all hatch). They're all of the same sex and are raised by all the adults in rural areas and by professional caretakers in their cities. The mother and father of the clutch don't often spend a lot of time around their children, so the eldest of the clutch is its head. The dragons do document which clutches were laid by and sired by whom, but this is more to keep inbreeding from happening, which is showcased in their breeding habits. When a dragon of the marshlands signs up for the matchmaking program, they won't give the name of the dragon who sired them or the dragon who laid their egg. Instead, they'll name their parents' eldest siblings, because they're the head of the clutch. If you're not the eldest dragon of a clutch, your children will not be listed as your own. The younger siblings are entirely peripheral when it comes to discussing ancestry. Also these matchmaking programs don't really concern themselves with things like character chemistry. Monogamy isn't a thing in this society, you just find a good partner, make a clutch of eggs, check up on them sometimes, and move on with your life. Parental attachments aren't really a thing in this society, which comes to a head when a dragoness steals her own egg for an opportunity to raise her own child as his mother.
Honestly don't worry about which kinship system applies to them. More important is the rules they use, and which kinship distinctions matter to them. If that matches up with one of the main human kinship systems, great! If not, also great! The main six kinship systems are just the typical ways these rules have been configured with humans - if your kinship system isn't any of those, and it sounds like it isn't (though it does sound interesting especially the importance placed on siblings!), then you can give it your own name :P
thank you for explaining the logic! it would be interesting to see a video on how these things work when having multiple husbands and/or wives is normal. are your parents other spouses your parents? your aunts/uncles? is there a specific term for them? what about your half-siblings?
Correction: I don't address anybody younger than I am and in the same generation by kinship. I actually address the people by name. If I want to talk about the person to other people, then I would use the kinship term.
ayi usually refers to a female adult who is older than you by a generation, but she is in the same generation cohort as your mother; she is not necessarily your mother's sister. My mother has 2 younger sisters, and I address the secondborn as 大姨 and the thirdborn as 小姨. My mother also has a younger brother, and I address him as 舅舅 and his wife 舅媽. They have a little girl who is in the same generation as I am, but she is younger than I so I address her as 妹妹, the same word I would use for a real little sister born of the same parents. Source: Me because I am ethnic Chinese.
So recently we've run across a medieval African kinship system in our research for a project we're doing and it's truly baffling. The one who inherits the kingdom is the first son of the present king's first sister. The king raises these children as his own and his first sister's husband raises HIS children! We gather there is also a lot of child switching in other groups of the family as well that follows this general structure. What would that scheme be defined as (if anything) and what exactly would be the practicality of that? How does something like that form?
OOOH, I've heard of this! It's to ensure genetic relation! A man can't be 100% sure his wife's kids are his, and this can lead to paranoia and general messiness. But he can be sure that his sister is related to him, and that her children will therefore be related to him. Means that paternity doesn't have to be such a big deal!
@@NakariSpeardane FASCINATING! Thanks so much for getting back to this! That makes a lot of sense! Really love your worldbuilding! Are the elush and the serksei in the same world or a completely different one?
In Sweden, people of the same generation are all your cousins while those in the generations above you are divided based on lineage with you, for example, calling your maternal grandmother “mormor” and your paternal grandmother “farmor”. The words used are quite blatantly related to the word for mother and father with the words for mother, father, brother or sister suffixes on to specify the relation. Maternal Relatives: kusin - cousin moster - aunt morbror - uncle mormor - grandmother morfar - grandfather Paternal Relatives: kusin - cousin farbror - uncle faster - aunt farfar - grandfather farmor - grandmother With great-grandparents, the system does however break down 😂😅
I once thought that my girlfriend’s cousins who are married were related. I felt dumb when I realized that one was only related to her through marriage and the other by blood.
things begin to be a bit more fun when your father (Alan) marries a woman (Beth) that has a daughter (Clarise). Clarise is married with a guy (Dan) that has a brother (Eliot) married with a woman (Fran) who had a son (Gerald) from a previous marriage. on the other side, your father (Alan, remember?) has a brother (Harry) who has a son (Irwin) that married a woman (Jodi) what's the relationship between Gerald and Jodi? and, please, don't say "complete strangers" there must be a better answer but, for the love of god, I can't figure what would be.
Okay, I drew a diagram to figure it out lol, but if viewing the family tree from Gerald's perspective, then I think Jodi would *technically* be his "step-1st cousin once removed-in-law". Because all of Gerald's family on his step-father's side is his step-family, and the child of his great-uncle (Harry in this case) is his 1st cousin once removed, AND his cousin's spouse is his cousin-in-law (or "cousin by marriage", or just cousin...). From Jodi's perspective, it's pretty much the same: Gerald would be her 1s cousin once removed-in-law. Long story short: they're cousins.
@@simple-sardines for real? you took the effort to make a diagram to figure it out? I'm touched. and this is not a joke. usually people don't put that much effort on this kind of "absurd" questions. seriously, thank you. even if it was just to mess with the video and prove that things can get truly bizarre, your effort should be rewarded. 👍
Making a kinship video is a rite of passage for all world building channels, we shall watch your career with great interest
Very interesting! It seems like Sudanese kinship most closely matches the Chinese system.
One note on design: Your color palette looks nice, but the distinctions (heh) in it are too subtle, especially for colorblind viewers like me.
I couldn't see the difference between parallel cousins and cross cousins until I looked really hard, and in the same segment the difference between mother's sisters and father's sisters while they were still being labeled was nonexistent.
I understand that the shades are meant to show things that are similar but different; but to make your videos more accessible, I'd recommend not relying purely on color and adding some sort of shape-based coding system as well. Something like a tiny star for parallel cousins, and a tiny square for cross cousins, for example.
Still great content, and family terms are something I'm struggling with while learning Vietnamese, so this definitely helps! Thank you for making this!
That's a great point. I was basing this off other diagrams that used colour and didn't think about if it was accessible. I totally should have considered using additional distinctions and will do in future D: Thank you!
This is so interesting! I never even knew how many different family term systems there could be
Always get excited when I get a notification from your channel!
Ahh, this is such a good explanation that makes it seem much more intuitive!!
Thank you! That was really what I was aiming for and I'm so glad it worked and wasn't just confusing 😅
I wonder why kinship systems don't cover lower generations? Or do you have to reverse engineer a term from the kinship system? Like what's the name of your siblings' kids, your cousins' kids, etc? Idk, this just seems like it'd be important information to keep track of as well.
A lot of the resources just don't say much on this D: I believe it generally follows the ways that each system distinguishes the other generations, so just presenting these two generations is enough to work out the rules and extrapolate. But it also seems to vary a lot more by language than the generations above. This page has a really interesting example of how one Omaha language handles it: umanitoba.ca/faculties/arts/anthropology/tutor/kinterms/dani.html
It seems like everyone above you on the tree is a 'parent' and everyone below you, at least in English, is a 'child'. You have parents, and maybe you have children. Then, you add the 'grand-' prefix to separate them another layer, and after that you just keep adding 'great-' to separate them from you even more layers.
This was incredibly informative, great work!
Nice, I didn't expect you here. I'm your viewer.
Oh, this is fascinating. It took a rewatch to properly parse the asymmetric systems, but this was excellent and I can definitely see the ways that this might shape and be shaped by culture. I seem to remember the seal people (can't remember the name off the top of my head, sorry!) having an asymmetric system, so I suspect I'll end up rewatching that one too haha
Thank you! :D The Sirksey system is actually closer to Iroquois I think, since it tracks both matrilineal and patrilineal lines. In my next video I'm gonna talk about the Elush system, which is very asymmetrical!
I appreciate the explanation. I've seen the diagram before but it is a bit confusing to just see with no clarification. Thank you!
This is so interesting! Thank you for sharing. If you haven't yet, I would recommend looking at Vietnamese kinship naming conventions -- I was always confused as a child that I had different names for my mom's mother and my dad's mother, and my mom's siblings all had different titles based on who was born first and when the person who was talking to them was born.
I never knew I needed to know this lol Your obvious interest in the subject & enjoyable voice made this easy-to-wave-off subject rather enthrallin :)
this was the first video going into this topic that finally made sense to me thank you so much
You make all of these concepts so much easier to understand, and it's great learning from someone who's interested in what i'm interested in, has a easy-to-listen-to voice, and often has cute drawings to go along with your content.
We does this channel has so few views! You deserve much more than that!
So many different kinds 😱
This is such good brain food!! 💜💜
Edit - I meant different and autocorrect put it as difficult 😅
New video!! Amazing!
I wonder if any systems exist that don’t emphasize gender at all.
I feel like this subject is like what happened with the IPA chart vowels.
They studied it and classified things for just long enough to realise there's really no categories to these things and they gave up making new categories and just say new stuff fits into the categories they have now.
I am here because me, my cousin, my manager, and HR ran into a problem relating to this topic lol. So me and my cousin work at the same place and our grandmother died, so we went to HR to ask for the bereavement leave thing. When we came back, my manager asked me "who was she? Your moms mom or your dads mom?" And I said "neither" and he was like "excuse me? what? So how was she your grandmother? Was she like a grandmother to you? Because you know you can't get bereavement for that right?" And I said " no. She IS my grandmother. She is the sister of my mom's mom." So apparently, that is not a considered a grandmother here lol. So my cousin told me he was called into HR and was asked how was our "grandmother" related to him and he said "that's my dad's mom's sister" lol. In the end, management let it slide because that is our culture. It's not our fault we didn't know other peoples' kinship system. (I'm still confused with this "removing" of cousins once or twice). And after watching this video, I see we use the Hawaiian kinship system. It's the same as ours. Your grandparents, your grandparents' siblings, and your grandparents' cousins are all your grandparents. Your parents, your parents' siblings, and your parents' cousins are all your parents. And all of THEIR children are your brothers and sisters.
I just discovered your channel and it's amazing! the historical and anthropological facts you reference are interesting to learn about, and are really inspiring for worldbuilding. also, hope you don't mind me asking, but where are you from? sounds somewhere between aussie and british ahah. keep up the good work dude!
Thank you so much! I'm so happy my stuff helps you :D I'm from southeast England, but a lot of people say I sound Australian for some reason!
Interesting!
Awesome video as always! Now that you've covered kinship groups would you consider talking about different residence patterns?
Thank you! :D to be honest I don't think I could cover residence patterns any better than Worldbuilding Notes has (th-cam.com/video/ULUYyeqh2cM/w-d-xo.html) but I'll look out for more stuff to talk about 😅
nice!
I was just musing on a civilized dragon species I'm working on and wondered what kind of kinship system this would even be called.
When an egg of the marshland dragons is laid, they're laid in large clutches of six to nine eggs (though not all hatch). They're all of the same sex and are raised by all the adults in rural areas and by professional caretakers in their cities. The mother and father of the clutch don't often spend a lot of time around their children, so the eldest of the clutch is its head. The dragons do document which clutches were laid by and sired by whom, but this is more to keep inbreeding from happening, which is showcased in their breeding habits.
When a dragon of the marshlands signs up for the matchmaking program, they won't give the name of the dragon who sired them or the dragon who laid their egg. Instead, they'll name their parents' eldest siblings, because they're the head of the clutch. If you're not the eldest dragon of a clutch, your children will not be listed as your own. The younger siblings are entirely peripheral when it comes to discussing ancestry.
Also these matchmaking programs don't really concern themselves with things like character chemistry. Monogamy isn't a thing in this society, you just find a good partner, make a clutch of eggs, check up on them sometimes, and move on with your life. Parental attachments aren't really a thing in this society, which comes to a head when a dragoness steals her own egg for an opportunity to raise her own child as his mother.
Honestly don't worry about which kinship system applies to them. More important is the rules they use, and which kinship distinctions matter to them. If that matches up with one of the main human kinship systems, great! If not, also great! The main six kinship systems are just the typical ways these rules have been configured with humans - if your kinship system isn't any of those, and it sounds like it isn't (though it does sound interesting especially the importance placed on siblings!), then you can give it your own name :P
This is super interesting! I like these sorts of videos.
Thank you for these distinctions
Great explanation! Thanks!
thank you for explaining the logic! it would be interesting to see a video on how these things work when having multiple husbands and/or wives is normal. are your parents other spouses your parents? your aunts/uncles? is there a specific term for them? what about your half-siblings?
Correction: I don't address anybody younger than I am and in the same generation by kinship. I actually address the people by name. If I want to talk about the person to other people, then I would use the kinship term.
that is common in Europe and Middle East, but rude in Africa and Eastern Asia
love thisss
ayi usually refers to a female adult who is older than you by a generation, but she is in the same generation cohort as your mother; she is not necessarily your mother's sister.
My mother has 2 younger sisters, and I address the secondborn as 大姨 and the thirdborn as 小姨. My mother also has a younger brother, and I address him as 舅舅 and his wife 舅媽. They have a little girl who is in the same generation as I am, but she is younger than I so I address her as 妹妹, the same word I would use for a real little sister born of the same parents.
Source: Me because I am ethnic Chinese.
So recently we've run across a medieval African kinship system in our research for a project we're doing and it's truly baffling.
The one who inherits the kingdom is the first son of the present king's first sister.
The king raises these children as his own and his first sister's husband raises HIS children!
We gather there is also a lot of child switching in other groups of the family as well that follows this general structure.
What would that scheme be defined as (if anything) and what exactly would be the practicality of that?
How does something like that form?
OOOH, I've heard of this! It's to ensure genetic relation! A man can't be 100% sure his wife's kids are his, and this can lead to paranoia and general messiness. But he can be sure that his sister is related to him, and that her children will therefore be related to him. Means that paternity doesn't have to be such a big deal!
@@NakariSpeardane FASCINATING!
Thanks so much for getting back to this!
That makes a lot of sense!
Really love your worldbuilding!
Are the elush and the serksei in the same world or a completely different one?
In Sweden, people of the same generation are all your cousins while those in the generations above you are divided based on lineage with you, for example, calling your maternal grandmother “mormor” and your paternal grandmother “farmor”. The words used are quite blatantly related to the word for mother and father with the words for mother, father, brother or sister suffixes on to specify the relation.
Maternal Relatives:
kusin - cousin
moster - aunt
morbror - uncle
mormor - grandmother
morfar - grandfather
Paternal Relatives:
kusin - cousin
farbror - uncle
faster - aunt
farfar - grandfather
farmor - grandmother
With great-grandparents, the system does however break down 😂😅
Kazakhs system is sudanese?
We love the Hawaiian kinship system!
One of our characters comes from a society that uses Hawaiian kinship!
ABSOLUTELY NO INCEST! XD
I once thought that my girlfriend’s cousins who are married were related. I felt dumb when I realized that one was only related to her through marriage and the other by blood.
Comment for the algore-rythmn
things begin to be a bit more fun when your father (Alan) marries a woman (Beth) that has a daughter (Clarise). Clarise is married with a guy (Dan) that has a brother (Eliot) married with a woman (Fran) who had a son (Gerald) from a previous marriage.
on the other side, your father (Alan, remember?) has a brother (Harry) who has a son (Irwin) that married a woman (Jodi)
what's the relationship between Gerald and Jodi?
and, please, don't say "complete strangers" there must be a better answer but, for the love of god, I can't figure what would be.
Okay, I drew a diagram to figure it out lol, but if viewing the family tree from Gerald's perspective, then I think Jodi would *technically* be his "step-1st cousin once removed-in-law". Because all of Gerald's family on his step-father's side is his step-family, and the child of his great-uncle (Harry in this case) is his 1st cousin once removed, AND his cousin's spouse is his cousin-in-law (or "cousin by marriage", or just cousin...).
From Jodi's perspective, it's pretty much the same: Gerald would be her 1s cousin once removed-in-law.
Long story short: they're cousins.
@@simple-sardines for real? you took the effort to make a diagram to figure it out?
I'm touched. and this is not a joke.
usually people don't put that much effort on this kind of "absurd" questions.
seriously, thank you.
even if it was just to mess with the video and prove that things can get truly bizarre, your effort should be rewarded. 👍
Why do you have music on in the background? Distracting ... can't finish video.
sigh