Kinship and Culture
Here's an article I wrote a while back about kinship systems. I'll post it here, because why not? :)
Introduction
Here is a little quiz: what is the word for one’s father’s female sibling? One’s mother’s female sibling? One’s mother?
The answer: it depends on the language the answers are in. In English, the answers would be aunt, aunt, mother. Yet, in Hawaiian, all three would be makuahine, and in Mandarin Chinese, there would be two different possibilities for the first two depending on if the sibling is older or younger, leaving the answers as 姑妈 (gūmā) or姑姑(gūgu), 姨妈 (yímā) or 阿姨(āyí), and 妈妈 (māma). The words that one uses to title and call family members seem straightforward, but these terms in English often do not have direct translations into other languages because of the unique kinship systems different languages use.
In essence, a kinship system is the structure of how individuals are organized into families in particular languages and societies. There is much diversity in the kinship systems of various societies, but there are general common patterns among them. These patterns are the six major kinship systems that Lewis Henry Morgan first indicated in his 1870 book, Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family. Morgan classified languages into the Eskimo, Iroquois, Hawaiian, Sudanese, Crow, and Omaha systems using data collection on kinship terminology from many different languages. This article will explore three languages’ kinship systems in more depth: modern English using the Eskimo system, Hawaiian in the Hawaiian system, and Mandarin Chinese of the Sudanese system. The term “Ego” will be used as the reference male individual whose relatives will be named in the discussed systems.
The Kinship Systems
The Eskimo system is found in one-tenth of world societies and should be familiar to native English speakers. This system is bilateral, meaning it does not distinguish between from matrilineal and patrilineal relatives. For example, in English, Ego’s mother’s brother and Ego’s father’s brother would both be his uncle; Ego’s parents’ brothers all have the same title. Kinship terms distinguish between genders, such as brother or sister, as well as generation, such as sister or aunt. The Eskimo system places the nuclear or immediate family first. It distinguishes between closer and more distant relatives; it has terms that are more specific for closer relatives, while grouping distant, more indirect relatives of Ego in more generalized terms in what is called “collateral merging”. Immediate family terms in English, sister, brother, father, mother, refer to specific relatives of Ego. On the other hand, grandmother can refer to Ego’s mother’s mother or his father’s mother. Terms become even more generalized in the English case of “cousin”, which can denote any of Ego’s parents’ siblings’ children, regardless of the cousin’s gender. The Eskimo system is found in many European languages in addition to English, such as Spanish.
Second, there is Hawaiian kinship system, found in one-third of all societies. This is the least descriptive kinship system, grouping many relatives into more general terms, such as how English does for collateral relatives. The Hawaiian language only distinguishes between gender and generation. It disregards not only patrilineal or matrilineal relations as a bilateral system, but also direct or collateral relations. For instance, Ego’s father and all of Ego’s parents’ male siblings would be called makuakane, and his mother and all of his parents’ female siblings would be considered makuahine. Relative age and gender is a key feature in the Hawaiian language. Ego, a male, would call his sister and female cousins kaikuahine, while a female would call her brother and male cousins kaikuane. Relative age is only distinguished for siblings and cousins of the same gender as the speaker: kaikua’ana for one’s older sibling, kaikaina for one’s younger sibling. In addition to Hawaiian, the Hawaiian kinship system is used in various Polynesian societies, such as the Maori.
Third, there is the Sudanese kinship system, used in Mandarin Chinese. There exists a unique term for each of Ego’s distinct relatives, making the system conceptually the polar opposite of the Hawaiian system that distinguishes between relatives minimally. Consequently, the Sudanese system can be difficult to remember for one language. In Mandarin Chinese, terms distinguish between genders, age, generation, and lineage. For example, older and younger sisters are 姐姐 (jiějie) and 妹妹 (mèimei) respectively, and older and younger brother are 哥哥 (gēge) and 弟弟 (dìdi), showing relative age and gender. Terms become much more complicated for more distant relatives; what would just be “uncle” in English can have multiple unique names in Mandarin due to distinguishing of lineage, age, and gender: 伯伯 (bóbo), father's elder brother; 叔叔 (shūshu), father's younger brother; 姑丈 (gūzhàng); father's sister's husband; 舅舅 (jiùjiu); mother's brother; 姨丈 (yízhàng); mother's sister's husband. Besides Mandarin Chinese, Sudan, Turkey, and a number of other patrilineal systems utilize the Sudanese kinship system.
Linguistics and Culture
So, why are all kinship systems important? Should only the terms an individual uses for his or her family and culture be relevant?
In fact, the answer is no; all kinship systems are relevant. They are at the crossroads of multiple fields, just like how computational linguistics can link computer science and language, or how psycholinguistics can link functions of the brain to human communication. Kinship, in particular, is an important component of linguistic anthropology, a branch of anthropology that studies how language interacts with social aspects of humans and culture. The systems used for family members of each culture can directly reflect unique cultural values and social dynamics within societies. Consequently, Henry Lewis Morgan’s book, the first to closely examine kinship systems, served as a launching point for the field of linguistic anthropology, encouraging the analysis of culture from a linguistic perspective.
As mentioned before, the Eskimo system, in this case, English, places significant stress on the immediate, nuclear family. This helps demonstrate family dynamics in English-speaking societies; in the United States, a typical household includes immediate relatives only, parents and children. Other relatives, families of aunts and uncles, and grandparents often live separately. The English language portrays this reality by distinguishing between direct or collateral relation, as described before; closer kin, such as mother or father, are clearly distinguished family members as supposed to distant kin, such as aunts and uncles that can be on Ego’s mother’s or father’s side, in the family by blood or marriage. It is fascinating to observe how the Eskimo system creates a sense of independent nuclear family units, whether it is used in some of the world’s most technologically advanced nations or hunter-gatherer groups such as the Inuit and Eskimo.
Hawaiian illustrates a unique social structure of the pre-contact Hawaiian Islands society. Here, kinship terms for siblings only differ between age when the sibling is of the same gender as the speaker. This subtlety can reflect how power dynamics prioritize gender distinctions over age distinctions. Again, it might be unfamiliar to many that all females in one generation and all males in one generation are called the same term, such as Ego’s father, his father’s brothers, and his mother’s brothers all considered as makuakane. This led to Henry Lewis Morgan’s wrong conclusion that less advanced societies, such as the Hawaiian Islands, do not distinguish between relatives as much as civilized societies because there was “primitive promiscuity”, all-allowing sexual access that rendered it difficult for one to confirm who his or her parents were. Morgan assumed that using the same term meant that an individual also treated all those relatives without distinction and that makuakane had the same semantic meaning as “father” in English. Unfortunately, Morgan’s conclusion depicts how the cultural interpretation of language can lead to misinformed assumptions about societies different from the interpreter’s. In reality, the Hawaiian system is associated with ambilineal descent, where individuals can choose their “group membership”, selecting through which parent to trace their descent. This flexibility is evident in the simpler kinship terms and its indifference towards matrilineal or patrilineal relation. This kinship system also reflects how different groups had different statuses, and how island societies often had had to distribute land ownership among various groups based on land availability, offering a reason for choosing one parent’s descent over another.
Mandarin Chinese, which uses the Sudanese kinship system, can reflect a different social structure from other kinship systems and cultures. It distinguishes relative age, such as Ego’s father’s older brother, versus Ego’s father’s younger brother, depicting an age hierarchy. The emphasis on the uniqueness of relatives also implies a value for extended family members, not just immediate family members, while simultaneously defining clear roles within a family hierarchy. For instance, distinguishing between aunts, such as Ego’s mother’s sister (姨妈 yímā for older sister, 阿姨 āyí for younger sister) or Ego’s mother’s brother’s wife (舅母 jiùmǔ), depicts how kinship terms make distinctions between members related by blood rather than marriage, which therefore may create a power dynamic favoring those related by blood. This can partially be seen in the way English sometimes uses “in-law” to separate family by blood or marriage. Mandarin Chinese’s and many other Sudanese languages’ patrilineal system further illustrate power dynamics, where family membership is derived from one’s father. A curious indication of this is how Mandarin’s terms for marriage differ for males and females. In essence, the term for a man finding a wife means bringing her “into” his family （娶回 qǔhuí）, where the bride’s family would say they are “giving her away” (嫁给 jiàgěi) to the husband’s family. Overall, the detailed and precise nature of the Mandarin Chinese kinship system shows social complexity and influences of Confucian values, such as the importance of familial ties, filial piety, and loyalty.
Conclusion
Through kinship systems, the linguistic anthropology regarding family ties reveals an important concept: how does language interact with culture? Different kinship terms depict how various societies conceive family units, and therefore varying social dynamics and values regarding family, which inexplicably links language usage to cultural aspects of society. This article aimed to investigate this in three languages of three of the six major kinship systems: English of the Eskimo system, Hawaiian of the Hawaiian system, and Mandarin Chinese of the Sudanese system. Further exploration of the other three systems can reveal even more dimensions of social structures in the world, from the Iroquois system that prioritizes distinctions between one’s father and one’s mother’s kin, to the Omaha system that emphasizes patrilineal relatives and therefore the patriarchy, and the Crow system that emphasizes matrilineal relatives and therefore the matriarchy.
However, another question arises during analyses of these cultural connections: is language just an indicator of different cultural mindsets, or does language actually define the mindsets in which people act and view the world? The intersection of linguistics and anthropology, combining analytical studies with human nature and culture, seeks to find these answers.
This multifaceted subject, linguistic anthropology, grew from Henry Lewis Morgan’s work on kinship systems. Unfortunately, with his interpretation of the Hawaiian system, he classified kinship systems based on his misguided assumption that uncivilized societies utilized less descriptive systems, whereas modern societies utilized systems that are more descriptive. This view demonstrated his sense of Western superiority and failed to recognize that language in kinship systems simply differ with varying social structures and values rather than the level of “development” of society, which already would be subjective. In this case, Morgan’s studies ironically represented his own societal perspective as he tried to interpret kinship systems to find other societies’ perspectives.
Despite the ambiguities concerning language and culture, one broader theme, however, is clear: the complexities of language can provide the binoculars, the context in which one can study how the people of certain cultures view themselves and the society around them.
