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I’ve never really thought about it, but that most sounds simpler than all the step/in-law/twice removed nonsense in English.


The English "nonsense" is a simple system that is easily understood.

Every language that has separate terms for relatives is an impenetrable mess.


You're saying this like it's an objective fact...?


It is an objective fact. As a speaker of Russian (native), Romanian and Turkish.

E.g., in English a spouse's parents are just that, parents-in-law. And the spouse's brothers and sisters are brothers- and sisters-in-law. That is it.

Let's take Russian. Each of the following is a separate term:

- husband's mother

- husband's father

- wife's mother

- wife's father

- husband's brother

- husband's sister

- wife's brother

- wife's sister

The inverse is also true. Your daughter's husband's siblings and parents have a different term from your son's wife's.

Very, very simple.

These are variations on the Sudanese Kinship category, and they are both arbitrary and complex: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudanese_kinship?wprov=sfti1


Check out the chart on Chinese relative names: https://blog.tutorabcchinese.com/chinese-learning-tips/famil...

Every relation had a different name, including if they are older or younger than you, and if they are male or female.


it gets way more complicated, unfortunately. check out this chart: https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Hindi/Family_relations




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