To get confused in terms of kinship is the more difficult the more relatives there are. As long as you have mom and dad and brothers and sisters, everything is simple. But there are grandmothers, grandfathers, uncles, aunts, husbands aunts, wives of uncles, their children - for all degrees of kinship there are names.
The terms of kinship of East Slavic origin were formed against the background of relations between the Old Slavic, Baltic, Germanic and Indo-European tribes in the system of chronological layers.
In the course of the development of history, the need for some kinds of kinship disappeared. The brother of the father (stryjь - stryj) and the brother of the mother (uj в-wuy) began to be called one common term - uncle.
Classification of kinship
In the definition of kinship, the concepts of degree — connection through birth, relationship of degrees — line, the origin of relations from one degree — the knee are used.
The concept of gender includes ascending lines - leading to the ancestors, descending - children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and lateral - sisters, brothers.
Relationships are blood, inherent (by marriage) and close (unrelated).
Blood relationship
Blood relations are the most understandable and do not cause confusion.
The child has a mother and father, brothers and sisters. The parents of the father and mother are called the same grandfather and grandmother (grandmother), the continuation along the ascending line is completed by the prefix great-. In relation to grandfathers, children are called grandchildren, descending with the prefix "great."
Siblings of parents are called uncle and aunt, their children are cousins.
Cousins of parents are called uncles and aunts, cousins are not used in everyday life, their children are called second cousins.
According to the tradition that comes from pre-revolutionary society, all brothers and sisters not related to the first degree of kinship can be called in one word - cousins.
The children of brothers and sisters have the same name as nephews, although the ancient Slavs used the terms netiy (nephew) and nester (niece).
Relatives in marriage
The term spouse is used only by strangers and relatives. The use of the term "spouse", "spouse" in relation to one's own husband or wife is not accepted.
Parents of the husband in relation to the wife are called the father-in-law and mother-in-law, parents of the wife in relation to the husband - the father-in-law and mother-in-law. Between themselves, parents are called - matchmakers. The son’s wife is the daughter-in-law for the father-in-law, the daughter-in-law for the rest of the family, the daughter’s husband is the son-in-law for all the daughter’s relatives.
A problem may arise with siblings. Here you need to remember. The brother of the wife is brother-in-law, the sister of the wife is the sister-in-law. The husband’s brother is a brother-in-law, the husband’s sister is a sister-in-law, in order to be better remembered, one can take advantage of the psychological popular characteristic - it is better than a brother-in-law four than a single sister-in-law.
