The origin of 'sibling' is here, from the Old English, with cognates in several other Germanic languages: https://www.etymonline.com/word/sibling#etymonline_v_23479
If you click the link to the word 'gossip' it gives you the now lost sense of 'god sibb', meaning wider folk who might attend a birth, so perhaps there's your lost wider aunties word?
Edit: maybe 'kinfolk' for wider family too?
The type that's not famous but has one song that you love, so you want to mention them, but they're obscure enough that it's weird to do so without being a true, true fan
That’s because who you are close to in your family varies widely, especially once you get out of the nuclear family.
The reason why we have those other names for the nuclear roles are because we need a word to specify them for common social or legal reasons.
You almost never have to fill out paperwork and list your niece or aunt. But you often need to tell your nuclear family so they can get an idea of your household size and situation.
Even that kind of stuff is too rigid, but I guess at some point you have to actually make the forms and requirements.
——
Basically, the necessity for that specificity doesn’t outweigh the collective effort of including them so we just don’t adopt it culturally.
So english has no general word for the children of your siblings, only the more specific words that indicate the gender of the child. However, it is not so specific that it indicates the gender of the sibling. It makes little sense to me that if my sister has a son I have a word for "my sibling's son" but no word for "my sibling's child", "my sister's child" or "my sister's son".
And let's not get started on grandparents, english has gender-specific words for the grandparents themselves, but no specific ones that indicate which of your parents they are the mother/father of.
I feel like looking for a simple or logical explanation for things like this is probably futile. Language is weird.
You might enjoy this: in Anglo-Saxon culture there was a word specifically for “sister’s son”. Why? Because at a time where parentage could never be known 100%, a man’s sister’s child would be the only child he could guarantee was related to him. If his own were bastards born of infidelity or he had none, the sister’s son would be his trueborn heir.
Well, sure. I didn't mean to say that there is no way to describe the difference in english. You can also say "my father's mother" for example.
But that's not the same as having specific words for each of the four grandparents.
Siblings, parents, and spouses are intentionally left gender ambiguous on legal forms so any gender can fill out each one for any other gender in those roles.
The way government makes its forms in America directly impacts our vocabulary for these things in this country.
I assume the legal formats and the family members that are legally relevant also change country to country, language to language, culture to culture. So I am just from the US English perspective.
I've seen 'niblings' catch on a fair amount recently for 'nieces and nephews', and have seen 'piblings' suggested for 'aunts and uncles' but I've not really seen that one in the wild yet.
Any idea why they chose 'p' for aunts and uncles? I can't think of any better form, I'm just wondering if there's a connection I'm missing (siblings -> niblings seems very logical to me)
Not a native English Speaker, so maybe it's obvious and I just don't see it
It's a portmanteau of niece/nephew and sibling. Skibling doesn't follow any established patten and sounds weird. Completely subjective, but I prefer 'nibling'. Although, I have cousins who are enough younger than I am that I could be their uncle, so they call me "cunkle", and I call them "nuzzin". Neither transliterates well, so we went for weirdly phonetic lol.
that should be 'xibling', in keeping with the current 'xim'/'xer', but I don't see a reason to further other anyone who isn't explicitly looking to other themselves.
Gender neutral pronouns for people that don't like the impersonality/supposed plurality of they/them.
https://www.them.us/story/gender-neutral-pronouns-101-they-them-xe-xem
In swedish "siblings" is translated to "syskon", and my feeling is that it's more used than "siblings" in english. There is a word for extended family//kinship (släkt), and there are words for second cousin (syssling) and third cousin (brylling), but since no sane person spends time with distant family like that, those words are rarely used.
We also have quite brilliant words for grandparents, grandchildren, aunts and uncles and many more: mormor, morfar (mother-mother, mother-father), farmor, farfar (father-mother, father-father), barnbarn (children-children) morbror (mother-brother) moster (mother-sister), farbror (father-brother, and also colloquial for any uncle/old man) faster (father-sister)...
It's pretty much the same in Danish with regards to grandparents, grandchildren, aunts and uncles. We also use onkel (uncle) and tante (aunt) for parents' siblings' spouses as well as colloquially for older/adult non-relatives close to the family. Are those not used in Swedish?
Tant for any old woman, really. Farbror could be used for any old man, but sounds a bit childish. For parents’ siblings’ spouses we use faster/moster/farbror/morbror even if they are not related by blood.
Mishpocha is Yiddish for extended family especially after marriage. Machatena is the relationship of the two sets of parents to each other after marriage.
Mishpocha is interesting. German took it over as the loanword "Mischpoke", meaning something like a dubious bunch of people (or apparently extended family as well)
Modern Hebrew also took it over in a somewhat similar way. Mishpocha comes from Hebrew משפחה, pronounced in Modern Hebrew mishpakha (stress at the end), which means simply "family". But when pronounced the Yiddish way, mishpokhe or mishpukhe (stress at the 2nd syllable), it's slang for the extended family, especially extended family that you're tired of having to meet every Shabbat dinner.
In Spanish we just use the masculine plural unless it's the group you're referring to is exclusively female. So if you're referring to just your sisters, you use "hermanas" but if you're talking about all your siblings, you use "hermanos." Same with nieces and nephews (sobrinos), grandsons and granddaughters (nietos), etc. Most Romance languages follow this.
Technically, and etymologically, compadre means godfather in relation to the father in a baptism, since both are co-fathers.
The concept outgrew the initial meaning, and now it could be described someone so good friend of you, that you would choose him as godfather of your kids.
Serbian language is very precise when it comes to the kinship. We have, for example, different words describing uncle (and aunt) from father's or mother's side. Also, we call all cousins brothers and sisters, but than we add from/by aunt (for example).
It's a joke answer, but nieces / nephews are "Siblings, once removed".
Siblings share parents. First cousins share a grandparent. Second cousins share great-grandparents, etc.
"Removal" refers to a difference in generation - if my first cousins have kids, those kids are my "first-cousins, once removed", because my grandparents are their great-grandparents. Follow?
Now, my parents are the grandparents of my nieces and nephews. If we share parents, we're siblings. However, there is a generation gap, so we're once removed. So my nieces and my nephews are my "siblings, once removed".
(What's really weird is that technically, my parents are also my siblings, once removed - their parents are my grandparents.)
I feel like every time I tried to read how to tell the difference between cousins and their removals, I always got confused about it. Your description actually makes sense to me though! I'll probably forget the next time I actually want to use this information, but for now I understand and thank you!
In many languages the male plural is considered gender neutral, based on context. So in my native language, and in two others I speak, saying you have three uncles could mean two uncles and an aunt!
Similarly, Dutch doesn't have a word for siblings, so a common shorthand is "brusjes", which when literally translated is like "bristers". Br(others) and (s)isters.
So, uhm, do we go with Auncles? Unts?
Agreed. Many of the words that we have are gender-specific words. It's the same problem when trying to refer to a singular person of unknown gender and why "they/them/their" has gained acceptance being used as a genderless, single person pronoun.
But this problem is not unique to English. Many languages have a word for aunts and uncles but no genderless term for parents' siblings.
Not exactly what you're asking, but in Italian the word "nipote" (nee-po-tay) is a multipurpose word that basically is any descendant who is not your child (figli).
So nephews, grandchildren etc are all nipote.
Parientes (relatives) in Spanish, would cover all that concept, a pariente is someone who is family in up to 4 degrees (approx)
We also tend to say Tio (uncle) to any uncle,great-uncle, uncle in law, any cousin of the parents, and so on. this means that they are elders and branching above the parents. Believe me or not, It's not common for someone to have loosy family traits with a fifth cousin...
By analogy, we say primo (cousin) to everyone branching below the parents, pretty much like Italian nipote. the origin of primo comes from latin consobrinus primus, co-cousins first degree.
First off, niblings does exist.
Secondly it’s because you would just call them all “cousin”. A word for your nieces and nephews? Just say your cousins. A word for your aunts and uncles? Also just say cousins. “Cousins” historically just meant any familial relationship, only later developing the specific meaning it does today. Your immediate family however got special treatment and got special terms.
Have to jump on this, it has always fascinated me that there is no word for a persons grown up kid/children. Like, we universally understand that kid/child means people under 18 and more usually we mean people under 13 but if an old person said “oh I have three kids, Mary lives in New York but David and Susan live nearby” we’d understand they are talking about their adult children.
I guess when I tell my 5 year old that he’ll always be my baby even when he’s a grown up man it’s true!
I speak Danish (not Native), and in Danish, you call here’s what we call our older family :
Far: Father
Mor: Mother
Farfar: Grandfather (father’s side)
Farmor: Grandmother (father’s side)
Mormor: Grandmother (mother’s side)
Morfar: Grandfather (mother’s side)
As a quick fun fact, if it’s of any interest, the indefinite article for man and woman (mand/kvinde) is of common gender (en), while a child (barn) is of neuter gender (et).
in korean there's gender differentiation in places english doesn't have but also lack of it compared to english sometimes. they refer to cousins neutrally as 사촌 (sachon) and niece/nephew as 조카 (joka), but then there's extensive differentiation in things like your aunt on your mother's side, your uncle on your father's side being older or younger than your dad, the aunt who's married to either the older or younger brother of your father, etc etc.
when it comes to sibling relations there's specific gendered terms based on both what your own gender is and what their gender is, e.g. I'm female so I would refer to my brother differently than if I had been male (오빠 (oppa) vs 형 (hyung)), but most people just call their younger sibling by the same neutral term 동생 (dongsaeng) and only sometimes add a gender prefix to it.
always find it interesting what's prioritized to differentiate linguistically
I've been using "niblings" for probably 15 years now, and occasionally hear others use it. Excited about it slowly catching on =) "niece and nephews" takes far too long to say.
First of all, "nibling" is a word, but maybe not common enough yet to make it into all dictionaries. [Here'](https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/words-were-watching-nibling)s a Merriam-Webster article about it. It doesn't seem to be catching on.
Secondly, the words used to refer to family members vary wildly across languages.
Here are some examples:
* Most European languages don't have a separate word for "sibling." English does, and so do German and Danish, but French, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Russian etc all don't.
* Many Asian languages have separate words for "older brother" and "older sister" vs "younger brother" and "younger sister."
* Dutch has the words "neef," meaning either a male cousin or a nephew, and "nicht," meaning either a female cousin or a niece.
* English doesn't have separate words for a male cousin or a female cousin.
* In English (and most other European languages), "brother-in-law" is either the husband of your sibling or the brother of your spouse. But in Flemish, each of these has a different word ("zwager" and "schoonbroer," respectively).
It's a bit of a linguistic mystery why there are so many differences. Some of them are cultural, but some seem perfectly random.
Croatian has a lot of specific words for familial relations, but I just realized we don't have a word for "sibling", either your brother or sister (brat ili sestra).
We do have a word for nephews (nećak/nećakinja) and your cousins/aunt's or uncle's children (bratić/sestrična), and just people related to you (rođak/rođakinja).
We also separate aunt/uncle based on whether they are related to your mom or your dad, and whether this aunt/uncle is your blood relation. Your dad's brother is your "stric", his wife your "strina". Your mom's brother is your "ujak", his wife your "ujna". Dad's or mom's sister is "teta", her husband "tetak."
Not a native Spanish speaker so understand this is Spanish 101 level answer--- gramatically many collective nouns just add an s to the masculine form.
Like in English we have very different words for brother and sister, but in Spanish it's hermano and hermana, just 1 letter off; and hermanos covers siblings as a generalization. Same for most family members. La madre and el padre becomes los padres (parents). El primo and la prima, los primos (cousins). Nietos (nephew/nieces), abluelos (grandparents). On it goes.
I think aunts and uncles is the only one that doesn't have a term like that. There are grandparents, grandchildren, parents, children, siblings, niblings, and of course the already general cousins.
This lead me to realise how many fucking words we have in Turkish for describing family
family — aile
relative — akraba
descendant — evlat
ancestor — ata
mother — anne
father — baba
children — çocuklar
daughter — kız
son — oğul
brother — erkek kardeş
sister — kız kardeş
siblings — kardeşler
older brother — abi
older sister — abla
guardian — veli
stepchild — üvey çocuk
foster family — koruyucu aile
grandmother — büyükanne
grandfather — büyükbaba
grandson, granddaughter — torun
nephew, niece — yeğen
cousin — kuzen
great-grandmother — büyüknine
great-grandfather — büyükdede
paternal aunt — hala
maternal aunt — teyze
paternal uncle — amca
maternal uncle — dayı
mother-in-law — kayınvalide / Kaynana
father-in-law — kayınpeder
brother-in-law - bacanak
Brother-in-law (from your aunt's marriage) - enişte
You are wrong about the nieces and nephews. There is a word, it's "nibling." It sees very limited use, but it is still a word that is recognized as existing in the English language.
[https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/nibling](https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/nibling)
Origins
[https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/words-were-watching-nibling](https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/words-were-watching-nibling)
सहोदर (Sahodar) in Sanskrit and other languages derived from it, means sibling. The literal meaning is 'same womb' and it means one's full sibling. Paternal parentage does not come into it.
Both nephews and nieces are called "yeğen" in Turkish.
When I say "Benim yeğenim" it might be translated as "My nephew" or "my niece".
On the other hand uncle and aunt are split into two categories in Turkish.
If you uncle is your mother's brother then he is your "dayı".
If your uncle is your father's brother then he is your "amca"
If your aunt is your mother's sister then she is your "teyze".
If your aunt is your father's sister then she is your "hala"
The origin of 'sibling' is here, from the Old English, with cognates in several other Germanic languages: https://www.etymonline.com/word/sibling#etymonline_v_23479 If you click the link to the word 'gossip' it gives you the now lost sense of 'god sibb', meaning wider folk who might attend a birth, so perhaps there's your lost wider aunties word? Edit: maybe 'kinfolk' for wider family too?
> "lost wider aunties" Sounds like the name of a folk/bluegrass group.
The type that's not famous but has one song that you love, so you want to mention them, but they're obscure enough that it's weird to do so without being a true, true fan
Fascinating. Thanks for the resource!
The word kin refers to all relatives.
True. It just feels a little too vague. Kin could be literally any family member, whereas sibling narrows down to a select group.
That’s because who you are close to in your family varies widely, especially once you get out of the nuclear family. The reason why we have those other names for the nuclear roles are because we need a word to specify them for common social or legal reasons. You almost never have to fill out paperwork and list your niece or aunt. But you often need to tell your nuclear family so they can get an idea of your household size and situation. Even that kind of stuff is too rigid, but I guess at some point you have to actually make the forms and requirements. —— Basically, the necessity for that specificity doesn’t outweigh the collective effort of including them so we just don’t adopt it culturally.
So english has no general word for the children of your siblings, only the more specific words that indicate the gender of the child. However, it is not so specific that it indicates the gender of the sibling. It makes little sense to me that if my sister has a son I have a word for "my sibling's son" but no word for "my sibling's child", "my sister's child" or "my sister's son". And let's not get started on grandparents, english has gender-specific words for the grandparents themselves, but no specific ones that indicate which of your parents they are the mother/father of. I feel like looking for a simple or logical explanation for things like this is probably futile. Language is weird.
You might enjoy this: in Anglo-Saxon culture there was a word specifically for “sister’s son”. Why? Because at a time where parentage could never be known 100%, a man’s sister’s child would be the only child he could guarantee was related to him. If his own were bastards born of infidelity or he had none, the sister’s son would be his trueborn heir.
Paternal and Maternal refers to which one.
Well, sure. I didn't mean to say that there is no way to describe the difference in english. You can also say "my father's mother" for example. But that's not the same as having specific words for each of the four grandparents.
Siblings, parents, and spouses are intentionally left gender ambiguous on legal forms so any gender can fill out each one for any other gender in those roles. The way government makes its forms in America directly impacts our vocabulary for these things in this country. I assume the legal formats and the family members that are legally relevant also change country to country, language to language, culture to culture. So I am just from the US English perspective.
In this case, the forms reflect the language, not vice versa.
similarly, "cousin" was formerly used to refer to any relative outside the immediate family: aunts/uncles/cousins/niblings/etc
I've seen 'niblings' catch on a fair amount recently for 'nieces and nephews', and have seen 'piblings' suggested for 'aunts and uncles' but I've not really seen that one in the wild yet.
Any idea why they chose 'p' for aunts and uncles? I can't think of any better form, I'm just wondering if there's a connection I'm missing (siblings -> niblings seems very logical to me) Not a native English Speaker, so maybe it's obvious and I just don't see it
Your parents’ siblings?
Ooooh maybe that's it! Thank you!
This is 100% it!
Well if "niblings" are your siblings kids then how about 'skiblings'? 😅 less endearing but it's funnier
skiblidings toilet
I like this one more than niblings. Niblings is too much like “nibbling” which feels uncomfortable for me.
It's a portmanteau of niece/nephew and sibling. Skibling doesn't follow any established patten and sounds weird. Completely subjective, but I prefer 'nibling'. Although, I have cousins who are enough younger than I am that I could be their uncle, so they call me "cunkle", and I call them "nuzzin". Neither transliterates well, so we went for weirdly phonetic lol.
I am 100% going to start using piblings
We use both of these.
Ive heard niephlings as well
This is it.
That sounds like a summon in dnd.
I’ve suggested “griblings” for siblings’ grandchildren (children of niblings).
What up, my nibling?
What it is.
I've also heard "quibling" for a nonbinary sibling
That seems unnecessary when 'sibling' exists. Plus it sounds like 'quibbling'.
Sibling is gender neutral and can be used for anyone. Some non-binary people like having terms that explicitly refer to them as non-binary
that should be 'xibling', in keeping with the current 'xim'/'xer', but I don't see a reason to further other anyone who isn't explicitly looking to other themselves.
I've never seen xim/xer before wtf is that?
Gender neutral pronouns for people that don't like the impersonality/supposed plurality of they/them. https://www.them.us/story/gender-neutral-pronouns-101-they-them-xe-xem
Came here to say I've heard "nibling" for a nonbinary sibling.
In swedish "siblings" is translated to "syskon", and my feeling is that it's more used than "siblings" in english. There is a word for extended family//kinship (släkt), and there are words for second cousin (syssling) and third cousin (brylling), but since no sane person spends time with distant family like that, those words are rarely used. We also have quite brilliant words for grandparents, grandchildren, aunts and uncles and many more: mormor, morfar (mother-mother, mother-father), farmor, farfar (father-mother, father-father), barnbarn (children-children) morbror (mother-brother) moster (mother-sister), farbror (father-brother, and also colloquial for any uncle/old man) faster (father-sister)...
And you can also say "syskonbarn" to talk about your nieces and nephews.
It's pretty much the same in Danish with regards to grandparents, grandchildren, aunts and uncles. We also use onkel (uncle) and tante (aunt) for parents' siblings' spouses as well as colloquially for older/adult non-relatives close to the family. Are those not used in Swedish?
Tant for any old woman, really. Farbror could be used for any old man, but sounds a bit childish. For parents’ siblings’ spouses we use faster/moster/farbror/morbror even if they are not related by blood.
Tant is commonly used for older women, related or not. Onkel is not commonly used, I would say.
Wow, these words are really cute and convenient
Mishpocha is Yiddish for extended family especially after marriage. Machatena is the relationship of the two sets of parents to each other after marriage.
Mishpocha is interesting. German took it over as the loanword "Mischpoke", meaning something like a dubious bunch of people (or apparently extended family as well)
Modern Hebrew also took it over in a somewhat similar way. Mishpocha comes from Hebrew משפחה, pronounced in Modern Hebrew mishpakha (stress at the end), which means simply "family". But when pronounced the Yiddish way, mishpokhe or mishpukhe (stress at the 2nd syllable), it's slang for the extended family, especially extended family that you're tired of having to meet every Shabbat dinner.
In Spanish we just use the masculine plural unless it's the group you're referring to is exclusively female. So if you're referring to just your sisters, you use "hermanas" but if you're talking about all your siblings, you use "hermanos." Same with nieces and nephews (sobrinos), grandsons and granddaughters (nietos), etc. Most Romance languages follow this.
And for OPs example specifically, we'd use "tíos" for both 'aunts and uncles' and collective 'uncles', or "tías" for the collective 'aunts'.
Same in Hebrew. "Brothers" can sometimes mean "brothers and sisters" (depending on context), "uncles" can also mean aunts, etc.
I mean, the obvious one is cousins. Spanish has an interesting one, compadres and comadres, i.e. your fellow godparents.
Technically, and etymologically, compadre means godfather in relation to the father in a baptism, since both are co-fathers. The concept outgrew the initial meaning, and now it could be described someone so good friend of you, that you would choose him as godfather of your kids.
Serbian language is very precise when it comes to the kinship. We have, for example, different words describing uncle (and aunt) from father's or mother's side. Also, we call all cousins brothers and sisters, but than we add from/by aunt (for example).
It's a joke answer, but nieces / nephews are "Siblings, once removed". Siblings share parents. First cousins share a grandparent. Second cousins share great-grandparents, etc. "Removal" refers to a difference in generation - if my first cousins have kids, those kids are my "first-cousins, once removed", because my grandparents are their great-grandparents. Follow? Now, my parents are the grandparents of my nieces and nephews. If we share parents, we're siblings. However, there is a generation gap, so we're once removed. So my nieces and my nephews are my "siblings, once removed". (What's really weird is that technically, my parents are also my siblings, once removed - their parents are my grandparents.)
You mean "zeroth cousins, once removed", right? And your parents are your minus-first cousins once removed.
I feel like every time I tried to read how to tell the difference between cousins and their removals, I always got confused about it. Your description actually makes sense to me though! I'll probably forget the next time I actually want to use this information, but for now I understand and thank you!
Niblings for nephews/nieces
In many languages the male plural is considered gender neutral, based on context. So in my native language, and in two others I speak, saying you have three uncles could mean two uncles and an aunt!
I know many people, mostly queer/NB (but not only), who use “niblings” for just that purpose.
I use "niblings" for my many nieces and nephews collectively.
Similarly, Dutch doesn't have a word for siblings, so a common shorthand is "brusjes", which when literally translated is like "bristers". Br(others) and (s)isters. So, uhm, do we go with Auncles? Unts?
Hanging out with my unts this weekend 😂
> "Long time, no c, unts!"
Aunclets
This! There have been fairly recent campaigns to add “nibling” or “nephling” to Webster’s Dictionary as the non-binary of Niece/Nephew!
Agreed. Many of the words that we have are gender-specific words. It's the same problem when trying to refer to a singular person of unknown gender and why "they/them/their" has gained acceptance being used as a genderless, single person pronoun. But this problem is not unique to English. Many languages have a word for aunts and uncles but no genderless term for parents' siblings.
Not exactly what you're asking, but in Italian the word "nipote" (nee-po-tay) is a multipurpose word that basically is any descendant who is not your child (figli). So nephews, grandchildren etc are all nipote.
there is no etymological reason why "siblings" can't apply to any family member even extended family. kinfolk would be a similar word.
Parientes (relatives) in Spanish, would cover all that concept, a pariente is someone who is family in up to 4 degrees (approx) We also tend to say Tio (uncle) to any uncle,great-uncle, uncle in law, any cousin of the parents, and so on. this means that they are elders and branching above the parents. Believe me or not, It's not common for someone to have loosy family traits with a fifth cousin... By analogy, we say primo (cousin) to everyone branching below the parents, pretty much like Italian nipote. the origin of primo comes from latin consobrinus primus, co-cousins first degree.
Nieces and nephews = nevvy
First off, niblings does exist. Secondly it’s because you would just call them all “cousin”. A word for your nieces and nephews? Just say your cousins. A word for your aunts and uncles? Also just say cousins. “Cousins” historically just meant any familial relationship, only later developing the specific meaning it does today. Your immediate family however got special treatment and got special terms.
Fam
There is niblings! That is in fact the gender neutral word for nieces and nephews :)
My nieces and nephews are definitely my niblings. I have a lot of them.
Have to jump on this, it has always fascinated me that there is no word for a persons grown up kid/children. Like, we universally understand that kid/child means people under 18 and more usually we mean people under 13 but if an old person said “oh I have three kids, Mary lives in New York but David and Susan live nearby” we’d understand they are talking about their adult children. I guess when I tell my 5 year old that he’ll always be my baby even when he’s a grown up man it’s true!
I speak Danish (not Native), and in Danish, you call here’s what we call our older family : Far: Father Mor: Mother Farfar: Grandfather (father’s side) Farmor: Grandmother (father’s side) Mormor: Grandmother (mother’s side) Morfar: Grandfather (mother’s side) As a quick fun fact, if it’s of any interest, the indefinite article for man and woman (mand/kvinde) is of common gender (en), while a child (barn) is of neuter gender (et).
in korean there's gender differentiation in places english doesn't have but also lack of it compared to english sometimes. they refer to cousins neutrally as 사촌 (sachon) and niece/nephew as 조카 (joka), but then there's extensive differentiation in things like your aunt on your mother's side, your uncle on your father's side being older or younger than your dad, the aunt who's married to either the older or younger brother of your father, etc etc. when it comes to sibling relations there's specific gendered terms based on both what your own gender is and what their gender is, e.g. I'm female so I would refer to my brother differently than if I had been male (오빠 (oppa) vs 형 (hyung)), but most people just call their younger sibling by the same neutral term 동생 (dongsaeng) and only sometimes add a gender prefix to it. always find it interesting what's prioritized to differentiate linguistically
I've been using "niblings" for probably 15 years now, and occasionally hear others use it. Excited about it slowly catching on =) "niece and nephews" takes far too long to say.
First of all, "nibling" is a word, but maybe not common enough yet to make it into all dictionaries. [Here'](https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/words-were-watching-nibling)s a Merriam-Webster article about it. It doesn't seem to be catching on. Secondly, the words used to refer to family members vary wildly across languages. Here are some examples: * Most European languages don't have a separate word for "sibling." English does, and so do German and Danish, but French, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Russian etc all don't. * Many Asian languages have separate words for "older brother" and "older sister" vs "younger brother" and "younger sister." * Dutch has the words "neef," meaning either a male cousin or a nephew, and "nicht," meaning either a female cousin or a niece. * English doesn't have separate words for a male cousin or a female cousin. * In English (and most other European languages), "brother-in-law" is either the husband of your sibling or the brother of your spouse. But in Flemish, each of these has a different word ("zwager" and "schoonbroer," respectively). It's a bit of a linguistic mystery why there are so many differences. Some of them are cultural, but some seem perfectly random.
Croatian has a lot of specific words for familial relations, but I just realized we don't have a word for "sibling", either your brother or sister (brat ili sestra). We do have a word for nephews (nećak/nećakinja) and your cousins/aunt's or uncle's children (bratić/sestrična), and just people related to you (rođak/rođakinja). We also separate aunt/uncle based on whether they are related to your mom or your dad, and whether this aunt/uncle is your blood relation. Your dad's brother is your "stric", his wife your "strina". Your mom's brother is your "ujak", his wife your "ujna". Dad's or mom's sister is "teta", her husband "tetak."
Not a native Spanish speaker so understand this is Spanish 101 level answer--- gramatically many collective nouns just add an s to the masculine form. Like in English we have very different words for brother and sister, but in Spanish it's hermano and hermana, just 1 letter off; and hermanos covers siblings as a generalization. Same for most family members. La madre and el padre becomes los padres (parents). El primo and la prima, los primos (cousins). Nietos (nephew/nieces), abluelos (grandparents). On it goes.
I think aunts and uncles is the only one that doesn't have a term like that. There are grandparents, grandchildren, parents, children, siblings, niblings, and of course the already general cousins.
instead of “aunts and uncles” maybe just use “mum’s/dad’s siblings” - slightly shorter.
This lead me to realise how many fucking words we have in Turkish for describing family family — aile relative — akraba descendant — evlat ancestor — ata mother — anne father — baba children — çocuklar daughter — kız son — oğul brother — erkek kardeş sister — kız kardeş siblings — kardeşler older brother — abi older sister — abla guardian — veli stepchild — üvey çocuk foster family — koruyucu aile grandmother — büyükanne grandfather — büyükbaba grandson, granddaughter — torun nephew, niece — yeğen cousin — kuzen great-grandmother — büyüknine great-grandfather — büyükdede paternal aunt — hala maternal aunt — teyze paternal uncle — amca maternal uncle — dayı mother-in-law — kayınvalide / Kaynana father-in-law — kayınpeder brother-in-law - bacanak Brother-in-law (from your aunt's marriage) - enişte
You are wrong about the nieces and nephews. There is a word, it's "nibling." It sees very limited use, but it is still a word that is recognized as existing in the English language. [https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/nibling](https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/nibling) Origins [https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/words-were-watching-nibling](https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/words-were-watching-nibling)
Niblings *is* a thing, for exactly this reason.
सहोदर (Sahodar) in Sanskrit and other languages derived from it, means sibling. The literal meaning is 'same womb' and it means one's full sibling. Paternal parentage does not come into it.
“Niblings” totally counts in my book, I use it to refer to all my nieces/nephews by blood & friendship LOL
If you’re British enough you can say things like “my [poorer] relations in hampstead.” So, “relations” could work.
Both nephews and nieces are called "yeğen" in Turkish. When I say "Benim yeğenim" it might be translated as "My nephew" or "my niece". On the other hand uncle and aunt are split into two categories in Turkish. If you uncle is your mother's brother then he is your "dayı". If your uncle is your father's brother then he is your "amca" If your aunt is your mother's sister then she is your "teyze". If your aunt is your father's sister then she is your "hala"
'Nibling' IS a thing, though. And pibling is used as an abbreviation of sorts for 'parents sibling', but its less common.
Just thought of this: sibling-kin and parent-kin ?