![]() Padrastro/padrastra ‘stepfather/stepmother’ These are rare examples of borrowed kinship terms. Latin thius/thia ‘uncle/aunt’, from Greek thêios/théia ‘uncle/aunt’. Two final pairs of Spanish kinship terms are each sui generis. Nuera: Vulgar Latin nora ‘daughter-in-law’, which “feminized” the masculine-sounding ending of Classical Latin nurus Vulgar Latin nepta ‘granddaughter’ or ‘niece,’ which “feminized” the ending of Classical Latin neptisĪ few Spanish kinship terms come from unrelated masculine and feminine Latin roots. Vulgar Latin socra ‘mother-in-law’, which “feminized” the masculine-sounding ending of Classical Latin socrus Latin aviola, the diminutive form of avia ‘grandmother’ (like Spanish abuelita) (In all cases, the Spanish masculine term is derived from the Spanish feminine by changing final -a to ‑o.) After all, many grandmothers play a large supporting role in their grandchildren’s lives (more so than most grandfathers do) and mothers-in-law loom large in legend and marital strife (more so than fathers-in-law do, unless creepy). You might be able to guess that two of these these are terms for grandparents and in-laws. ![]() Three pairs of kinship terms developed in the opposite direction from those above: their feminine variants came directly from Latin, and then served as the source of their masculine variants. ![]() Latin cognatus ‘blood relative’ ( con + natus ‘born with’) > ‘any type of relative’ > ‘in-law’ > ‘brother-in-law’ Latin sobrinus ‘first cousin once removed, second cousin, etc.’, replacing Latin nepos ‘nephew, grandson’ (as in English nepotism) Latin primus ‘first,’ from consobrinus primus ‘first cousin’ Latin germanus ‘of the same parents,’ from frater germanus ‘true brother, i.e. (In all cases, the Spanish feminine term is derived from the Spanish masculine by changing final -o to ‑a.) Note that all pairs of this type except for hijo/hija feature an interesting etymological twist or turn. yoga, from Sanskrit, and centinela, from Italian), and many feminine words add suffixes to masculine bases (e.g. This is the largest class of kinship terms we will see here, which is to be expected given that in Spanish, as in most languages, the masculine gender is dominant, or ‘ unmarked.’ Thus new words usually enter the language as masculine even if they end in an -a (e.g. To begin with, five pairs of Spanish kinship terms derived their masculine variant from Latin and their feminine variant from the Spanish masculine. These words are fun to look at because (i) all languages have a set of such words, which (ii) reflect culture, especially gender roles, and (iii) have surprisingly varied etymologies, many of which (iv) have interesting twists and turns.Īll etymologies presented here are from Juan Corominas’ Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana (1961). I owe my readers a blog post introducing this project, but for the time being I’ll share this teaser on the etymology of kinship terms like madre and padre. Now that the semester has ended, I’m turning my attention back to a research project on Spanish etymologies that I’ve neglected for months.
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