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I was looking at the taiwanese terms for gay/lesbian family members that was making the rounds, and was thinking about how heterogeneous family terms are in China (and obviously the diaspora). More than anything else, I feel like family terms preserve regional differences in topolect. (Especially confusing when the same term means different relatives in different topolects.) I know that for 3 of my 4 grandparents, I use varying degrees of topolect terms instead of standard Mandarin, even though I am generally unable to speak those topolects.

Anyway, how this translates into fic is beyond my abilities, I just wanted to ramble a bit about how fluid the relative terms are compared to how they're often presented. Like, no, I don't have a 外婆wai4po2, I have an a2bu3.

Actually, I think maternal grandmother is one with the most variance across China, with also 姥姥 lao3lao, 阿嬷 a1mo2, 婆婆 po2po, 细爹 xi4die1, 家家 jia1jia1. There was a big kerfluffle a few years ago where some textbooks in Shanghai used laolao instead, and like (I say this with love), Shanghainese people got Very Upset at this northern nonsense. (Waipo is apparently more southern.)

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Today I had a discussion with my intern about the Chinese uncles (like, the various uncle terms; she lived in China as a child). Luckily she knows I'm random and I had dropped months ago that I'd watched a xianxia show, so it didn't come completely out of left field. I think she's mostly half-amused.

What I have come away with after this past half year is: Chinese family terms are a whole world in itself. Also something I won't ever fully understand, but am still along for the ride.

Haha, there are... a lot of terms indeed! And it's all very regional too, so the internet is not always helpful

Yes. Naturally. Definitely not dealing with those unless I have to. It's mostly trying to understand relationships.

And keeping my intern on my toes with my randomness :D

Edited 2020-11-30 21:34 (UTC)

It is really lovely how deeply rooted family terms are--how they'll still survive even after the generation no longer speaks the dialect. I don't have much of an accent, but if another USAmerican heard me talk about my parents or grandparents, they'd instantly know I was southern.

(Also, I did not know the word "topolect" before this post and now I have learned something!)

Ooh, yes, I was thinking that English had similar things for grandparents/parents! But I don't have a great grasp how regional it is (vs specific family dependent)

There's not a huge variety of regional variation within the US, but the fact that I call my parents "mama and daddy" is definitely southern. Other variations in the US are about either specific families OR about whatever your ethnic background is.

Yeah, that makes sense! I do think bc the US's history is so recent and there's (relatively) a lot of internal migration, we have a lot fewer entrenched regional differences than other countries

Definitely. And when we push the English language stuff out, the US is an outlier for not saying "mum" but saying "mom" instead!

it's very obvious that I am southern because of what I call my grandparents/great grandparents and the different levels to it all.

One of the funniest stories in my family is how my Memaw wanted to be called 'Grandmother' and my dad was like, hell no, mom, take your Southern granny name and deal with it.

Ha! My daddy is the opposite. He's always tolerated us calling him daddy, but he grew up in Indiana and didn't like southern names, so we call he call his parents Grandmother and Grandfather, in direct contrast to my mama's (southern) parents who we called Mona (rhymes with sauna) and Granddaddy.

No kidding. I had real cognition dissonance the first time I heard 媳妇 being referred to as someone's wife. In my back of the woods, it means daughter-in-law. Definitely some wild thoughts of wtf!incesty warnings going off in my mind at that point. And 爱人for spouse/partner (though it has the advantage of being gender-neutral) because I'd always been led to assume it meant lover, often in the context of something happening outside of marriage.

Last year, I found an app that names the generational title, e.g. what do you call your father's sister's grandchild, etc. But it disappeared when I changed phones, boo.

LOL yeah, that's a fun difference. My dictionary specifically calls out 爱人 as spouse (PRC); lover (non-PRC), which is interesting.

There was another app making the rounds, but I broke it within a few tries, so it wasn't very good...