Burmese kinship
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Related on Lably
- Maternal and parental lineages are not distinguished, except for members of the parents' generations.
- Relative age of a sibling relation is considered.
- Gender of the relative is distinguished.
- Generation from ego is indicated.
History
Many of the kinship terms used in Burmese today are extant or derived from Old Burmese. These include the terms used to reference siblings and in-laws.
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Grades of kinship
The Burmese kinship system identifies and recognizes six generations of direct ancestors, excluding the ego:
- Be (ဘဲ) - great-grandfather's great-grandfather (6 generations removed)
- Bin (ဘင်) - great-grandfather's grandfather (5 generations removed)
- Bi (ဘီ) - great-grandfather's father (4 generations removed)
- Bay (ဘေး) - great-grandfather (3 generations removed)
- Pho (ဘိုး) - grandfather (2 generations removed)
- Phay (ဖေ) - father (1 generation removed)
The Burmese kinship system identifies seven generations of direct descendants, excluding the ego:
- Tha (သား) - (1 generation removed)
- Myi (မြေး) - (2 generations removed)
- Myit (မြစ်) - (3 generations removed)
- Ti (တီ) - (4 generations removed)
- Tut (တွတ်) or Hmyaw (မျှော့) - (5 generations removed)
- Kyut (ကျွတ်) - (6 generations removed)
- Hset (ဆက်) - (7 generations removed)
Extended family and terminology
Kinship terms differ depending on the degree of formality, courtesy or intimacy. Also, there are regional differences in the terms used.
Common suffixes
- female: မ (ma)
- male: ဖ (hpa)
Burmese also possesses kin numeratives (in the form of suffixes):
- eldest: ကြီး (gyi) or အို (oh)
- second youngest: လတ် (lat)
- youngest: လေး (lay), ထွေး (htway), or ငယ် (nge)
Relationships
The Burmese kinship system also recognizes various relationships between family members that are not found in English, including:
- တူအရီး (tu ayi) - relationship between uncle or aunt and nephew or niece
- ခမည်းခမက် (khami khamet) - relationship between parents of a married couple
- မယားညီအစ်ကို (maya nyi-ako) - relationship between the husbands of two sisters
- သမီးမျောက်သား (thami myauk tha) - relationship between cousins, used in Arakanese language