Non gendered relative words

[Indigodreaming]

You have grandchild, granddaughter, grandson

You have parent, mother, father

You have sibling, sister, brother

But only neice/ nephew, and aunt/uncle

Why don't we have a non gendered word for them?

(Unless there is and I have forgotten ot)

I bet Germany has a word. Probably very long but it would tell you the relationship.

The Longest Words in the German Language (thoughtco.com)

I've heard nibling and nephling but neither of them sound quite right.

When I'm referring to them en masse it's always just "my brother's kids". Never really thought about it before, language is interesting.

Fascinating about how other languages work

Wierd that Iceland let's you distinguish sex but nothing else

Within our family we just tend to say "family" especially with the more complex relationships so "our jackie,er, family...." rather than cousin or aunt or whatever

Icelandic does make that distinction but not by having a different word - they do it by only counting blood aunts and uncles. I am not the frænka of my husband's nieces and nephews, though in the UK I would be their aunt by marriage.

There are different words for brothers and sisters in-law that I find very confusing though. Mágur/mágkona is the sibling of your partner or the partner of your sibling, but svili/svilkona is the partner of your partner's sibling. So my husband has a sister who is married and she is my mágkona but her husband is my svili. It's hard for me to remember the difference, but it's equally difficult for my husband to remember the difference between aunts and nieces!

The distinctions in your native language somehow seem natural and necessary but the distinctions in other languages seem unnecessarily detailed.

@Kanaloa , there are other languages that have terms for 'sister's daughter', 'sister's son', 'brother's daughter', 'brother's son', 'mother's mother' etc

I love sibspring but for example DH considers he has nieces, they are my brother's children, not his, so he couldn't call them his Sibsprings.

Also like Auntcle , just a nice word to say

I must admit I would mostly just use their name and if an explanation of why they were related to me was needed, I give them the relationship eg my mother's sister's daughter, or my father's brother's son. Cousin isn't helpful because it covers such a wide variety of relationships in English (and generations) the once removed etc is just confusing

Scottish Gaelic doesn't have words for a lot of these, instead saying 'mother's brother' or 'son of father's sister', although 'Ogha' can mean both grandson/granddaughter and nephew. Uncail and antaidh are now used as alternatives.

Am I the only one who loves nibling? I’ve been working on my kids for years to try to get them to use it when the time comes 😂 I actually used the non binary argument the other day to try to convince them again but they aren’t really going for it.

I hate nibling.

So there’s ‘mum gran’ and ‘dad gran?’ I love it 😂 so interesting. I wonder if the languages that distinguish so carefully between relatives have other similarities too. I know that in Korean there are different terms for older friends, younger friends, friends who are female or male, so wonder if it is a similar thing to also distinguish between relatives and such.

I think we should have different words for the different types of brother-in-law/sister-in-law. For example, I have two brothers in law. One is dh’s brother and one is my sister’s husband. Totally different relationships but they have the same word.

I swear someone on mumsnet once told me that "Nibling" 😒 only referred to your siblings children so your husbands, sisters kids would be his "Niblings" but not yours.

I am surprised by how many people seem to call their husbands neices or nephews their own neice or nephew as I wouldn't. Although I do refer to my brothers wife as my children's auntie. Maybe it depends on how close you are?

I've heard parsib being used. We have a non binary parsib in the family but we just tend to use their name.

Depends on context

"Your nephew " when it is about organising a birthday card

"Our / my nephew "when chatting to none family members

His name when talking to the family

You searched my posting history? Bet that was enlightening.😂

Considering how invested you are in this potentially contentious gender-related topic, I'm surprised that the only comments you have made on the thread since your OP have been digs at me, rather than responding to any of the other posters who've commented and made interesting observations.
"Do you know how 'chat' works?" you asked. You haven't exactly engaged in the 'chat' either, to be fair.

Maternal/Paternal ?

For mothers/fathers bro/sis I mean

I'm with you on nieces and nephews, but I also refer to my aunt's husband as my aunt's husband, not my uncle as I regard aunt and uncle as words describing a blood relationship.

I am not blood related to any of the children that call me Aunty. They are DHs brothers children or close friends children. DHs brother children are definitely my nieces/nephews! But I've been there their whole lives... does that make the difference?

I have 6 blood uncles and aunts, I have always called their spouses uncle and aunt too, I know which are which but they are all completely equal as far as I'm concerned. However they all married young, my parents were the last on each side to marry, all have stayed married for life and are 80+ now, it might be different if the spouses had come into my life later on. I also think of my non-blood relative SILs as aunts to my DCs.

Growing up in Scotland, your Auntie was usually just a friend of your mum. We also had real aunties, which was confusing. The same thing didn't apply to dad's friends

Me too. I love Nibbler though

Well yes, of course I know you can say ‘my maternal aunt’ in English! But day to day it would just be ‘Auntie Grace’ whether it was your maternal or paternal aunt. In Korean there are literally two different words that you would call the auntie depending on which side it was.

By definition, nieces and nephews don’t have to be blood related. As in, referring to your spouse’s sibling’s children as nieces and nephews is also the definition standard.

I have lots of friends who refer to me as Auntie Reese to their children but can’t quite get on board with reciprocating. I don’t mind that they do it, it does seem to be quite standard nowadays.