Monday, June 21, 2010

All in the Family

We have been working on learning the words for family relationships and it's a bit more complicated than in English. We just have one word for Aunt and Uncle where this language has a word for mother's sister, mother's brother, father's sister, father's brother and people who marry into the family. They also don't have words for nephew and niece. You just say sister's son or brother's daughter. The most fun about all of this was using pictures of our families to figure all of this out. I'll put the pictures we've used and tell you what all the words are. It will be good practice for me and give you a little more insight into the language we're learning.

First, a picture of Drew's side of the family:

From Dad's B-day 2010
For those of you who don't know, in the back row is Drew's Dad and Matt, Drew's brother-in-law. Olivia, Drew's sister is next to me and the two boys are our nephews.

Dad/David to Drew and/or Olivia- Padar/Ota
Olivia to Drew- Hohar
Drew to Olivia- Aka
Matt to Drew- Yazna
Drew to Matt- Kainee
Noah and Luke to Drew- Bachahoi Hohar
Matt to David- Domode
Olivia to David- Duktar
Drew to David- Bacha
Leslie to David- Kayleen
David to Leslie- Hoosoor
Olivia to Leslie- Kaisingle
Leslie to Olivia- Yanga
Leslie to Noah and Luke- Yanga
Drew to Noah and Luke- Toha
Noah and Luke to Leslie- Bachai Kaisinglei
Leslie to Drew- Zan
Drew to Leslie- Shavhar
David to Noah and Luke- Bobo
Noah and Luke to David- Nabera
Noah to Luke- Aka
Luke to Noah- Dodar
Drew and Olivia to David and Betty- Farzandho

If Drew's mom was in the picture here's how she would fit in (only the things that are different):

Mom to Drew and/or Olivia- Modar or Ocha
Betty to Leslie and/or Matt- Hooshtoman
Betty to Noah and Luke- Bibi

Everything works out the same in a picture of my family, just reversed, except since Stephanie is my stepmom she would be called my moindar.

Here's a picture of us with our grandparents from our wedding:

From for blog
Drew's grandparents are next to him and mine are next to me. My Granny who passed away in February is on the far right.

We'd call all our grandparents bobo and bibi.
Drew's grandparents to me or my grandparents to him: Hoosoor calon and Hooshtoman calon
Noah and Luke to Drew's grandparents: abera
Drew's grandparents to Noah and Luke: Bobo calon and Bibi calon

Finally, a random picture from a long time ago with Drew's aunts and uncles in it to show you how that works:

From for blog
This is all his dad's side of the family. Starting from Olivia in the red shirt we have Aunt Sarah, Mom, Dad, Aunt Laura and Uncle Jim. Sarah and Laura are David's sisters.

Sarah and Laura to Drew- Ama
Jim to Drew- Yazna

If we had a picture with Drew's mom's sisters they would be called Hola. Their husbands would also be called Yazna.

Whew! I think that's it! This can seem quite complicated but the more we talk about it the easier it will become and it's something easy to talk about with other people. Everyone has some family (oh, the word for family is oila) so we can definitely talk about this with people. They will just have to be patient as this is all we can say right now, except tell them names and ages! :-)

Hope you enjoyed this little language lesson! It was good practice for me!


4 comments:

Aunt Laura said...

This language lesson is fascinating. Leslie, you and Drew have accomplished a great deal already! You both are in our thoughts and prayers. Tell Drew I also appreciate the "butt-call" the other day. Mamaw and Pop were thrilled they were able to Skype with you.

Take care! I love you both!!!

Danielle said...

Lol, this is hard to follow in English let alone Tajik (sp?) Good work!

Drew and Leslie said...

Thanks and thanks! Glad you both enjoyed it! It's a lot to learn! :-)

Anonymous said...

Wow! If you just get those family relationships down you've really learned a lot about someone's family!