That is super interesting, indeed! How culture manifests itself in language..

In Russian there is actually also no real word for cousin. You kind of say "sister/brother of 2nd degree" :D

Popodoki, I am glad that there were at least no incidents with your neighbor. I understand that you won't ever invite her over for a cup of coffee

In Polish we have specific terms for parent's sibling's kids:
siostra cioteczna - aunt sister (but not aunt's sister, aunt acts like an adjective here) - means it's a daughter of my aunt.
brat cioteczny - aunt brother - son of my aunt.
And that's technically for mother's side. For father's side would be:
siostra stryjeczna - paternal uncle sister - daughter of my paternal uncle
brat stryjeczny - paternal uncle brother - son of my paternal uncle
cousin (kuzyn (m)/kuzynka (f)) is for further family relations, like maybe my grandma's sister's kids etc.

But generally nobody uses the family terms with "paternal uncle"/"stryjeczny", because nobody ever uses "stryj"/"paternal uncle" anymore.
We used to use two forms for uncle:
maternal uncle - wuj
paternal uncle - stryj - that one is out of use because people are stupid :) That's why there should be also a difference when speaking of your aunt's/uncle's kids, but anything that was of "paternal uncle" just became reduced to "uncle" that was formerly only a term for mother's brother.
We also had different terms for aunts:
maternal aunt - ciotka
paternal aunt - stryjenka
both also used for being wives of maternal/paternal uncles respectively.

Nowadays everyone just says "uncle/wujek" and "aunt/ciocia/ciotka" and I'm not even sure people are still using the "aunt sister/brother" or just "cousin" for everyone. Poles tend to copy the Western ways, thus losing and forgetting their own heritage and culture.

It was so confusing for me to study niece/nephew/cousin in English actually, I'd get them mixed up so often c':

I also never got why niece/nephew gets a gender distinction and cousin is just 'apply to all them kids' xD



also psst the raffle is open

Wow, mem, that sounds super complicated, but also pretty neat to have such precise terms for all the different relations. Pity that they're falling out of use!

I'd like to enter the raffle please :)

Ah, what the heck, I'll enter too. May I? :)

@Popo: I remember being weirded out by English "cousin", because I grew up not really using the word in regard to my family tree. We were usually using the "aunt sister" etc. But then I figured we were also using that wrong in my family so yeah XD

@Chriz: Maybe the "complicated" part caused them to fall out of that use :D People tend to make things easier. On one hand I get it, but on the other, as you said, it was cool to have all that! :D

Yeah, you're probably right about that :D
Especially since you need to actually remember how exactly you're related to people to use them correctly ;)

Ash always gets confused when I use the correct term for paternal uncle and he's like... wait, was that maternal or paternal again? and I'm like, why u not remember, r u even Polish? XD
(when you talk in meme language, hehe omg )
So yeah, remembering which is which might've been another factor

I'm still trying to use them whenever I can

I'd like to enter please!

Langauges are so fun but challenging lol I just accepted the fact that there are words in other languages beside English that English don't have the word for

Popodoki - I would would like to join the raffle, please!
English is such a crazy language. It makes no sense at all.


mem - Oh wow! That is way more specific than I'm used to.

Whole-heartedly agree :u