Re: [TIED] Eskimo & Omaha II

----- Original Message -----

From: Håkan Lindgren

To: Cybalist

Sent: Monday, June 19, 2000 3:33 PM

Subject: [TIED] Eskimo & Omaha II

Mark Odegard wrote, in Re:[TIED]Re:Cousin (Solution) -

Family terms are always interesting. Mallory says PIE was an Omaha II system, whereas modern English (and most European languages) are an Eskimo system.

I agree, family terms are interesting and I would like to learn more about this, but I'm not familiar (lame pun intended) with these terms - could you explain what an Omaha II and an Eskimo system are?

Hakan

I've seen Piotr's discussion.

 

These are terms borrowed from the ethnographers. EIEC lists Eskimo, Hawaiian, Sudanese, Iroquis, Crow, and Omaha as the six basic systems human society has developed.

 

James Mallory, in note 26 (p. 276) of his In Search of the Indo-Europeans says:

 

Friedrich (1966), Wordig (1970), and Gates (1971) all argue that Proto-Indo-European kinship was of the Omaha III type. Huld (1981) suggests that it was Omaha II or IV. Beekes (1976) maintains there is no solid evidence for an Omaha-type kinship system in Proto-Indo-European. Similarly Szemerenyi (1977) rejects the Omaha classification .... Of the classic textbook kinship systems, the Indo-European languages suggest one probably closer to the Omaha than any other, however, it falls far short of replicating the classic Omaha system with its series of skewing, merging and half-sibling rules.

 

Mallory, together with Martin Huld, address the issue in EIEC in the article 'Kinship'. An Eskimo system focuses on the nuclear family -- mother father brother sister son daughter. With other relatives, no distinction is made between paternal or maternal relatives, but are indifferently aunts and uncles, grandmothers and grandfathers, and cousins. English also has the genderless terms parent, child and sibling.

 

Hawaiian has fewer terms (there is a single term aunt and mother, brother and cousin, etc).

 

The Sudanese type is the most ornate, carefully distinguishing just about every variation you would encounter. It's said, however, that much of the terminology is descriptive, rather like Swedish morfar  for 'maternal grandfather'.

 

Mallory and Huld write:

 

Currently, the most widely accepted hypothesis is that the PIE kinship system was of the Omaha type, the patrilineal version of the Crow system. Although none of the recorded societies employ a complete Omaha system, supporters argue that only the Omaha system explains a number of terminological anomollies found in the surviving kinship terms. These include a number of terms that merge generations under common terms ... [p. 334]

No two societies, it seems, agree completely with the paradigm they are assigned to, and may have independent words completely at odds with such a paradigm. There is also the fact that the basic words tend to be among the very most conservative elements in a language, and whatever the current regime, the inherited words are still in use.

 

Mark.