A couple of people showed an interest/got confused by the different gender specific words we use in Denmark for different family members so hereās an explanation.
Language shows what was important to a people in the past so having all these words shows how a person was related to you meant a lot to our ancestors.
Younger sister: lillesĆøster
Older sister: storesĆøster
Younger brother: lillebror
Thereās no specific word for what number sibling they are like third lillesĆøster. Youāll have to explain that yourself. SĆøskende is only used as a gender neutral plural to refer to all your siblings if you have both brothers and sisters. Calling a single sibling a sĆøsken sounds extremely unnatural in Danish the same way saying āshe is my only sistersā would.
Sister in law: svigerinde
Your motherās mother: mormor
Your fatherās mother: farmor
Your motherās father: morfar
Your fatherās father: farfar
If you donāt want to disclose how an elderly woman is related to you: bedstemor
If you donāt want to disclose how an elderly man is related to you: bedstefar
Most people use the more specific words farfar or farmor for their grandparents but if we talk about them as group we say bedsteforƦldre which means grandparents. Thereās no specific words for your fatherās or motherās parents as a couple. Both are just bedsteforƦldre.
The mother of any of your grandparents: oldemor
The father of any of your grandparents: oldefar
The grandparents of your grandparents
The grandmother of any of your grandparents: tipoldemor
The grandfather of any of your grandparents: tipoldefar
The further back you go you add more tipās so you have a tiptiptiptiptipoldemor.
Your motherās sister: moster
Your fatherās sister: faster
Your motherās brother: morbror
Your fatherās brother: farbror
An aunt youāre not blood related to or a woman who is married to your parentās sibling: tante
And uncle youāre not blood related to or a man whoās married to your parentās sibling: onkel
It depends on the family how much they care about this one. My family use all of them because we think it creates family bonding, but other families call all their parentsā male siblings onkel for example, and my brother married a woman who already had a son and he calls me faster despite us not being blood related so Iām actually his tante. Only weird people or the government get up in arms about how people use these words though.
Thereās no gender neutral word like in English
The further away from you a family member is you start adding grand to their title the same way English use great.
And yes, small children often end up fighting over whether their grandparent is called farmor or mormor until the adults explain to them that itās not a name but a title. Iām both a moster and a faster so Iāll have to step in and explain that to my nephews and nieces when they get older. Itās cute.