A couple of people showed an interest/got confused by the different gender specific words we use in Denmark for different family members so here’s 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: lillesøster
Older sister: storesøster
Younger brother: lillebror
There’s no specific word for what number sibling they are like third lillesøster. You’ll have to explain that yourself. Søskende 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 søsken sounds extremely unnatural in Danish the same way saying “she is my only sisters” would.
Sister in law: svigerinde
Your mother’s mother: mormor
Your father’s mother: farmor
Your mother’s father: morfar
Your father’s father: farfar
If you don’t want to disclose how an elderly woman is related to you: bedstemor
If you don’t 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 bedsteforældre which means grandparents. There’s no specific words for your father’s or mother’s parents as a couple. Both are just bedsteforældre.
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 tip’s so you have a tiptiptiptiptipoldemor.
Your mother’s sister: moster
Your father’s sister: faster
Your mother’s brother: morbror
Your father’s brother: farbror
An aunt you’re not blood related to or a woman who is married to your parent’s sibling: tante
And uncle you’re not blood related to or a man who’s married to your parent’s 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 parents’ 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 I’m actually his tante. Only weird people or the government get up in arms about how people use these words though.
There’s 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 it’s not a name but a title. I’m both a moster and a faster so I’ll have to step in and explain that to my nephews and nieces when they get older. It’s cute.
