#nibling

[stonedeadforever]

Klippdassen from mumin :)

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

I'm all for the use of non-gendered language and options for non-binary people, I just want them to make linguistic sense. "Nibling" sounds dumb. If you want a gender-neutral word for niece/nephew, it should share etymology with them. They both descend from the Proto-Indo-European root *nepot-, so there are a ton of plausible sounding options for derivations that don't call attention to themselves as neologisms.

Nepot is too visually similar to nephew, and sounds too much like the derivative nepotism, so maybe drop the p like Spanish did and go with something like nete or niete. Niete is too close to niece; nite, maybe? Or neti? Neit, neiti, neite, nit. These all look like real words, not clumsy 21st century portmanteaus like "nibling." If p and t are no good, we can go with another unvoiced stop like k. Nik, neik, nike (probably not that one), niki, neki, neke, nekie, so many possibilities, anything but "nibling."

Same thing with aunt/uncle. I've never heard a non-gendered term that sounds like something a layperson would use.

Hewhos became ewos, became avus, became avunculus, became uncle. Aunt is derived from words that mean mother; amma, amita, ante, aunt. I thought the word parent derived from the same root as paternal meaning father, but no, it's from the PIE root *pere-, mening to bring forth or produce. Sibling ultimately derives from the PIE root for self/oneself (*swe-), literally meaning same blood, related to myself, kin. "Parent's sibling" could be derived from swepere, swepar, suepar, supar, maybe something like sempar, "same parent/same source," simpar (maybe avoid anything with simp in it). Or "one source," onpar, honpar, paron, paroin, peron, peroine (from PIE *hoinom for one). I'm not thinking of germanic soundshifts, how these roots would evolve directly into English, I'm thinking broader, like how they would evolve in Latin or French to be loaned into English. If you want a neutral word that looks like it belongs with aunt and uncle, maybe something like umpar, umper, ompar, onpar, onper, onter, anything like that.

[gendercensus]

I think "nibling" gets chosen for "another child of your parents" as a portmanteau of "nonbinary sibling"

Here's what Wiktionary says:

Etymology Blend of nephew or niece +‎ sibling, coined by the American linguist Samuel Elmo Martin (1924–2009) in 1951.[1]

The word nonbinary to refer to gender seems to have evolved around 2000 or so, which means nibling predates nonbinary by about 50 years!

Edit: Hold on, my brain went too fast, I'll just slow down a bit. 🐌 Do you mean that people saw the gender-neutral word sibling, and wanted to make it nonbinary-gender-exclusive, and therefore nibling (nonbinary sibling) was created parallel to nibling (niece/nephew + sibling)?

If so, can anyone chime in on this? I would love to know more! (E.g., did you come to nibling as "nonbinary sibling" before you knew about the word already meaning niece/nephew? Did you know about the niece/nephew version but just decided it should be used for "nonbinary sibling" instead? etc.)

[writing-with-olive]

OKAYY so. I'm not a Linguist tm, but I am taking a class in it, which empowered me to see if i could come up with gender-neutral "niece/nephew" that also follows from the same latin roots, since to my knowledge "nibling" doesn't, so it opens an interesting puzzle.

I'm showing my math under the cut, but based on the way niece/nephew evolved I propose navom (NAY-vum) instead.

Okay. If anyone has critiques on my work in a way that doesn't just get us nephew again, please feel free to discuss.

The way I've laid this out is to trace nephew / niece line to get a sense for how transitions happen, and then I go into how I thought through the neuter version.

Step 1:

Both words come from the proto-indo-european (PIE) "nepōts" nep - ōt - s -> descendant, noun-ifier, singular masculine

Step 2 (masc):

Moving into classical Latin, we get "nepos." nep - ot - s -> unchanged root, "t" isn't pronounced due to shortened vowel sound and contact with "s", still singular masculine

Step 3 (masc):

Vulgar Latin, which was the precursor to the romance languages saw the word shift to "nepotem" nep - ot - em -> same root, "t" is back because no more "s", latin endings were leveled/simplified so we get "-em"

Step 4 (masc):

Old French gives us "neveu," which. Big change. nev - eu -> the "p" softens to "β" then to "v" as was typical moving into romance languages, the "em" nazalized and combined with the preceding "o" to make the "-eu"

Step 5 (masc):

English borrowed the term and adjusted it to our needs, giving us "nephew" neph - ew -> "v" sound became "f", spelling was adjusted to English standards

-----

Step 2 (fem):

Latin gave us "neptis" nep - t - is -> same root, noun-ifier but modified for the i-stem that follows, singular feminine

Step 3 (fem):

Then we get Vulgar Latin "neptia" nep - t - ia -> same root, same transition, "ia" ending standardized word with other feminine words

Step 4 (fem):

Another big jump. Old French gives us "niece" nie - ce -> vowel rose from "eh" to "ee" following trends before palatal consonants, "tia" became "tsia" became "ts" became "s" as it palatized

Step 5 (fem):

English, as before, grabbed the term and ran with it. In this case, no changes. We have "niece"

---

Step 2 (neu):

Okay so thing with Latin is that people-nouns are inherently binary. So I had to get a bit creative, and look at singular third person neuter endings that *didn't* imply people-ness, and instead implied "concept." From there, I got Latin "nepomen" nep - o - men -> base root, non-morpheme connector sound, neuter singular ending

Step 3 (neu):

Vulgar Latin would likely give us "nepome," due to the way people would likely drop the final "n." This is based on parallel patterns of similar words dropping final the "n" in "-men" endings.

Step 4 (neu):

Like with the Old French in nephew/niece, we get some greater phonological shifts. "nep" will become "nev" and the "e" ending will reduce down to near-silence, if not fully disappearing. Thus we would get something like "nevom(e)"

Step 5 (neu):

Here's where English would borrow from Old French. English tends to put the stress on the penultimate syllable, which would be the first one in a two syllable word, which would emphasize it: the "e" sound would become "ay." We'd also drop any residual schwa on the end of the word. Hence, we'd end up with "nevom"

[elemonsters]

Should consider a beast/wyrm, always fun

went insane and made the pseudo legendary for the region

Nibling / Dracodile / Grandile Wyrm/Beast with a movepool that hosts a lot of aero-type attacks, typically they are found in the Draken Chasm and the peaks of Spynel mountain

[rosetyler42]

XD Thought of this one while I was out. Kinda funny HT never did a reference like this to movie Griffin, So I had the kids dress up their uncle for funsies.

@lovelylivelyv @deathfangirl9 @heartsong1994 @hotelt-resurrection @oneocean890

[freehugzz]

My boysssss

I think I got Muddler's eyes somewhere I like finally... Maybe... Perchance...

[dozing-marshmallow]

Im so sorry for all the Chris’ nibling stuff but I absolutely love family type fics so could you please continue the thing into maybe World Tour?

Maybe Alejandro being like a big brother type thingy? You know since his big brother is kinda a bootyhole

NO DON’T APOLOGISE IT’S OKAY!! It’s a sign that you really enjoy this instalment and that makes me proud of my ability as a writer to engage yall so much. :’)

CHRIS MCLEAN’S NIBLING! READER WORLD TOUR HEADCANONS

It’s been a year, and Total Drama was coming back with its third season: a no-holds-barred race around the world in a jet! 

It wasn’t surprising that it took a lot more conversation out of Chris to convince your parents to let you on this one- the suspicious measure of his jet’s safety, what you’d be exposed to this time around, your passport, visa, if the whole process was even legal.

In the end, they allowed it, primarily because it was Chris’ burden to bear the responsibilities and they trusted him enough to keep you safe.

This time, you didn’t need to pack; everything you’d need was at Chris’ place already.

That’s right! You started staying with him a lot more without your parents being around.

You were one year older, and so was everyone else.

Chris decided to invite two new contestants on the show. Potential friends?

“Eee! OMG! It’s Chris Junior! Hi! Hi! Hi!” One of them, the super fan Sierra wildly shakes your hand,“I always daydreamed about the day I’d get to meet my step-cousin, and now I’m finally here!”

“Step-cousin...?” you didn’t get it.

“(Y/N) your majesty, why don’t you go sit at the front with Chef while uncle Chris explains a few rules to the passengers?” Chris interrupts sweetly.

“Aww. Okay.” After you whispered to him,“Will I need to sing too?”

The plane took off, and you were flying into the sky!

“I think I can see my house from here!” You exclaim, peering out one of the holes in the wall modified as windows in the “economy” section. The wind taps your face. Canada looked like little rectangles!

“It’s a long way down! Don’t lean out too much, you don’t wanna fall!” Leshawna advised, beaming at you.

“I won’t fall! This is the Chris plane!” You declared, jumping off the bench and spinning around in circles.

The Chris plane broke out free in aggressive blue.

“Huuu...” you whimpered, cutting your dancing short,“Is that normal?... Is...this meant to happen?”

“Are you frightened?” An answer in the form of a question slid into your ears by Alejandro, the other new contestant.

“Y-Yeah...” you nod, clutching onto the window,“I’ve never been on a plane before... If this is what it’s like, I don’t think I like planes very much...”

“You don’t need to feel frightened.” A tanned arm of his surrounds you, seeming sincere, like a scared half to death boy who didn’t get this shield long ago,“I may not have much history with you, but it’s not in my morals to ignore a child in distress.”

You could see why your uncle wanted him on the show. His face was perfect, alright. And the hair on his chin really got you curious,“Can I...?”

“By all means.” He directs your hand to his goatee.

You stroke it. Soft...like silk,“My uncle told me about you. Don’t worry, I don’t snitch, but are you fake being nice to me?”

He shakes his head, his long dark hair similar to Chris’ elands with it,“I haven’t any intention to deceive you, little one.”

“You can say that, but not mean it...” you mumble, not happy with his nature, but happy enough to accept it the way it was.

“This is separate. I swear.” His fingers weren’t crossed,“I wonder, (Y/N)...you don’t happen to have siblings, do you?”

“Mm mm. My parents are busy so there’s only me.” You quiet your voice, now stroking his necklace,“If I did, I probably wouldn’t be on the show, and I’d be jealous that I’d have to share...”

“I see... It sounds like a life of luxury.”

“Ale-jandro!” your uncle appears down the hall,“Strategising already, are you?”

“What? Of course not! To use a child like this? I could never!” The Hispanic man quickly jumped to defend himself.

“Yeah yeah, the turbulence is over in case you missed it.” His odium of the sight sharpened his face, which was very new.

“What’s the problem here?” You’d like to know too. What gives, uncle?,“Please forgive me if I act in ignorance, for I did not see anything about-“

“You done? I’m uh, kinda waiting on you to get up and go.” much to your baffled expression, Chris’ impatience squished Alejandro’s right to speak, leaving him no other choice, but to bid an end to your moment together.

Nobody could look smart challenging the host. Not at the start as a newbie at least.

Understandable, though. Chris loses control over his contestants sometimes and didn’t want you to get in the middle of it.

Shortly, you arrive to Egypt, the first country, and watched the contestants take their mark to race across a pyramid. While you were so excited to visit new cultures and be in different countries, Egypt itself was unbearably dry.

“Ughhh uncle! How are you not hot?” You groan, flapping your hand in front of your face. Too hot... So hot...!

“Look what I’m wearing.” he answered, ironic since the most he wore was a nemes and loincloth- not even a shirt.

Seeing how relaxed he was nagged you to groan further,“I’m melllting!”

“Intern!” He yelled at a poor unpaid worker to rush and raise-low a palm leaf to you,“Better?”

“Ahh..” you groan, falling into the sand on your knees,“I could use some icy lemonade right now...”

This was going to be a loooooong season.