[HN Gopher] LabelContactRelationYoungerCousinMothersSiblingsDaug... ___________________________________________________________________ LabelContactRelationYoungerCousinMothersSiblingsDaughterOrFathersSi stersDaughter Author : atulvi Score : 101 points Date : 2023-09-21 19:56 UTC (3 hours ago) (HTM) web link (developer.apple.com) (TXT) w3m dump (developer.apple.com) | Apocryphon wrote: | Chinese kinship labels for the win | | https://blog.tutorabcchinese.com/chinese-learning-tips/famil... | satvikpendem wrote: | This is the same in many Indian languages too. | teruakohatu wrote: | That is interesting. In many English speaking cultures children | will informally refear to their mother's parents and father's | parents by different names even if formally they are both | "grandmother", "grandfather" or "grandparent". I like that in | China they formalised the names. | fiddlerwoaroof wrote: | There's also the phrases "{paternal,maternal} | {grand{father,mother},uncle,aunt}" | Svip wrote: | Scandinavian languages have the same. >>Mormor<< (lit. mum | mum) means maternal grandmother, while >>farmor<< (lit. dad | mum) means paternal grandmother. Unfortunately, it doesn't | appear to continue beyond that (so no >>mormormor<<). | tobr wrote: | "Mormorsmor" is a Swedish word. | https://svenska.se/saol/?sok=mormorsmor | hyggetrold wrote: | Danish: after "mormor" there is "oldemor." After that you | put "tip" in front just like "great" in English. | lainga wrote: | Related question (not really!) - two dads or moms - who | should be called what? | bobwaycott wrote: | Keep it fun. Annual competitive bouts for the title. | | Option one: The winner becomes <dad|mom> _Prime_. | | Option two: The loser gets to live with _not_ <dad|mom> for | a year. Or _runner-up_. | hatthew wrote: | I don't think it would be good to have a deterministic way | to decide who gets to be called what in that case. The | world would be a better place if we didn't make a | distinction between mother and father, though obviously | that's baked into almost all cultures and fully removing | that would cause more problems than it would solve. Given | that we don't have preexisting momentum to make a | distinction between two parents of the same gender, I don't | think we should try to standardize anything. Just pick two | arbitrary titles like "dad" and "papa" and assign them | randomly. | jkaplowitz wrote: | A few possibilities for two dads, and it would be analogous | for two moms: | | "Dad" (interchangeably either one) | | Use different father words as per family preference. These | could be variations of the same family word, like dad and | daddy or papa and pops, or entirely separate words like dad | and papa. | | Use the dads' first names, either with a father word or | without. I know some people who call their grandma "Mama | <name>" because she acts like a second mother; no reason it | couldn't refer to an actual mother. That happens to be a | non-English example, but it could have been in English. | Similarly, I know someone who addressed his (unfortunately | now-deceased) parents by first name with no parent word, in | English, even though he had the conventional pairing of a | mother and a father. | | Lots of solutions. | lynguist wrote: | Not an issue: You already have two grandfathers and two | grandmothers, how do you call them? | ziofill wrote: | A+ I'm so going to steal this. | lainga wrote: | I'm not sure I follow, I don't want my kids calling me | "grandpa"... | rhaps0dy wrote: | lynguist is suggesting that you and your partner both be | called with the same word | lainga wrote: | OH, I thought meant take the grandparent names and strip | some common grandparent root from them or something | complicated and etymological | sensanaty wrote: | Some languages do make a distinction between the | patrilineal and matrilineal grandparents, though I | suppose having 2 of the same gender parent means you just | use the pat/matrilineal of whatever gender your parents | are :P | wizofaus wrote: | I'd imagine kids that happen to grow up in households | with two granddads or two grandmas would find solutions - | I remember we called the latter two "grey grandma" and | "white grandma" on the basis of their hair colour, though | I'm not sure how often we used those names to their | faces. And of course plenty of adults call their parents | and step-parents or parents in law of the same sex the | same thing. I'm curious if there are any languages that | don't have separate words for "mum" and "dad" though. | Tried googling but all the results were about how | different languages use similar words for each term | individually. | lainga wrote: | Wait, that _would_ work (for my specific use case). | "White dad" and "brown dad". But - what would the PTA | say... | bradknowles wrote: | For me, it was grandad (paternal) versus grandpa | (maternal). | | Then for my grandmothers, they were both "granny" but I | included their name (first name for paternal, last name | for maternal). | jjtheblunt wrote: | Not if your parents are siblings | xboxnolifes wrote: | While I called my grandmothers by different names, I | called both my grandfathers the same name. They were | never in the same room together, so it was never an | issue. | strken wrote: | In my family we gave different words to the different | grandparents, but chose more or less at random. This made | the words unique and therefore more useful. | | It's not an "issue" for parents, exactly, but it is an | interesting choice because of how much less trodden a | path it is. Would you both go by dad? Would one or both | be daddy, dadda, or pop? Would you use first names or | diminutives after a certain age? | robofanatic wrote: | Even "Uncle". In english, Mom's brother and Dad's brother | both are uncles -\\_(tsu)_/- | Jiocus wrote: | Like others noted in the thread about grandparents, in | Scandinavia we'd say morbror (mother-brother) and farbror | (father-brother). | | What's fun though is that 'farbror' can also be used (in | Swedish) for any neutral/kindly spirited or acquainted old | man, so maybe we're not too practical after all. | zarzavat wrote: | Also mom's sister's husband and dad's sister's husband. | | You can have a mother-in-law, a brother-in-law, a son-in- | law, but there's no such thing as an uncle-in-law. | kulahan wrote: | The list is blowing my mind. A word for your mom's sibling's | daughter if she's older than you, and another one if she's | younger? What a dense piece of data! | [deleted] | klausa wrote: | AIUI Korean and Farsi (among many others, I'm sure!) also have | lots of very specific words for familial relationships. | washadjeffmad wrote: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_and_cross_cousins | | Kinship systems are neat. | [deleted] | satya71 wrote: | English so inefficient when expressing human relationships. | wizofaus wrote: | And very imprecise. Virtually nobody gets it right when trying | to describe a relationship with an nth cousin m times removed. | And recently I tried to work out a fairly basic relationship | between myself and my son's step-sisters - they're not | biologically related to me at all, or even by (current) | marriage, but it seemed like there should be a term for it. | noblood wrote: | Two of my cousins were adopted out, found the family as | adults, and immediately had a child together. That child is | now an adult, and members of his generation ask, what do we | call the guy, "unclecousin"? | miki123211 wrote: | Languages like Polish are even worse, because you have to go | in reverse, from the person described to yourself. It's the | great great grandmother of the cousin of the uncle of the ex | wife of your sister, not your sister's ex wife's uncle's | great great grandmother. | pndy wrote: | The Old Polish had some pretty cool sounding terms for | describing family relations that become forgotten, changed | or dropped in favor of other words | | _dziewierz_ - husband 's brother sounds way more cooler | than _szwagier_ imo | jdthedisciple wrote: | There is even | | CNLabelContactRelationElderCousinMothersSiblingsDaughterOrFathers | SistersDaughter | | https://developer.apple.com/documentation/contacts/cnlabelco... | flaghacker wrote: | What value does this label have for English localization? | 1propionyl wrote: | It doesn't. But after all English speakers are only a small | (<5%) minority of the world. | gkbrk wrote: | English is the most commonly spoken language in the world, | followed closely by Chinese. | drekipus wrote: | 87% of percentages are made up in the spot. | n2d4 wrote: | It's correct if you read "English speakers" as "native | English speakers": https://gurmentor.com/what-is-the-most- | spoken-language-in-th... | klausa wrote: | "younger cousin (mother's sibling's daughter or father's | sister's daughter)" | | If you have an iPhone, you can check all of those out by going | to Contacts.app, tapping "edit" > add related name > tap on the | blue "mother" > scroll down to bottom and tap on "All Labels". | sdlfij3lkfjasij wrote: | This feature is exclusively for the CN market. Where they have | a very specific work for each of those. | | and it is probably to improve siri. So people can say "call Bo | Bo " and Siri knows *exactly* which uncle you mean. which is | probably some killer feature that only android phones from | huwai had before. | secretsatan wrote: | I've always been terrible at diagnosing family relationships, | what would be the end result in english? ( or any other language | ) | | Edit: or is it a word or phrase that doesn't exist in English? | jachee wrote: | It's largely a _concept_ that doesn't exist in English. All our | parents' siblings' offspring are simply "cousins"; regardless | of which parent, or which of their siblings, etc. | dang wrote: | Related: | | _CNLabelContactRelationYoungerCousinMothersSiblingsDaughterOrFat | hersSistersDaught_ - | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28712667 - Sept 2021 (132 | comments) | | _CNLabelContactRelation ​YoungerCousin&Negat | iveMediumSpace;MothersSiblingsDaughter​OrFath | ersSistersDaughter_ - | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20341855 - July 2019 (176 | comments) | | Oh no. Am I going to have to figure out | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20341959 again? Tweaks to HN | title escaping since 20341855 are showing up just a bit there... | m3kw9 wrote: | Why | [deleted] | yegle wrote: | https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.blogspot.r... | FWIW there are handy calculators for situations like this. | jandrese wrote: | Dark Helmet: Before you die there is something | you should know about us, Lone Star. | | Lone Starr: What? | | Dark Helmet: I am your father's brother's | nephew's cousin's former roommate. | | Lone Starr: What's that make us? | | Dark Helmet: Absolutely nothing! Which is what | you are about to become. | [deleted] | prosody wrote: | Of possible interest to HNers, kinship terminology of different | cultures is a subject that has a very elegant taxonomy. It was a | major line of inquiry in early modern sociology, which tried to | link other attributes of how societies were structured to how | they named relations. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinship_terminology | BLKNSLVR wrote: | I'm my own grandpa: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkiOm-vmpcY | waltbosz wrote: | LabelContactRelationFathersBrothersNephewsCousinsFormerRoommate | eigenvalue wrote: | Spaceballs! | vippy wrote: | CNLabelContactRelationAbsolutelyNothingWhichIsWhatYouAreAbout | ToBecome | [deleted] | bhouston wrote: | This project seems like an architect just gave up and said fine, | you get an enum value for any relationship you can think of, what | do people want? And this was one suggestion. | | This enum could have been replaced with data model where you set | of a bunch of relationship links: | | Relationship: | | - type: parent (up), child (down), sibling (sideways) | | - gender: male, female, ... | | I am confused by the "younger" denotation, because it seems | strangely specific to just the last relationship, rather than all | of the links. | | If you have a lot of relations, it would be easier to just create | a family tree then you can skip having to have multiple duplicate | links being created for say each cousin. | klausa wrote: | Making software that works across cultures (and especially _as | many_ cultures as Apple's software does) is difficult. | | I guarantee you that every single one of those enum cases | exists, because there is a language/culture where there is a | specific word to describe that relationship; not "because an | architect gave up". | bhouston wrote: | I didn't know there were words for those in other languages. | I guess I'd still prefer an expressive composable model for | them so that I could reason about them. At least know who is | related to who in which way, rather than these enums. But I | guess that is outside of the scope for Apple - they just want | that short name in the UX somewhere when adding a contact. | secretsatan wrote: | Localizing, this falls into the things you thought about x | are true. | | This is the end result of a bunch of switches and ifs in a | ui where your model, in very specific circumstances, boils | down to a few words that most people understand without | computer programming experience. | mrbadguy wrote: | The point is that you don't need to reason about the | relationship because the name, in the local language, tells | you everything you need to know. Of course, if you don't | speak the language then that's not useful but the code is | written for the end user to be able to use the labels, not | for the software or its developer to be able to parse the | family tree :) | mjr00 wrote: | > I am confused by the "younger" denotation, because it seems | strangely specific to just the last relationship, rather than | all of the links. | | In many cultures you address someone differently depending on | whether they are younger or older than you. | | > This enum could have been replaced with data model where you | set of a bunch of relationship links: | | How is that going to look on the user side? Most people just | want to label their contact "Mom" and be done with it, they | don't want to construct a family tree and say "this person is | an older female parent" or maybe even "older elder female | parent" if they have two moms. | | You might think "well Mom is clearly an exception" but that's a | very North America point of view. A lot of cultures would find | it weird if you could label someone as eomeoni but not jangmo | because they're equally important. | ethansinjin wrote: | I think this was motivated by non-English languages which have | separate terms for different relations than English? | calibas wrote: | Apparently, Chinese uses different words for "cousin" depending | on whether they're older or younger than you. | ubermonkey wrote: | Dang. | | I always thought it was awkward that both [male spouse of | sibling] and [male spouse of spouse's sibling] are _both_ called | "Brother-in-law" in American English usage, but this level of | specificity is _bananas_ to me. | mulmen wrote: | Why though? Where does this actually get used? | | This seems to represent two different relationships. The mother's | sibling could be a brother. For the father a sister is specified. | What about the father's brother's younger daughter? | | The description says younger daughter in both cases but the name | doesn't specify. So what's the class for the older daughter of | the mother's sibling or the father's sister? | | And if age is relevant what about the father's older sister's | younger daughter, etc. | duskwuff wrote: | > Why though? Where does this actually get used? | | Many Asian cultures, including Chinese, have a wider variety of | kinship terms than English. The (unwieldy) name of this | constant describes one such relationship which doesn't have a | direct equivalent in English. | klausa wrote: | There are different words in different languages for those | specific relationships; and some languages lack a "generic" | words like "cousin" that you could use in English without | knowing the relationship details. | | I'm not a speaker, but someone once explained to me that for | example in Farsi, you can't just refer to someone's "cousin", | without knowing the person's gender _and_ the two related | parents genders. | mulmen wrote: | Ok so this is for i18n and in English would just be "cousin"? | Can we assume there actually is a language somewhere that | makes this particular distinction and has a word for it? | saagarjha wrote: | Yes. | klausa wrote: | Kinda! | | If you have a contact with that specific option set, it'd | display as | | >younger cousin (mother's sibling's daughter or father's | sister's daughter). | miki123211 wrote: | Book translators / authors must have a field day with this. | | Let's say that a character in book 1 suspects his cousin of | committing a murder, and nothing else is revealed about that | cousin (let's say it's a side plot) until book 5, where new | evidence turns up and he is suddenly found guilty. If you | differentiate between male and female cousin, how do you | translate book 1 if book 5 hasn't been written yet? | | Even better, let's assume the books are finished, the author | is dead, but you're translating to a language that | differentiates between younger/older cousins / cousins on | different sides of the family. You just pick whichever word | you like more. Ten years later, Hollywood makes a movie | adaptation, and the "male cousin" from your translation is | played by none other than Angelina Jollie. Your readers are | very confused. | | Translation is hard. | trothamel wrote: | Is it time for | CNLabelFathersBrothersNephewsCousinsFormerRoommate? Perhaps as an | alias for false? ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-09-21 23:00 UTC)