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Is it right to say?
Hi Friends!!
Can we say like this: My cousin sister My cousin brother - if no then how should say our uncle's or aunty's son or daughter?
your uncle's or aunt's son or daughter would simply be 'cousin'
there is no gender disctinction between the two in Standard English "cousin brother" and "cousin sister" sound funny they evoke a weird religious sect to me (i.e. Prophet So-and-so, etc.)
I am still wondering how to distinguish the male and female with the word cousin!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It's really just a gender neutral word. I suppose you could specify "male cousin" or "female cousin", but usually it's discernible from context.
I've often found this odd about English. We have gender specific words for many family relationships but not all.
For example: Niece/Nephew Aunt/Uncle etc., etc. but not for cousins. Very odd.
"Very odd."
Not odd at all. The word "cousin" came into English from French where it exists in both masculine and feminine form ("cousin"/"cousine"). But the gender-differentiating pronunciation in French ("-in"/"-ine") did not carry over. So (as someone noted) the only way to specify sex is: 1. by using "male cousin" or "female cousin" - I've also heard "boy cousin" and "girl cousin" for younger people; 2. by using it with a name - "Cousin Matt" or "Cousin Amy"; or 3. by context - "my cousin is visiting Chicago for the first time and she loves the city." By the way, "cousin" is not gender-neutral, it's epicene. That's to say, it can refer to either sex. In language, gender and sex are not synonymous terms.
It also reminds me of Serbo-Croatian. Hmmm, I wonder if this is common in all Slavic languages.
Back to the question, if I am talking about a male cousin, I'll use "he" somewhere in the conversation or his name. If your cousin has a name like "Pat" or "Erin/Aaron" some clarification may be in order.
In Serbo-Croatian, isn't a male cousin just referred to as a 'brother'?
'Cousin' in English is no different than the word 'friend'. They're both "epicene" ;)
<In Serbo-Croatian, isn't a male cousin just referred to as a 'brother'? <
No, brother = brat; cousin = bratić/bratanac sister = sestra; cousin = sestrićna <I wonder if this is common in all Slavic languages.< I think it is.
Very interesting. I have some detective work in store for me. My SC materials use yet another term.
I have a very old (1970s) language course in Serbo-Croatian. That's all my library had. I haven't sorted this language out. When I was a kid, my dad introduced me to a speaker of this language (when Yugoslavia was a country) and I learned some words. Last year I came into contact with speakers of this language several times and learned some more. I can't really give intelligent opinions on whether a word is correct or not until I can find a good dictionary comparing words in Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian. It's a beautiful language, though.
Anyway, I'm going a little too far off topic for the English section. It's interesting when we see direct translations from other languages here. It always makes me wonder what the poster's native language is.
If you mean "rođak" (rodjak), it's really a wider term. It stands for a "relative", so it can be a cousin or a grandfather.
<makes me wonder what the poster's native language is<
I'm an agent too. Shhh. |