Familial relationship naming question...

[seawasp]

Is there a proper term to describe my relationship to my brother's father-in-law? He's obviously family in some sense. So what is he to me, and to my kids?

Comments

[howardtayler.livejournal.com]

I'm not aware of a specific term. "Brother's father-in-law" gets us there in the same number of steps as "Sister-in-law's father," but has the advantage of being less ambiguous, since there are cases where your sister-in-law's father is actually YOUR father-in-law.

"Nephew's grandfather" is right out. :-)

[ninjarat.livejournal.com]

There is no formal English word for that relationship. Uncle may be an acceptable word.

[missingvolume.livejournal.com]

Which kinship chart do you want to use? ;-) Sorry couldn't help but ask that after helping spouse edit his anthropology papers when he was in college.

You could just use the old Southern standby and call him Uncle.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

``Uncle'' is probably best. I might try for ``Uncle-in-law'' if it were relevant to note that the relationship is by marriage rather than jellyfish blood.

Of course, I'm stuck for a compact way to describe my brother's girlfriend with whom he's had a (healthy, happy, week-old!) child but for whom as far as I know there's no intent to marry anytime soon. ``Girlfriend-in-law'' sounds odd, but fortunately my Dearly Beloved puts up with it.

[martianmooncrab.livejournal.com]

"related by marriage", the honorific of Uncle ususally works.

Say Uncle....

[hvideo.livejournal.com]

As others have noted, there is no single specific term in English for those relationships. If you are looking for a term that other English speakers would recognize, I can't help.

If you are willing to borrow from other languages, however, you ought to be able to find something. In Heinlein's CITIZEN OF THE GALAXY the people aboard the ship Sisu were able to describe such relationships perfectly - and it turned out that the "secret language" of the ship was simply Finnish. So it might be as simple as finding a person fluent in Finnish and asking them what the Finnish word would be for those relationships. And in this Internet Age, that should not be an impossible task.

That said, the word "Uncle" is used by some people I know in the more generic sense of "trusted family (or even just family friend) of an older generation". So "Uncle" for you (and maybe "Great Uncle" for your kids) would not be out of line.

[janetmiles.livejournal.com]

He's mishpocheh.

[julesjones]

One of my friends refers to her son's long-term girlfriend as her daughter-out-law.

[gary-jordan.livejournal.com]

Following your link and reading, that's the same as saying (in English), "He's family." I'd have simply said, "Uncle by marriage."

For a more specific term, I'd go with hvideo and find a Finnish speaker and ask. It's probably something like "brorwiffohr."

[gary-jordan.livejournal.com]

"Silspa" (Sister-In-Law'S PA)