IranKin terms vary considerably by language and
local dialect, all within a bilateral structure with
patrilineal emphasis. Terms for the father’s relatives
carry more authority, respect, and distance than for
the mother’s, which more likely carry familiarity.
Women are said to be more attuned to correct
use and subtle meanings of kin terms than are men.
These meanings can be manipulated by the
speaker: endearing maman may change to formal
màdar (mother), conveying insistence or urging
attention. The suffix jàn(life, soul) emphasizes
endearment; the prefix khàn in connection with
“mother’s brother” (dàì), conveys respect. In-
creasing genealogical distance increases formality.
Recently, names started to replace kin terms: adults
use personal names within the speaker’s generation
and for younger relatives, last names for older and
more distant ones, often with polite titles such as
“madam/sir.”
The most versatile kin terms one may extend to
unrelated people to create so-called fictive kinship
are those for members of the nuclear family and for
parents’ siblings. Children may use their parents’
kin terms for a person regardless of their own
actual kinship relationship. Thus, a child may call
any man “mother’s brother” whom the child’s
father calls “mother’s brother,” although the man
actually is a “father’s brother” (amù) to the child.
Older children adopt appropriate kin terms for
their relatives or avoid addressing them directly,
and in reference or when in doubt use a descriptive
term – “mother’s brother’s wife” (zàn-i dàì).
For children, the default term for friendly, unre-
lated females (mother’s friends, for example,) is
“mother’s sister” (khàla), connotating kindness
and generosity: “All khàlas are good except khàla
Bear” says a proverb. It may also cover female care-
takers, nannies, and old female servants. Familiar
but unrelated men such as elder sisters’ husbands
likely are called “father’s brother,” emphasizing
respect over familiarity. Adults often admonish
young children to call other young children “sister”
(khuwàhar) or “brother” (baràdar), encouraging
friendly interaction. Children do not extend terms
for parents.
Spouses may use each other’s kin-terms for in-
laws: a wife may call some of the husband’s rela-
Kinship, Idiomatic
tives, especially close, female ones, by his terms for
them. This practice is less common for husbands
for distant-formal relatives, in rural areas, and in
traditional-formal families. A few people generally
become known as “uncle (amù, dàì)/aunt (≠amma,
khàla) plus personal name” in their kin group, even
neighborhood, regardless of actual kinship. The
spouses of some relatives may be called by the gen-
der-appropriate equivalent of the term used for the
connecting relative: thus the husband of a “father’s
sister” becomes a “father’s brother.” Terms for
mother’s siblings are more readily extended than
those for father’s siblings.
When a man and an unrelated woman must
interact, they may use kin terms as a buffer, to stress
a non-sexual, supportive, or submissive intent. If
they presume age and status equality, they use “sis-
ter” or “brother.” (The old terms dàdà, kàkà, still
used by Luri speakers today, also covered slaves or
servants in the past.) Great age difference requires
the use of “son, daughter” (pisar, dukhtar) and
“mother, father,” even “grandmother” (nànà) or,
rarely, “grandfather” (bàbà). Only the most formal
term for mother and father (pidar, màdar)is ex-
tended; colloquial-intimate forms (such as maman,
“mom,”baba, “dad”) are limited to one’s own par-
ents and, rarely, grandparents. All these terms sug-
gest the religiously lawful (ma™ram) relationships
within the nuclear family.
Two unrelated women may use “sister” or
“mother’s sister” for each other if they are of about
equal age and status; or else father’s sister, often
teknonymously. This is tricky, though, as a woman
may take offense at being reduced to a “mother’s
sister” by a younger or lower-ranking woman,
while one addressed as “father’s sister” may resent
being made older than the speaker is: ≠ammacarries
respect and deference due paternal relatives; khàla
carries familiarity and intimacy, suggesting the
easy-going relationship with mother’s relatives. Kin
terms express status as well as age differences
between speaker and the addressed.
When two unrelated men of about equal age and
status wish to address each other informally – ask-
ing for help, for example – they will probably use
one of several terms for “brother,” in this order of
increasing familiarity: baràdar, dàdash, kàkà(Luri
alsogyegu). Unequal age and status require terms
that cross a generation (“my father/my son”).