Sesotho kinship

Sesotho – the language of the Basotho ethnic group of South Africa and Lesotho – has a complex system of kinship terms which may be classified to fall under the Iroquois kinship pattern. The complex terminology rules are necessitated in part by the traditional promotion of certain forms of cousin marriage among the Bantu peoples of sub-Saharan Africa. Most of the terms used have common reconstructed Proto-Bantu roots.

Due to the importance of family, the terms are limited to relatives through birth (consanguinity) and marriage (affinity). Adoption – the modern legal variety or the older common-law/traditional variety – is no different from birth. Marriage is not distinguished from birth, except for the names of sons- and daughters-in-law, and the terminology treats relatives through marriage to be no different from relatives through birth.

The adoption of an Iroquois kinship system is necessitate by the fact that traditionally large families lived together in compounds, and married children rarely lived far from their parents. Thus, the nuclear family is far larger and comprises far more categories than the father-mother-children pattern which is common in modern European culture.

Generations

Iroquois systems make the most terminology distinctions in the generation of the "ego" (oneself) – one's siblings and cousins – and this generation's parents (mother/father and aunts/uncles) and immediate offspring (children and nephews/nieces). These are the generations directly involved in cousin marriage, and the seemingly complicated terminology shows a certain symmetry when one considers the difference between cross-cousins and parallel cousins.

Above these three strata, all relatives are grandparents, and below all strata are grandchildren – even in the face of a lack of direct ancestry or descent.

Ego's parents generation

In Iroquois kinship systems, the complexity stems from promotion and/or prohibition of certain forms of cousin marriage, resulting in a form of symmetry called bifurcate merging where the parents of one's cross-cousins have a set of names different from the parents of one's parallel cousins.

Ones mother's female relatives of the same generation are considered one's mothers, and one's father's male relatives of the same generation are considered one's fathers. Moreover, one cannot marry their fathers' or mothers' children (siblings and parallel cousins), but is allowed/encouraged to marry every other relative of the same generation (cross-cousins). Additionally, the names of these relatives' spouses are dependent upon the names of the relatives, resulting in the seemingly nonsensical (to speakers of other Bantu languages) situation where the inherently gender-dependent terms [ʀɑxɑdɪ] and [mɑlʊmɛ] are unisex when used for one's relatives' spouses.

The Sesotho system displays a slight bit more complexity than the standard Iroquois systems in that, when it comes to one's mothers and fathers, the terminology further classes them based on relative age to one's biological parents.

In the chart below, vertical placement signifies relative age, with relatives above one's biological parents being older than one's parents, and vice versa.

Kinship chart
Rakgadi♂ Rakgadi♀ Nkgono♀ Ntatemoholo♂ Nkgono♀ Ntatemoholo♂ Malome♂ Malome♀ Ntate♂ Mme♂ Nna Rakgadi♂ Rakgadi♀ Mmangwane♀ Rangwane♂ Mmangwane♀ Rangwane♂ Malome♂ Malome♀
Relationship Name Explanation Ego [n̩nɑ] Mother [m̩mɛ] Father [n̩tʼɑtʼe] Mother's brother [mɑlʊmɛ] Ma- prefix ("mother") plus Proto-Bantu suffix *-dúme indicating masculinity; literally "male mother" Mother's older sister [ŋ̩xʊnʊ] The same word as "grandmother", signifying "old mother" Mother's younger sister [m̩mɑɲʷɑnɪ] Mma ("mother") plus diminutive suffix; literally "small mother" Father's sister [ʀɑxɑdɪ] Ra- prefix ("father") plus Proto-Bantu suffix *-kádî́ indicating femininity; literally "female father" Father's older brother [n̩tʼɑtʼemʊɦʊlʊ] The same word as "grandfather", signifying "old father" Father's younger brother [ʀɑɲʷɑnɪ] Ra- ("father") plus diminutive suffix; literally "small father"
Notes:

Ego's generation

The most complexity is displayed in the terms used by one to refer to male and female relatives in one's own generation. Immediate siblings and parallel cousins have similar terms, while cross-cousins all have a single name [mʊt͡sʼʷɑlɑ] derived from the verb -[t͡sʼʷɑlɑ] ("give birth"), denoting the fact that cross-cousin marriage is encouraged.

Ego's generation
Rangwane/ Ntatemoholo♂ Rakgadi♀ Ntate Mme Malome♂ Mmangwane/ Nkgono♀ (sibling) Motswala (sibling) Nna Motswala (sibling)
Notes:

The words used by ego when referring to his/her siblings depend on ego's gender, the relative age of ego's sibling, and whether ego is talking about their sibling (nominative) or to their sibling (vocative).

Nominative names

		Sibling's gender
		Female	Male
Sibling's relative age	Older	[ɑ'usi]	[ɑbutʼi]/[mʊɦʊlʷɑnɪ]
	Younger	[n̩nɑkʼe]	[mʊ'ɪnɑ]

When speaking to the sibling directly, the names in the table above are used, but when directly speaking to a sibling younger than oneself it is more usual to use their name directly without a title prefix.
Additionally, the name [xɑ'it͡sʼedi] may used when speaking about/to a younger sibling of the opposite gender.

Ego's children's generation

For the generation directly below that of the ego, the names one uses for the children of one's siblings, cross-cousins, and parallel cousins are simply determined by whether or not one has the same gender as the relative on the same generation, who is the child's parent. In particular, all children who are related to the ego by a parent of the same gender as the ego are referred to as one's children, whereas everyone else from this generation is referred to by the generic term [mʊt͡ʃʰɑnɑ]. Equivalently, if a child refers to ego as [ʀɑxɑdɪ] or [mɑlʊmɛ], then ego refers to the child as [mʊt͡ʃʰɑnɑ].

If ego has married their motswala or even "sibling", then that relation's children – who are also ego's biological children – will simply be given the same name as ego's children without further complication.

Ego's children's generation
Nna (same gender relative) (opposite gender relative) Moradi♀ Mora♂ Moradi♀ Mora♂ Motjhana
Notes:

The names used for ego's children are [mʊʀɑ] and [mʊʀɑdi], depending on the child's gender.

In summary, ego can marry a relative only if ego's parents call that relative [mʊt͡ʃʰɑnɑ]. This bars marriage to parallel cousins as well as relatives in generations above and below oneself.

Remaining generations

Regardless of direct descent or ancestry, all relatives in generations above ego's parents are called [ŋ̩xʊnʊ] and [n̩tʼɑtʼemʊɦʊlʊ] for females and males respectively, and all relatives below ego's children are called [sɪt͡ɬʼʊɦʊlʊ]. If the specific generation of one's grandchildren is important, then it can be marked by successively applying diminutive suffixes to the word [sɪt͡ɬʼʊɦʊlʊ], giving

• [sɪt͡ɬʼʊɦʊlʊ] – grandchild
• [sɪt͡ɬʼʊɦʊlʷɑnɑ] – great-grandchild
• [sɪt͡ɬʼʊɦʊlʷɑɲɑnɑ] – great-great-grandchild
• [sɪt͡ɬʼʊɦʊlʷɑɲɑɲɑnɑ] – great-great-grandchild
• etc.

Ego's spouse and in-laws

In the vocative, relations through marriage are not distinguished from relations through birth/adoption. However, to avoid ambiguity, in the nominative there exist special terms for parents-in-law and children-in-law. It is worth noting that the terms for a female ego's parents-in-law literally mean "my (parallel) cousin's mother" and "my (parallel) cousin's father", even if one did not marry their cousin; this a relic of the traditional encouragement of parallel cousin marriage.

Family of Sesotho kinship
(mother-in-law)♀ (father-in-law)♂ Nna (spouse) Mokgwenyana♂ Moradi♀ Mora♂ Ngwetsi♀
Notes:

A male calls simply calls his parents-in-law "mother " and "father", but in the nominative a woman may call her in-laws by the gender-neutral term [mɑt͡sʼɑlɛ].

The generic term for a spouse is [mʊɦɑt͡sʼɑ]. More specifically, in the nominative a husband is [mʊn̩nɑ] and wife is [mʊsɑdi] (generic terms for "man" and "woman", respectively). In the vocative, [n̩tʼɑtʼe] and [m̩mɛ] are used or – less formerly – the generic [mʊɦɑt͡sʼɑkʼɑ] ("my spouse") is used.

[mʊxʷeɲɑnɑ] and [ŋʷet͡sʼi] are used to refer to the son- and daughter-in-law respectively, when the more generic terms [mʊʀɑdi] and [mʊʀɑ] are not being used.

References

• Hammond-Tooke, W. D., 2004. Southern Bantu origins: light from kinship terminology. Southern African Humanities Vol. 16 Pages 71–78 Pietermaritzburg December 2004
• Molalapata, B. T., 2004. The treatment of kinship: Terminology in Sotho dictionaries, with special reference to Setswana. M.A. Lexicography thesis. Pretoria: Univ. of Pretoria.