One’s brother-in-law… not!

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One’s brother-in-law… not!

Postby Psi-Lord » 2009-03-11, 21:07

Is there a particular term for the husband of one’s wife’s older sister? Or would that be just something along the lines of ‘처형의 남편’ or ‘아내의 자형’?

Incidentally noticing that, according to some sources I checked, even in English not all native speakers would accept such a relationship as that of one’s true brother-in-law. In Portuguese, the word would be concunhado, and in Spanish concuñado.
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Karavinka

Re: One’s brother-in-law… not!

Postby Karavinka » 2009-03-12, 13:54

Psi-Lord wrote:Is there a particular term for the husband of one’s wife’s older sister? Or would that be just something along the lines of ‘처형의 남편’ or ‘아내의 자형’?

Incidentally noticing that, according to some sources I checked, even in English not all native speakers would accept such a relationship as that of one’s true brother-in-law. In Portuguese, the word would be concunhado, and in Spanish concuñado.


Elder-sister's-husband is 매형, and the younger-sister's-husband is 매제.
Elder-sister's-husband-in-law is 시매형, and the younger-sister's-husband-in-law is 시매제.

Well I don't really know the kinship terms very well myself, other than common ones or the ones that I have equivalents in my extended family ;) I had to ask someone about this myself... I knew 매형/매제 but heard 시매형/시매제 for the first time

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Re: One’s brother-in-law… not!

Postby Psi-Lord » 2009-03-12, 19:07

noir wrote:Elder-sister's-husband is 매형, and the younger-sister's-husband is 매제.
Elder-sister's-husband-in-law is 시매형, and the younger-sister's-husband-in-law is 시매제.

Is there a chance that this can be more complicated than that, noir? I mean, I’m assuming that this 시- is the same one that appears in e.g. 시아버지, 시어버니 etc. When I looked these up, I had the impression such 시-prefixed words were related to the husband’s family in relation to the wife; in Chinese, the hanzi 媤 (from which this 시 comes from) doesn’t seem to be used any more, but apparently meant one’s husband’s family. So would it make sense to assume that a 매형 should specifically be one’s husband’s elder sister’s husband?

I played with the Naver dictionary this afternoon, just checking things, guessing things and reading random entries, and ended up finding the following word:

Naver wrote: 동서(同壻) 【남자】the husband of one´s wife´s sister;a brother-in-law;【여자】the wife of one´s husband´s brother;a sister-in-law

The Korean entry reads:

Naver wrote:동서 同壻
[명사]
1 시아주버니나 시동생의 아내.
- 그녀는 남편으로부터 시어머니와 동서가 내일 상경할 것이라는 소식을 들었다.
2 처형이나 처제의 남편.
* [속담] 동서 시집살이는 오뉴월에도 서릿발 친다
여자가 시집살이하는 것은 어려운 일인데 그중에서도 동서 밑에서 지내는 시집살이가 가장 어렵다는 말.
* [속담] 동서 춤추게
제가 춤을 추고 싶다는 말은 못하고 그 동서에게 권한다는 뜻으로, 무슨 일을 자기가 하고 싶어서 남에게 권함을 비유적으로 이르는 말. ≒춤추고 싶은 둘째 동서 맏동서보고 춤추라 한다.

Needless to say, though, that I can’t really translate all the text on my own. The bits I could (the very definition lines 1 and 2), however, seem to agree with the English defition, so could this word be a possibility?
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Karavinka

Re: One’s brother-in-law… not!

Postby Karavinka » 2009-03-13, 0:58

Yes, the prefix 媤 is often used for the husband's family from the wife's perspective. As I mentioned in the previous response, I had to ask someone else and I never heard the two words 시매형/시매제 before and I wasn't able to find it in a dictionary. I gave it as an answer as the compound made enough sense to me. In fact, my father has such a relation (my aunt's husband) and I never heard him using the word either. The aunt (elder than my mother) is 처형, but her husband is... well, simply 형님. My mother uses the same word 형님 to call the wife of my uncle (elder than my father).

As for the word 동서, I never knew the second definition. I think while it does make sense, the word appears to be in use mostly in the first definition, from a woman's point of view in referring to the wives of her husband's brothers.

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Re: One’s brother-in-law… not!

Postby Psi-Lord » 2009-03-13, 2:26

고마워요. :)
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