As complicated as it is to spend time with your family, you may wish your language used a simpler terminology. Imagine a language where there is no word for “mother.” Instead, you have “woman-parent.” No brothers or sisters, just “man-sibling” and “woman-sibling.” Wouldn’t that be nice and simple? Well, as that language is to English, English is to Bulgarian.
Sorry, bit of a bait-and-switch there.
Where English uses formulas to generate new titles for family member (brother-in-law, great-aunt, aunt-on-my-mother’s-side), Bulgarian has completely independent words for each of these people, or else has no way to refer to them at all (aside from clunky English-isms like pra-lelya). This makes for a warm homey feeling , but it a…more extensive vocabulary list.
Brat=brother in the abstract sense
Bratche=younger brother
Batko=older brother (or any older boy)
Sestra=sister in the abstract sense
Sestrichka=younger sister
Kaka=older sister (or any older girl)
Bratovchet=male cousin
Bratovchetka=female cousin
Clearly, a lot of the words on this list evolved from feminine and diminutive suffixes like –ka and -che and the old genitive declension-ending -ov. So “female cousin” breaks down into “brother-‘s-small-female.” Some of these words can be suffixed themselves, like kakichka, a small big sister.
Good so far? Okay, on to your parents’ generation.
Bashta=Father
Maika=Mother
Just like in English! However…
Chicho=father’s brother (or any adult man)
Lelya=father’s sister (or any adult woman)
Vuicho=mother’s brother
Tetka=mother’s sister
When those people get married, they take masculine or feminine version of the person they married in order to enter your family.
Lelincho=Lelya‘s husband (i.e. your paternal uncle-by-marriage)
Tetincho=Tetka‘s husband (maternal uncle-by-marriage)
Strina=Chicho‘s wife (paternal aunt-by-marriage)(just to keep you on your toes)
Vuina=Vuicho‘s wife (maternal aunt-by-marriage)
And finally at the top of the family (literally in our case—they live in the apartment upstairs)…
Dyado=Grandpa (or any great-uncle or any old man)
Baba=Grandma (or any great-aunt or any old woman)
