I have always felt that the title of relatives in Hakka is particularly interesting, so I want to share it with you~
P.S. First of all, this is only the name used in some Hakka areas, and not all Hakka areas follow this name~
P.P.S. may also be used in non-Hakka areas~
My dad called my grandparents "Uncle" and "Auntie", and when I first noticed it, I thought that my dad was not biological, and children didn't dare to ask...... Later, I found out that my grandparents' children were all called like this.
The words uncle and aunt do not mean parents, which means that the origin of this title cannot be explained from the meaning of the word. And I searched for information and found that Xiang Huaqiang also called his father "uncle".
Xiang Huaqiang's ancestral home is Lufeng, Shanwei, Guangdong, where the dialect composition is Lufeng dialect + Hakka dialect + Chaoshan dialect + military dialect (I don't know what military dialect is, Baidu's). After searching for information, there is no way to confirm whether Xiang Huaqiang is also a Hakka, so I am not sure whether this name is unique to the Hakka region or regional.
There are two theories about the origin of this name: one is to call it sparse in the title, which can reduce or avoid the fate conflict between parents and children;
The second is that after the child is born, he has signed Guanyin (worshiping Guanyin as his godmother), and in order to avoid suspicion, he can only call his biological parents "uncle" and "aunt".
Both of these terms have the tinge of traditional superstition, but few people call them that way these days.
There are other titles of relatives in Hakka, and the ancient Chinese vocabulary is still used today~
The transliteration of the word "grandma" in my hometown is "sister-in-law" in Mandarin, which sounds very strange, right, so that when I was in school in another place, I was mercilessly ridiculed.
Later, I learned to search, and I learned that "sister" was [another name for mother] in the ancient Shu dialect, that is to say, the ancients called their mother "sister" (I wonder if there is still such a name over there).
When P.S. searched for information, he found that Hui Rou also called her mother "sister" in "Qing Pingle"~
The word "mother-in-law" has the meaning of "relatives and women who are two generations older", so the combination of "sister and mother-in-law" has the meaning of "grandmother". Similarly, [grandfather] is called "sister" in Hakka.
And [grandma] has become "娭 (āi) sister" in the Hakka title. This title should be cognate with the Hunan dialect [娭 (āi) 毑 (jiě)], "娭" means grandmother, and "毑" is the same as "sister". [Grandpa] is called "娭公" in Hakka.