Like Noraya I found this article particularly interesting, especially once it started discussing how different languages "parcel out the world in different ways," and particularly referenced familial assignments. As in the examples of Pitjanjatjara and Swedish, Persian also has specific names for family members contingent upon the side of the family and relation within that side, like father's brother's daughter is closest to the english concept of cousin or sister's child isn't just niece or nephew depending on gender. I think this ties into how Persian is not a gendered language, something that is an interesting concept for me.
Even though in depth specific terms are not used for relatives, I find that within my family, we differentiate especially between cousins by means of referencing the generational connection. I guess this corresponds to the antecedents like, grand-, great-, or great-great for parent's parent, grandparent's parent, and great-grandparent's parent. Given the size and varying age groups of my extended family, I grew up knowing the generational connections between myself and other relatives. I know my aunts and uncles children are my first cousins, and we're more or less within the same generation. However, I also have cousins that are my age that are children of cousins; I know that they are my second cousins, and their parents are my first cousins. This was definitely a learning curve when I realized that many of my friend's did not conceptualize their ties to their cousin's in the same manner. This touches on the notion that the article opened with: that we think that our language is the only way that the world is conceptualized. I think that it may even go a step further into how one's community uses a groups collected language and the differences within and between communities. This makes me think of how important it is to travel and meet new people and experience different cultures in order to introduced to the cast complexities of the world and universe via language.
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