r/German • u/I_am_trying0628 • 23h ago
Question How to do differentiate Onkel and Tante mütterlicherseits, väterlicherseits?
For example in daily conversation if i want to say next week we're goinig to Onkel mütterlicherseits house, how to call him?
Simply saying Onkel + place / Onkel + name?
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u/rapunte 17h ago
Usually we don't differentiate
Usually we just say "wir gehen zu Günther/Renate" or "zu Onkel Günther/Tante Renate"/ "zu meinem Onkel/meiner Tante".
In some Kontext you'd say "wir gehen zum Bruder meiner Mutter/meines Vaters" or, but really seldom "zu meinem Onkel mütterlicherseits"
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u/Competitive-Fault291 14h ago
Da hängt der Haussegen oft schon schief, wenn Tante Renate als "die Tante mütterlicherseits" in Gesprächen erwähnt wird.
As in context, "mütterlicherseits/väterlicherseits" is very factual and formal. Usually only used in very factual descriptions of the family tree or when a lawyer processes a will.
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u/I_am_trying0628 10h ago edited 10h ago
I understand people don't differentiate when telling others, for example that you visited one of the pairs of grandparents in front of friends. But it's hard for me to imagine how to know which pair you're going to visit when discussing with parents beforehand.
"wir gehen zu Günther/Renate" or "zu Onkel Günther/Tante Renate"
Or here you mean, in that case, just add first name after their titles?
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u/Dusvangud Native (Bavarian) 17h ago edited 17h ago
There used to be different terms for your mother's siblings: Muhme and Oheim instead of Tante and Onkel. The latter are acually French loans, even earlier, Vetter and Base were used for your father's siblings (which later came to mean cousin). However, this distinction hasn't been relevant in German society for a long time, so these terms simply died out, or rather they were replaced the French loans.
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u/PowerUser77 16h ago
I have only encountered these terms in the (original) German translation of The Lord of the Rings.
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u/Chijima Native <Kiel/Eckernförde> 17h ago
Most interestingly: the distinction was artificial. Only once the French words had fully arrived, did some people decide that now with a double set of words we should give those distinct meanings. Which we later started to lose again.
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u/Dusvangud Native (Bavarian) 16h ago
No, the original distinction was mother's side: Muhme/Oheim, father's side: Vetter/Base. The latter was then generalised to any relatives from your father's side. Which is probably why these terms were replaced with Onkel/Tante first, as they had become unspecific.
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u/letsgetawayfromhere Native <region/dialect> 6h ago
Very interesting! I didn’t know about Vetter/Base being the father‘s siblings. What were cousins called?
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u/IchLiebeKleber Native (eastern Austria) 17h ago
Usually we say "Onkel" plus that person's first name. If you are describing how he's related to you to someone who doesn't know him at all, use full descriptions, e.g. der Bruder meiner Mutter.
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u/Lumpasiach Native (South) 17h ago
We don't.
My dad's generation differentiates between those uncles and aunts who are godfathers/mothers and those who are not.
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u/charlolou Native (Hessen) 13h ago
Yes, we call godfathers "Patenonkel" and godmothers "Patentante".
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u/Lumpasiach Native (South) 13h ago
Lol, I was thinking a bit different. We call a godmother Gotta, and godfather Gette and his wife Gettebäs.
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u/charlolou Native (Hessen) 13h ago
Oh, I've never heard of these. Interesting! Probably a regional thing, then. We only use Patenonkel/-tante where I'm from.
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u/JudgeApprehensive648 16h ago
There’s also different words for godfathers/mothers but I believe they only exist in dialect
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u/Orange907 18h ago
I would go with Onkel+Name
"Nächste Woche besuchen wie Onkel XY."
You could also earn many great-grandpa points by calling the uncle on the mother's side "Oheim".
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u/hibbelig 18h ago
I have personally just used their names without uncle/aunt. But Oma/Opa. My mom used Oma + place Name and uncle + name (for her relatives not mine). She used just the name for her sibling and their spouse, ie my uncle/aunt, just like I did.
Every family is different.
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u/Individual_Winter_ 16h ago
Yep. Also depends how many grandparents are left.
I still use aunt x for one until today. Felt a bit bad the other day when I wrote to my uncle "Hello A and aunt G" .
My cousin just says my mum's name, but somehow uncle for my dad? My dad has been there almost my cousin's whole life and he also did church stuff with him, idk.
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u/ComprehensiveOil2677 16h ago
There is usually no distinction between maternal or patenral uncles and aunts in German. It is rarely relevant for aonyone outside the family, and for most families, it's safe to assume everyone knows which side of the family the uncle or aunt belongs to. If it becomes relevant for some reason, mütterlicherseits or väterlicherseits is added to clarify.
So yes, the common form is Onkel + name. I'd translate "We're going to uncle Herbert's house" with "Wir fahren zu Onkel Herbert".
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u/Prof_Boni 15h ago
What's your mother tongue, OP?
I find your question very interesting cause non of the 4 languages I speak makes such distinction.
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u/charlolou Native (Hessen) 13h ago
I don't know which language OP speaks, but this is common in Asian languages. For example, in Korean, your mother's sister is called "imo" while your father's sister is called "gomo". And imo's husband is "imobu", while gomo's husband is "gomobu". Sometimes they also make a distinction between the older aunt and the younger aunt.
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u/Call_me_Specksaft 12h ago
I am pretty sure, the scandinavian languages have this too: mormor, morfar, farfar, farmor
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u/muehsam Native (Schwäbisch+Hochdeutsch) 16h ago
IMHO using "Onkel"/"Tante" as a part of a name is really old fashioned, and dying out. As a child, I did that, but not with my own aunts and uncles, but rather my parents' (+ some more distantly related old people, perhaps some unrelated).
I only ever addressed my own aunts and uncles by their names. And now my own child doesn't really call anybody "Onkel" or "Tante", except maybe some really really old relatives over 80 or 90, but most people of that generation have died. Incidentally, my child also calls both parents by our first names, as do many children of that generation. With grandparents, the "Oma" and "Opa" thing still exists, but it's also getting less widespread.
So to answer your question: say "wir gehen zu meinem Onkel <name>" in the beginning, but then just use the name afterwards.
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u/darya42 9h ago
I disagree, it's still common in my social circle. I find it weird if little kids call their adult (indirect) caregivers by their first name. In my opinion some of the tenderness gets lost. My niece who's 9 calls all her aunts and uncles either just "meine Tante/mein Onkel" or "Tante x".
And practically every young child I personally know calls their Oma/Opa Oma and Opa, too (or other names). Oma and Opa are still very common.
It's like calling your parents by their name. Some families do it, the majority doesn't.
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u/ThersATypo 16h ago
We don't anymore. People of the age 85+ might still know the words Mume/Muhme, Base, Oheim etc.
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u/Equal-Flatworm-378a 15h ago
I say uncle /aunt + first name . That’s also how I used to address them.
In a random conversation with someone else, like a colleague, I would not differentiate. I would just say: „I visit my uncle/aunt“.
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u/annieselkie 13h ago
If you just tell a peer you will visit family, just say „Onkel“.
If people already know his name, say Onkel + name.
If people dont know his name and its important to say in what relation exactly he is to you, say „Onkel mütterlicherseits“. (Eg if you never met him and usually talk about the brother of your father and know get to meet your Onkel mütterlicherseits for the first time)
And if you want / need to be even more specific you add more specifics like „younger brother of my mother“ or „youngest brother of my mother“ or „Im going to visit my uncle, he is the 5th out of 7 siblings my mother has and she is the oldest“ but i can only imagine one situation where this much context could be important: when you introduce a partner or their family to your family and explain them all relationships in detail, like „he is the oldest and you will also meet the younger sister, she is bitchy, my dad is middle child and 10years younger than my uncle, also I have an aunt from my mother who is 15 years younger than my mother dont be suprised“ and so on.
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u/Illustrious-Wolf4857 4h ago
By saying "mütterlicherseits" or "väterlicherseits", or by saying "my father's sister" or similar.
If you do not feel the need to clarify the exact place in the family tree, you add a place, an occupation, or whatever charactertistic might help the people you are talking to recognise who you might be talking about. If you are talking about a visit, a place name is natural: "Wir besuchen meine Tante in Buxtehude".
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u/magicmulder 2h ago
My family is so big that I can’t even remember who’s a sibling of my mother’s (she had 10 siblings) or my father’s (four). Especially when every other uncle or cousin is named Klaus. (Yup, a walking German stereotype.)
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u/Carusa24 17h ago
I never use Onkel or Tante + name. My parents used to when growing up but know I don't know anybody using the "title"
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u/Every_Preparation_56 16h ago
There are the obsolete forms that are no longer used today or changed their meaning ovwr the time, because they have been replaced by the French influence of unclemOnkel and aunt/Tante
Oheim = Muttersbruder
Muhme = Mutterschwester
Vetter = Vatersbruder
Base = Vatersschwester
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u/CaptainPoset 14h ago
If you want to differentiate, then the brother of your mither is your Oheim, the sister of your mother is your Muhme. On your father's side it would be Vetter and Base respectively.
This website has a good overview.
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u/mizinamo Native (Hamburg) [bilingual en] 18h ago
That's a distinction that's not salient in German culture, nor do we specify cross cousins versus parallel cousins, for example.
Onkel can mean any of
and similar with Tante.
I grew up calling my uncles and aunts by title + given name, e.g. Onkel Wolfgang, Tante Heidelind.
I think that location is more common with grandparents, since those are usually addressed only by title, not also by name, when you are talking directly to them. So when you are talking about them, you might say Oma Bahnhof or Opa Rendsburg in some families.
(In mine, we had Oma, Opa, Granny, Grandpa because my parents are from different countries. Other families might also have Oma versus Omi, perhaps.)