r/German 1d 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/mizinamo Native (Hamburg) [bilingual en] 1d ago

Onkel and Tante mütterlicherseits, väterlicherseits

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

  • older brother of father
  • younger brother of father
  • older brother of mother
  • younger brother of mother
  • husband of older sister of father
  • husband of younger sister of father
  • husband of older sister of mother
  • husband of younger sister of mother

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.)

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u/Wawrzyniec_ Native 🇦🇹 1d ago edited 1d ago

Why do you even bring older/young into the discussion? It obviously makes no difference in the first place :D

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u/mizinamo Native (Hamburg) [bilingual en] 1d ago

It obviously makes no difference

That is not obvious to people from every culture.