Sure, I could logically make that connection. But I guess comparing it to something like Nigerian where all friends/family of an equal level are "brother"/"sister" or higher level "aunty"/"uncle", it seems weird to see English flattened so much. The language is specific to level (grand), node depth (x removed) and colinears (brother, sister, cousin, 2nd cousin, etc) that you can accurately describe pretty much any lineage.
When you compare it like that, it gets the author's point across even better to show how the language and culture play into each other. That being that anglophone cultures are very cold/distant to the importance of family on your life, outside of social convention (and how important that structure/convention is); while others (Hawaiian or Nigerian, for instance) treat family as a fluid and inviting unit of kinship.
You see this in the more "warm cultured" English regions (a good chunk of the US, Australia, etc) where it's common to refer to family friends as "aunt"/"uncle", or "cousin"; almost in defiance of the linguistic history.
In other words, I think the topic is fascinating and deserves even more depth compared to how it was broken down there.
> I guess comparing it to something like Nigerian where all friends/family of an equal level are "brother"/"sister" or higher level "aunty"/"uncle", it seems weird to see English flattened so much.
I don’t know what you mean by ‘Nigerian’, but that sounds to me like a Hawaiian kinship system, which is different to the Eskimo kinship system found in English.
> The language is specific to level (grand), node depth (x removed) and colinears (brother, sister, cousin, 2nd cousin, etc) that you can accurately describe pretty much any lineage.
My understanding of the kinship system classifications is that they’re focussed on the most basic terms. You can refer to ‘my mother’s father’s sister’s son’ in pretty much any language, but it’s most interesting to see which terms are considered basic (because that in turn reveals ‘how language and culture play into each other’, as you say).
Interestingly, when we were hosting some Ukrainian refugees recently, "sister" or "brother" could refer to a literal sibling or a cousin. I was unaware of different kinship terminologies until today (thanks again, HN), but that kind of nomenclature is similar to the Hawaiian system.