Kinship Term patterns in Iranian Languages

Kinship terms are the expressions used to address and refer to family members and relatives. In addition to sociologist, linguists are interested in studying words and expression structures as well as defining patterns and systems , in this conection, are used in languages. The study has investigated kinship terms in more than fifty Iranian languages and dialects in all over the country. The study indicates that Iranian languages almost follow a similar pattern, mean while there are differences in words and expressions structures. The study shows that words are used to refer to sister, brother and parents as well as brother and sister's parents are simple while for some other relatives are compounds. In some dialects for some relatives like grand father and grand mother simple words are used. In the investigated dialects simple or compound words are used to refer relatives based on their role in family system.