Increasingly and across the world people have been coming together and forming cross cultural friendships and relationships (including marriage). Understanding different cultures has become a pressing need for those directly involved as well as their friends and family. Take the case of a couple with a child; both parents come from different countries / cultural backgrounds and native languages. How is their child supposed to address family members on each side? Some languages have specific names for different relations, others use more generic names.
Where the union is between a person from the English speaking part of the western world and most Hindi speaking parts of India (in addition to several North Indian communities) – the following list can prove helpful – if the aim is to help the child use appropriate salutations. It is beyond the scope of this blog to delve into why this is important, and the benefits, etc. There is much more to be learned on this topic – and it will be the subject of future blogs. As always – your inputs and comments are very welcome.
I trust this table was of help – let me know if any improvements can be made. Enjoy!
Rai Chowdhary's blog 