Kyoudai

There are various words in Japanese for brothers and sisters. Starting with eldest brother and eldest sister here are a few:

1.	長男 ちょうなん	長女 ちょうじょ
2.	二男、次男 じなん	二女、次女 じじょ
3.	三男 さんなん	三女 さんじょ

The tricky reading, for me at least, is　二男（じなん）. Is it coincidence that both 次 (next) and 二 both have 「じ」readings? It seems a very convenient that either kanji can be used.

Comments

[投稿： Nathan]

Interesting stuff!

I was curious, so I've been checking various entries in the Yahoo dictionary (大辞泉). Most likely you already know all of this, but just a few things I thought were interesting:

① 総領 - the eldest child, regardless of gender.
② 一男 - listed as either one boy, or first son.
③ 二男, 次男 - listed as only the second son.
④ 三男 - listed as three sons, as well as third son.
⑤ 一女 - listed as one daughter and first daughter.
⑥ 長女 - listed only as low-rank court lady in Heian period.
⑦ 次女, 二女 - both listed only as second daughter.
⑧ 三女 - listed as three daughters, three women, and third daughter.

I wonder why there is so much inconsistency? I should mention, even though ⑥ did not reference the eldest daughter, the ⑤ entry did reference ⑥. Do you think that it might be safe to assume that these can be treated like counters, and thus all (prefixed by numbers) could describe daughters/sons, women/men, as well as the ordinal daughter/son? Or is there really a reason for the inconsistencies?

[投稿： Darren]

I didn't know the word 総領（そうりょう）. Thanks for the additional input Nathan.

I would have to assume that 長女 does mean eldest daughter as my Japanese friend and my electronic dictionary both agree.

Actually, I wasn't aware of the alternative meanings: multiple daughters/women. Thanks for pointing that out.

[投稿： Nathan]

Hi Darren,

I'm not 100% sure on the multiple persons meaning, since the dictionary was so inconsistent. I've checked in a counters dictionary site I have, and it gives this:

http://www.fct.co.jp/fct/kazu_database.cgi?key=%92j&submit=%92T%82%B7&print=50

So, according to this, 男／女 are indeed counters, but for children alone. Once again, though, accuracy of any website is never unquestionable.