A Social Approach to the structure of Tāleshi Kinship Terminology

Kinship terms are the most essential elements of language that have been considered from different viewpoints. In this article, while collecting southern Tālishi kinship terms, they have been divided into fundamental, compound, half-blood, and synthetic. Their structure and their status of being referential or addressive have been examined and through their linguistic structure, their social structure has been discovered. Also, stablity or insecurity of kinship relationship, venerability and worthlessness, pleasantness or unpleasantness of some relatives, sexuality, giving superiority to paternal or maternal kinfolk, the authority structure in family, the effect of extended and nuclear family on kinship terms, lexical variability or lack of terms for some relatives have been studied. It was a descriptive-analytical study, using library and field research. In southern Tālishi of Shaft, the kinship link is extensive and stable. The authority pattern is patriarch and the variability of father's term is high and the residence pattern is patri-local. Gender is prominent and social change led in the disappearance of some kinship terms. In Siyāhmezgi Tālishi, the words of father, mother, sister, wife and husband have devil or undevil versions. Some kinship links have no words and they are just described