Spanish, full of curiosities and linguistic inheritances, also keeps secrets in words we use daily. Today, we focus on the peculiar case of yerno and nuera, the terms we use to refer to the husband or wife of our children. But why don’t we say nuero and yerna?
The etymological origin of yerno and nuera
The word yerno comes from the Latin gener, which is related to concepts of genealogy and lineage. In classical Latin, gener specifically designated the daughter’s husband, reflecting the importance of family roles in Roman society. The term evolved phonetically to gignere in Vulgar Latin and yerno in Spanish.
On the other hand, nuera comes from the Latin nurus, which means “son’s wife.” This word shared a root with terms related to care or upbringing, echoing the traditional roles assigned to women in ancient families. Thus, both words have Latin roots and well-defined roles from ancient times.
Why is there no such thing as yerna or nuero? The absence of terms like yerna and nuero can largely be explained by how languages reflect historical social structures. Languages often encode the roles with the most remarkable cultural relevance in their words. In ancient patriarchal societies, kinship relationships with the daughter’s husband (yerno, son-in-law) and the son’s wife (nuera, daughter-in-law) were the most important for maintaining lineage and family alliances.
In contrast, there was not as much need to define “mirror” categories like yerna or nuero because these relationships did not carry the same cultural or symbolic weight in those contexts. Language did not develop words that were not necessary for their social function.
In contrast, father-in-law and mother-in-law exist because both relationships – with the couple’s father and mother – were relevant in family structures. These words also come from Latin: socrus (suegra, mother-in-law) and socrer ( suegro, father-in-law), and they reinforce symmetry in ascending kinship relationships.
Language, like culture, adapts to what society needs to name. So, while we continue to use yerno and nuera, we remember that our words are a living testimony to the traditions and structures of our ancestors.
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