About Chachoos and Phoopis

Last weekend or so, I decided to come up with names for my baby to address my family members.

In Malay, aunty is makcik and uncle is pakcik...
But eldest uncle is pak long (long= short for sulong which means oldest), middle uncle is pak ngah (ngah is short for tengah which means middle) and youngest uncle is pak busu (busu is short for bongsu which means youngest) ...
For aunties in the same order, just replace "pak" with "mak".

Confusion comes about when there are more than 3 siblings (so there are many "Ngahs" (middle). For example, Iryan is the 3rd of 4 siblings. His nieces call his sister mak ngah cos she is sibling no 2, and Iryan, pak ngah (sibling no. 3) and his younger brother is pak busu. Then Iryan married me. By right, I should be mak ngah to them as well.. but then they got confused cos there are now 2 mak ngahs... so i just ask them to call me aunty min...

Anyway, since there is already an established pak long/mak ngah and pak busu on Iryan's side of the family, we decided to come up with different names for my sis and brothers.

My siblings wanted to be known as "Aunty Su" and "Uncle Zahid" and "Uncle Fadil" initially.. but we scrapped that... Somehow it lacks "manja"-ness... And since we are technically Pakistanis by race (diluted by blood and culture over the generations).. we decided to do some research on what aunties and uncles and grandma and grandpa should be called in urdu (grandpa and grandma is simply datuk and nenek in malay, and i don't want my baby to call iryan's parents "datuk and nenek yishun" (cos they stay in yishun) and my parents "datuk and nenek tampines"...)

My research on the net threw up a wonderful glossary of terms for aunt and uncle. Then I consulted Z's friend Yusuf, a Pakistani American who actually speaks Urdu (shame on me!) The technically correct term for auntie (mother's sister) is khala. That for uncle (mother's brother) is mamoo.

Now I have 2 brothers. So its either mamoo Fadil and mamoo Zahid or big mamoo and small mamoo (I am so ashamed to admit that I have forgotten the terms for big and small in Urdu, although Z had to call Yusuf to obtain the correct pronounciation for them. What has happened to my affinity to pick up languages??? oh no.. )

But Su did her own research too. She was not in favour of Khala (not cute enough). She wanted to be known as Phoopi or Chachi. But err... the Urdu expert says Phoopi is father's sister. And Chachi is father's brother's wife... (Chacha's wife)

And 2 mamoos are pretty confusing. So I thought what the heck. I told Su, call yourself Phoopi if you like. Fadil can be Mamoo and Zahid can be Chachoo (actually its "Chacha" but "Chachoo" is more manja.. he he he) Hardly anybody in Singapore speaks urdu anyway. Who is going to know that we are not using the technically correct terms??

And grandma and grandpa? That's Nani and Nana (mother's side). Good enough.

Of course, you know what they say about the best laid plans... Somehow I have a feeling my baby will revert to datuk and nenek tampines...