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Wuxia Terms of Address, or What Do You Call Your Master's Sect-Sibling's Husband
We all know master = shifu (师父). We also know that it's gender-neutral despite having the character for 'father' (父) very prominently in it.
What you call your master's sect-siblings is also simple enough. If senior to your shifu, they're your shibo (师伯), teacher-uncle, or to be more precise, teacher-father's-elder-brother. If junior to your shifu, they're your shishu (师叔), teacher-father's-younger-brother. Again, these terms, despite appearing strongly gendered, are gender-neutral, and apply equally to your master's male and female (and, indeed, non-binary/genderfluid) sect-siblings. In Return of the Condor Heroes, for instance, sect-sisters Li Mochou and Xialongnu's disciples refer to them respectively as 'shibo' and 'shishu', and the same is true of the disciples of Hengshan sect-sisters Dingxian, Dingjing and Dingyi in The Smiling Proud Wanderer. There are occasional heretical suggestions that one's master's sect-sisters should be addressed as shigu (师姑), teacher-aunt or literally teacher-father's-sister, but these can be safely ignored.
One's master's wife is one's shimu (师母) or shiniang (师娘), teacher-mother. Again, this is clear, and I see no reason why it shouldn't apply regardless of one's master's own gender. If one's master happens to be a woman, she's still one's shifu, and if she happens to be married to another woman, that's one's shimu or shiniang.
Where it starts to get tricky is how one addresses one's shifu's husband. Annoyingly, Jin Yong provides zero guidance on that score (at least, to my fallible memory), because his sufficiently senior women tend to either (1) be nuns (2) not take disciples, in part because they're busy looking after their children or their husbands' disciples or (3) in one notable and highly scandalous instance, marry their own disciple. I have occasionally seen shigong (师公) suggested, but am unsure of its canonical value. A very quick search suggests that it may be used for master's master as well (and wouldn't that confusion be delightful), and also frankly it just sounds a bit rude. Probably the most acceptable suggestion I've seen so far is 师丈, but interestingly that's teacher-husband not teacher-(kinship term).
Even tricker? What does one call one's master's sect-sibling's husband? If we're talking wives, shibomu (师伯母) and shishen (师婶), respectively teacher-father's-elder-brother's-wife and teacher-father's-younger-brother's-wife makes about as much sense as anything else. But the traditional terms are less intuitive where husbands are concerned. Rifling through the 'kinship terms for same-sex couples' chart I saw a while back, it looks as though the best options are shibozhang (师伯丈) and shishuzhang (师叔丈) — again, teacher-elder/younger-brother's husband rather than teacher-(kinship term).
(Note: I tried to make this accurate, and I think there are no horrible errors, but I am extremely bad with paternal kinship terms in Mandarin because our family uses Hokkien/Southern Min terms for that side of the family)
ETA: Posting the 'kinship terms for same-sex couples' chart below as![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kolleh requested it.
What you call your master's sect-siblings is also simple enough. If senior to your shifu, they're your shibo (师伯), teacher-uncle, or to be more precise, teacher-father's-elder-brother. If junior to your shifu, they're your shishu (师叔), teacher-father's-younger-brother. Again, these terms, despite appearing strongly gendered, are gender-neutral, and apply equally to your master's male and female (and, indeed, non-binary/genderfluid) sect-siblings. In Return of the Condor Heroes, for instance, sect-sisters Li Mochou and Xialongnu's disciples refer to them respectively as 'shibo' and 'shishu', and the same is true of the disciples of Hengshan sect-sisters Dingxian, Dingjing and Dingyi in The Smiling Proud Wanderer. There are occasional heretical suggestions that one's master's sect-sisters should be addressed as shigu (师姑), teacher-aunt or literally teacher-father's-sister, but these can be safely ignored.
One's master's wife is one's shimu (师母) or shiniang (师娘), teacher-mother. Again, this is clear, and I see no reason why it shouldn't apply regardless of one's master's own gender. If one's master happens to be a woman, she's still one's shifu, and if she happens to be married to another woman, that's one's shimu or shiniang.
Where it starts to get tricky is how one addresses one's shifu's husband. Annoyingly, Jin Yong provides zero guidance on that score (at least, to my fallible memory), because his sufficiently senior women tend to either (1) be nuns (2) not take disciples, in part because they're busy looking after their children or their husbands' disciples or (3) in one notable and highly scandalous instance, marry their own disciple. I have occasionally seen shigong (师公) suggested, but am unsure of its canonical value. A very quick search suggests that it may be used for master's master as well (and wouldn't that confusion be delightful), and also frankly it just sounds a bit rude. Probably the most acceptable suggestion I've seen so far is 师丈, but interestingly that's teacher-husband not teacher-(kinship term).
Even tricker? What does one call one's master's sect-sibling's husband? If we're talking wives, shibomu (师伯母) and shishen (师婶), respectively teacher-father's-elder-brother's-wife and teacher-father's-younger-brother's-wife makes about as much sense as anything else. But the traditional terms are less intuitive where husbands are concerned. Rifling through the 'kinship terms for same-sex couples' chart I saw a while back, it looks as though the best options are shibozhang (师伯丈) and shishuzhang (师叔丈) — again, teacher-elder/younger-brother's husband rather than teacher-(kinship term).
(Note: I tried to make this accurate, and I think there are no horrible errors, but I am extremely bad with paternal kinship terms in Mandarin because our family uses Hokkien/Southern Min terms for that side of the family)
ETA: Posting the 'kinship terms for same-sex couples' chart below as
kolleh requested it.