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NCERT Solutions Exploring Society: India and Beyond Chapter 9 Family — LET’S EXPLORE

Book page 139 Updated on2026-09-05

Q1.
Make a list of all the members of your family you can think of, including a few distant relatives. List their terms in your mother tongue or regional language and try to find the equivalent in English. Two examples are below for Hindi: Rani — बहन — mother’s brother’s daughter (cousin) (among other possible meanings); Sameer — चाचा — father’s younger brother (uncle).
Answer

Method. Start with the people at home, then move outward — parents’ brothers and sisters, their husbands and wives, their children, then grandparents on both sides. Write the word you actually use for each person, not a dictionary word. Then write in English what that word means, in as many words as it takes. Ask an elder at home when you are not sure; that is part of the exercise.

Sample answer (the terms are Hindi; use your own language’s terms, and add or leave out rows as your family requires):

NameTerm in HindiDescription / term in English
Raniबहनmother’s brother’s daughter (cousin) (among other possible meanings)
Sameerचाचाfather’s younger brother (uncle)
Kamalaदादीfather’s mother (grandmother)
Hariramनानाmother’s father (grandfather)
Sunitaबुआfather’s sister (aunt)
Meeraमौसीmother’s sister (aunt)
Rakeshताऊfather’s elder brother (uncle)
Anjaliताईfather’s elder brother’s wife (aunt)
Vikramमामाmother’s brother (uncle)
Deepaभाभीelder brother’s wife (sister-in-law)
Arjunभाईfather’s elder brother’s son (cousin) — but simply ‘brother’ in Hindi
Tip: if your mother tongue is Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Marathi, Bengali, Odia, Assamese, Manipuri, Khasi, Bhojpuri, Gujarati or any other language, use its own words — chithappa, periyappa, mama, atha, kaka, mavshi, pishi, mesho, khura, apong and so on. The exercise is more interesting the further your language is from Hindi.
Careful and kind: make your list of the relatives you have. Nobody’s list has to be long, and no two lists will match — that is exactly what makes the class comparison worth doing.
Q2.
Notice how, quite often, a single word in your mother tongue or regional language requires several words in English to give a precise definition.
Answer

True — and the reason is that Indian languages carry the exact relationship inside the word, while English gives one broad word for many relationships.

One word in an Indian languageWhat English needs to say
चाचा (chacha)father’s younger brother — five words where Hindi uses one
ताऊ (tau)father’s elder brother
मामा (mama)mother’s brother
मौसी (mausi)mother’s sister
बुआ (bua)father’s sister
नानी (nani)mother’s mother
दादी (dadi)father’s mother

Look at the right-hand column: English says ‘uncle’ for the first three and ‘aunt’ for the next two, and ‘grandmother’ for the last two. Five different relationships collapse into two English words.

Hindi: 1 word → 1 exact relationship
English: 1 word (‘uncle’) → 4 different relationships → so English must add “father’s younger…”, “mother’s…” to be precise
Why languages differ like this: a language keeps short words for the things its speakers talk about most. In Indian family life it matters a great deal whether someone is your father’s elder brother or your mother’s brother — the person’s place at a wedding, at a festival and in daily respect depends on it. So the language gave each one its own short word. Where a distinction is not needed daily, a language lets one broad word do the work.
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