Some of the clearest examples of lexicalized categories are words used to refer to people who are members of the same family, or kinship terms. All languages have kinship terms (e.g. brother, mother, grandmother), but they don’t all put family members into categories in the same way. In some languages, the equivalent of the word father is used not only for “male parent,” but also for “male parent’s brother.” In English, we use the word uncle for this other type of individual. We have lexicalized the distinction between the two concepts. Yet, we also use the same word (uncle) for “female parent’s brother.” That distinction isn’t lexicalized in English, but it is in other languages. In Watam (spoken in Papua New Guinea), the English word uncle would be translated as either aes (father’s brother) or akwae (mother’s brother). Speakers of Mopan Maya (in Belize, Central America) lexicalize a distinction based on a different conceptual arrangement. Each of the following words is (and is not) a translation of the English word uncle.

It would seem that distinctions in age among “uncles” is important in Mopan Mayan culture. Other distinctions among relatives can also be lexicalized differently in the world’s languages. For example, in Norwegian, the distinction between “male parent’s mother” (farmor) and “female parent’s mother” (mormor) is lexicalized, but in English the word grandmother is generally used for both.