Malayalam Kinship Terms: A Family Relationship Guide
Malayalam is spoken by around 35 million people, mainly in Kerala, and like most Indian languages it names relatives far more precisely than English does. Where English says “uncle”, Malayalam usually wants to know which uncle. Here are the everyday terms, written in the Malayalam script with their English meanings.
How Malayalam kinship works
Malayalam belongs to the Dravidian kinship system, which draws a hard line between parallel and cross relatives. Your father's brother and mother's sister are parallel — their children are treated as your own brothers and sisters, and you use sibling words for them. Your father's sister and mother's brother are cross — their children fall into a different category entirely, the one traditional marriage alliances were built around. That single distinction explains why the words below split the way they do, and why there is no single all-purpose word for “cousin”.
Parents and grandparents
- Father: അച്ഛൻ
- Mother: അമ്മ
- Grandfather (either side): മുത്തച്ഛൻ
- Father's mother: മുത്തശ്ശി
- Mother's mother: അമ്മൂമ്മ
Build your family tree — free
Kinidhi's tree maker works out the correct Malayalam term for every relative as you add them — elder or younger, paternal or maternal, all of it. No sign-up, nothing leaves your device, and you can download the finished tree as an image.
Open the free tree maker →Father's brothers and sisters
- Father's elder brother: വലിയച്ഛൻ
- Father's younger brother: ചെറിയച്ഛൻ
- Elder uncle's wife: വലിയമ്മ
- Younger uncle's wife: ചെറിയമ്മ
- Father's sister: അമ്മായി
- Her husband: അമ്മാവൻ
Mother's brothers and sisters
- Mother's brother: അമ്മാവൻ
- His wife: അമ്മായി
- Mother's elder sister: വലിയമ്മ
- Mother's younger sister: ചെറിയമ്മ
- Elder aunt's husband: വലിയച്ഛൻ
- Younger aunt's husband: ചെറിയച്ഛൻ
Brothers and sisters
- Elder brother: ചേട്ടൻ
- Younger brother: അനിയൻ
- Elder sister: ചേച്ചി
- Younger sister: അനിയത്തി
Seniority is marked in the word itself: an elder brother and a younger brother are simply different words, so age is never ambiguous the way it is with the English “brother”.
Children and grandchildren
- Son: മകൻ
- Daughter: മകൾ
- Grandson: കൊച്ചുമകൻ
- Granddaughter: കൊച്ചുമകൾ
In-laws and marriage
- Husband: ഭർത്താവ്
- Wife: ഭാര്യ
- Father-in-law: അമ്മാവൻ
- Mother-in-law: അമ്മായി
- Brother's wife: ചേട്ടത്തി
- Sister's husband: അളിയൻ
- Son's wife: മരുമകൾ
- Daughter's husband: മരുമകൻ
Build your family tree — free
Kinidhi's tree maker works out the correct Malayalam term for every relative as you add them — elder or younger, paternal or maternal, all of it. No sign-up, nothing leaves your device, and you can download the finished tree as an image.
Open the free tree maker →A note on regional variation
These are the common, widely understood forms. Malayalam kinship words vary by region, community and family, and many households use affectionate local variants that will not appear here — all of them equally correct. If your family says it differently, your family is right. We would genuinely like to hear about it: tell us and we will fold corrections into both this guide and the app.
Frequently asked questions
What do you call your father's elder brother in Malayalam?
Your father's elder brother is വലിയച്ഛൻ and his younger brother is ചെറിയച്ഛൻ. Malayalam treats them as parallel relatives — near-fathers — which is why the words are built from the word for father rather than from a separate word for “uncle”.
Why does Malayalam have no single word for cousin?
Because Malayalam sorts cousins into two different categories. Your father's brother's and mother's sister's children are parallel cousins and take sibling words; your father's sister's and mother's brother's children are cross cousins and take a different set. A single word for “cousin” would collapse a distinction the language considers important.