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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/37560
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I have experience of a similar situation - not Chinese or Korean, but Indian. I married into a family that has Indian ancestry but now live in the Caribbean and in addition I have a large number of Indian (Guajarati) friends in Bradford, where I lived for a year or two.

There are words in Hindi for the different relations, just as you described for Chinese and Korean. Generally, these terms are used to denote relationship and sometimes said as a mark of respect (like calling older male people 'Uncle').

Some examples I'm familiar with, because I've heard them often, are Ajji (grandmother (mother of father)), Nanni (grandmother (mother of mother)), Mamma (Uncle) and Didi (elder sister), but there are dozens more. Have a look at this page: [55 Family Relationship Names in Hindi and English](http://www.anilmahato.com/55-family-relationship-names-in-hindi-and-english/) if you want to know more.

Point is, there are words for everyone that are independent of the actual names of people, and those words are used routinely instead of names. Of course, it depends on how close you are to the person you are talking to and, to some extent I'm sure, on the protocol that's been handed down from generation to generation.

If I were wanting to address family members solely by relationship in dialogue in this situation, then I would use the words I've just been describing. For you, it would be the English phonetic equivalents of the words used by the families you are referring to.

It might be confusing for the reader at first to be presented by these new (and seemingly made-up) words, but if you reinforce the message by making it clear who is talking to who at important parts of the story then it'll become easy for the reader to remember the various words. Plus, you'll expand their knowledge at the same time. I love me a book that I can learn new stuff from.

Good luck with your dialogue.

Original score: 15