A családomról egyszerűen magyarul

Why does Hungarian have four words for brother and sister?

Hungarian has no neutral word for “brother” or “sister.” You have to choose by age: báty is an older brother, öcs a younger one, nővér an older sister, húg a younger sister. So a bátyám idősebb nálam is almost saying the same thing twice — and an English sentence like “I have a sister” simply cannot be translated until you know who was born first.

Cover terms do exist, but they sound formal or plural: testvér (sibling, literally “body-blood”), fiútestvér, lánytestvér. In the possessed forms you meet daily, the stems shift: bátyám, öcsém, nővérem, húgom. Hungarian keeps this precision elsewhere in the family too — anyós and após for mother- and father-in-law, sógor and sógornő for brother- and sister-in-law.