Posted by Jon on February 22, 2013 at 07:45:23 user Jon.
In Reply to: Re: Great Aunt posted by Robert Hill on February 21, 2013 at 10:58:24:
Well, my German's rusty, but IIRC grossmutter would literally translate to "greatmother" or "largemother", not "grandmother". In French, both my parent's aunt and my parent's mother would be "grand" to me. So ascribe the English variations to the polyglot nature of the language.