As far as I can tell, the normal familiar form of ‘father’ in modern day Latvia is ‘tētis’, but according to my mother, in pre-war Latvia the word normally used was ‘paps’ or ‘pops’.  Is my mother right, or was that only amongst her family and acquaintances?  My 1946 Latvian-English translates ‘tētis’ as ‘dad’ but doesn’t include ‘paps’ or ‘pops’.  What word was used in trimda households?

Džons

There is a whole bunch of words with various nuances—fāters, for example. Tētis works. Papiņš also. Tēviņš—nē...

/P

Yes, Pēteris, but what did you call your dad? :)

“Tētis”.

Džon, both sides of my family came from the Jelgava region.  The maternal side in Latvia continues to use ‘papus,’ and the paternal side uses ‘tētis.’  Just in general, the maternal side when speaking has a few grammatical quirks that are considered ‘wrong’ by today’s standards, which I had to train myself to get rid of.  But, it sure feels like home when I’m visiting them. : )  That’s especially true if I’m there for an informal lunch, since inevitably the dish is something my mother made when I was a kid.

In our house it was ‘Paps’.  My mom would refer to him as ‘tavs tēvs’, but ‘tētis’ was never heard.

Tētis here as well.  (My grandfather was “Paps”)

„(My grandfather was “Paps”)”

The generation in question may well be part of the key that unravels whether ‘tētis’ or ‘paps/papus’ was used in the pre-1991 diaspora. My parents were technically old enough to have been my grandparents, but because my father passed away when I was 4, my mother’s family’s traditions were passed down to me, so I referred to my own father as ‘papus.’  This was reinforced by my maternal grandfather, who signed all of his letters from LV to my mother as ‘papus.’  I even vaguely recall in grade school being surprised by a neighborhood friend’s family (whose parents were a generation younger than my mother, and from Vidzeme) calling their father ‘tētis,’  which seemed strange to me.

I called my father “papa”, but my children called him “vectēvs”.
My wife called her father “fāteris”, but our children called him “opaps”.
My children call me “tētis” but I am “opītis” to my grandchildren.
My daughter’s children call their father “tētis”, but my son’s children call their father “dad”.

After two corrections I may finally get this right. Sorry about the confusion.
Lauris

Lauri, it’s a joy to hear from you, and especially about all of the ‘father’/‘grandfather’ variations in your family! :)

Ar sveicienu - Elizabete

“Tētis”

“Vecaistēvs”.

Paps, and only paps.  When I married, my husband called him pop. My daughters called him grampa and referred to him as gramps when speaking to us.

My ‘faters’ was also paps, papins and I was quickly corrected when I once said “tevins”; but I definitely took notice that some of my other friends referred to their father as tetis.  My father was from Madona which is in Vidzeme and I have forgotten now how my cousins in LV referred to their father.

There’s also kartufeli or is it kartupeli, (I invariably get the two confused) and in some regions of Latvia, they are called tupeni.

Irena

Kartupeļi, rāceņi, tupeņi, pampaļi u.t.t.

Gan daudz varianti, Lauri!  Paldies!

Irena

Thank you all for your replies.  I think my mother’s view is that the use of ‘tētis’ became popular since the war, whereas from this discussion it appears that in some families ‘tētis’ was certainly in use before the war.  It could be either a regional issue (my mother is from Riga, and spent summers in Zemgale). or perhaps there’s some other reason.