So Japanese has 兄（あに｜older brother）、姉（あね｜older sister）、妹（いもうと｜younger sister）、弟（おとうと｜younger brother）but is there anything for younger sibling and older sibling?
I know of 同生（とうせい｜sibling） and 弟（おとと｜younger sibling）but 弟 is archaic and 同生 doesn't specify age relation. Does anyone know of any other words?
I think most terms that could fit that description are either very uncommon or archaic. As far as I know it's usually a matter of using 年上 / 年下 to clarify. I don't think there are any gender neutral words that work like "younger/older sibling" does in English.
年上・年下の兄弟姉妹 (or just 兄弟) would be the most precise (I think?). It's pretty wordy though.
Can't think of anything else.
Update: I guess you have these 兄姉 / 弟妹, but apparently they aren't very common in everyday speech.
兄姉 is missing "older" on Renshuu's dictionary entry for some reason. It's meant to be there (update: it got fixed ).
Edit: I just realised my native language doesn't have the word "sibling", we only have the equivalent of brother/sister
I've been struggling so much with grammar, and I've just discovered where I went wrong... pretty much on the first day! One entry for ます provides the definition "to be." So from the very beginning of my studies, I had it in my head that the polite ます suffix meant "to be," (similar to です, but more polite... in my mind,), but I now see that these are two different ます words with different meanings - one an honorific archaism that's no longer in use. All this time (ten months!), I've been confused as to when to use です or ます, thinking they both mean "to be" but also thinking that this doesn't make sense since the grammar lessons describe です as a being verb/copula and ます as a polite verb suffix. And yet, that "to be" ます definition kept popping up in my vocabulary quizzes because I'd saved it to a study list soon after joining Renshuu, before I knew anything about Japanese or knew to check for things like "archaism" or "copula." I think I need to review all of the grammar lessons now, with this new understanding in mind. This time, maybe it'll make more sense and I'll be able to understand it logically instead of relying so much on what "feels/sounds right."
