Abstract: The kinship, which is generally regarded as the initial social relationship of individuals, is formed on the basis of blood relationship and marriage. There are corresponding words to represent kinship in every language, which is called kinship words. Kinship words contain abundant information involving genetics, marriage, sociology and culture. Kinship words, the royal crown of anthropology and ethnonymics, are one of the most important topics in the field of anthropology, ethnonymics and linguistics, especially national psychology. Since 2001, by means of natural classifying, we explored the conceptual structure of kinship words among varied participant groups, including children, youngsters and undergraduates of different nationalities, such as the Han nationality, the Naxi nationality, the Moso, the Dai nationality, the Yi nationality, the Bai nationality and Jinuo nationality. The conceptual structure of kinship words varies from different nationalities. The series studies revealed the factors influencing the semantic categorization and conceptual organization, demonstrating that national language influenced national psychology; and revealed the mechanism of the impact of language on kinship words classifying, providing important evidences for the theories on the influences of language on cognition; and revealed the features of the different nationalities’ kinship, providing important materials for the theoretical basis of the national psychology.

Key words: kinship words, conceptual structure, national language, national mind