1. Terminology
Historically the German word Eltern (“parents”) is a nominalized comparative of alt (“old”); it appears in all West Germanic languages as a designation of an individual’s direct progenitors (cf. Eng. one’s “elders”). Eltern is related to Latin alere (“nourish, raise”) and means roughly “adult” [15. 16 f., 164]. Another European term, which in English takes the form parents, is derived from Latin parere (“…