Description:

The term 'onno' is almost exclusively used as a noun and means 'grandparent'. It has intrinsically gendered forms lijónno and cejónno, but is more likely to be used without intrinsic gender (with no mention of gender or with a gender modifier) than with the intrinsically gendered forms, although this is not an uncommon usage, either.

Compare the intimate/affection terms 'omma' and 'oppa', attached, which are thought to be borrowed from German and mean more like 'grandma' and 'grandpa', respectively, instead.

Onno can also be used as a social politeness term, as the head term used in addressing a much older person. It implies social superiority but not necessarily a command relationship, unlike 'anno', 'parent', which usually implies a command relationship as well.

Great grandparents are conveyed systematically by compounding with the modifier 'akpe', literally 'big'. 'Akpeonno' means 'great-grandparent'. If an intrinsic gender modifier is used, it is applied to the 'onno' head, not to the compound as a whole, although a gender modifier would apply to the compound as a whole. To express however many greats, an ordinal number expressing the degree of separation is prefixed to the term. So 'kawasakpeonno', literally 'second big grandparent' means 'great great grandparent', and so on.