Reddit asks: “Are there any languages with no words that are considered vulgar or obscene?”
Via Vicki Boykis, we stumbled across this wonderful Reddit thread about taboo words in various languages.
You know how Ivan feels about sociolinguistics (hint: like this), so here are some of our favorite excerpts:
As someone who also works with Ojibwe, you’re certainly right that historically words which we would translate to “ass” or “crap” were not offensive or vulgar, many of them even appearing in sacred stories. (Many of them are considered offensive nowadays to certain speakers; anecdotes abound of Algonquian language learners whose ashamed old grandmothers never told them “the real version” of some story!) (x)
To be fair, about half the Russian language is swearing. See: Mat. (x)
Whenever there’s a small child around, I say to my friends, “young’uns about, curse in German.” (x)
There are taboo topics with un-taboo words (food taboos are often like this), and there are taboo words for things that aren’t taboo (words for topics in race and religion and religion are often like this). Analytically, we must not confound the two. (x)
And the inevitable — for sociolinguists — argument about Pirahã, which concludes:
Nevertheless, I’m going to e-mail Dan Everett to see if he can shine some light on this.
Edit: Aaaaand he replied; they have no profane terms.
When in doubt, email Dan Everett.
Notes
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I wonder how people who’s native language doesn’t include curse words feel when they encounter taboos in a second...
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i love tabernouche!!
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allthingslinguistic reblogged this from wonkistan and added:
There’s also a bit discussion of swearwords in Quebec French. Although one of the things I find coolest about QF swears...
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pflugerville said:
I’m going to e-mail Dan Everett just for the heck of it now.
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wonkistan posted this
