[PLUG-TALK] Swearing in multiple languages ...

[John Jason Jordan]

On Sat, 10 Dec 2022 07:48:18 -0800 (PST)
Rich Shepard <rshepard at appl-ecosys.com> dijo:

>... have a similar lack of certain consonants. Read all about it here:
><https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/10/world/swear-word-similarities-cec/index.html>
>
>I look forward to reading John's comments on this. :-)

The above link describes a detailed analysis of the sounds used in
swear words, but linguists have been generally aware for over a century
that swear words almost never contain an approximant, while their
euphemism counterparts usually do, although not always, e.g.,
'darn' contains [ɹ], but 'dang' has no approximants at all. The reason,
as the article points out at the end, is that approximants are not very
salient phones. It would be interesting to study swear words in a
language that uses clicks, because clicks are very powerful sounds, and
I would guess that they might appear with higher than normal frequency
in swear words.

For reference to my comments below, here is a link to the IPA, including
a complete IPA chart (use the full-page version). The second link is to
a partially interactive page where clicking on the symbol should produce
the sound:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet_chart
https://www.ipachart.com/

Here are a few additional observations about swear words:

1) English swear words generally denote some offensive body part or
activity, or alternatively, something that Christians think violates the
commandment about taking the lord's name in vain. My first two
languages were English and German, where the religious prohibition was
prevalent. As a child if I said 'my God!' in a classroom I could expect
punishment. At about age eight I had to learn Spanish, and I was amazed
that body parts and functions were still taboo, but the religious
prohibition was completely missing. I would guess that there are many
more cultural distinctions for swear words among the roughly 7,000
human languages currently spoken.

2) In English some swear words, most notably the f-word, can be
inserted between the morphemes of a compound or phrase, e.g.,
'un-fucking-believable,' 'extra-damn-hot.' This also applies to their
euphemisms, like 'extra-dang-hot.' As far as I know this applies only
to modifiers (verbal or nominal), but not to other lexical categories.
And, while you can do this in any dialect of English, I don't know of
any other language that allows this usage.

3) I don't know of any swear word in any language that doesn't have at
least one euphemism. And I should add that 'euphemism' is what a
clean alternate word is called by linguists; I have never heard the
authors term 'minced oath.'

4) If you look up the etymologies of English swear words (best source:
Oxford English Dictionary), you will find that they are massively more
likely to be of Anglo-Saxon origin than from any other language.
Curiously, the standard apology for using a swear word is 'pardon my
French'; which would usually be more accurate if 'French' was replaced
with 'Anglo-Saxon.'

5) Languages are constantly changing, including swear words. In America
'fuck' is generally pronounced [fʌk], and [fʊk] in many parts of the
UK, but before the great vowel shift (in the 1400s) it was pronounced
[fuk], that is, a short [u]. Another process that happens in all
languages is semantic bleaching, especially common for swear words. The
most common example I can think for English speakers is to consider
what has happened to the religious prohibition over the past hundred
years. In 1922 you wouldn't dare say 'my God' in public, and today even
the US president uses it in speeches, with not so much as a raised
eyebrow. And while the religious prohibition has all but disappeared in
current English, bleaching has also occurred to other terms. For
example, when I was a child the only way I could use the word 'ass' was
if I was referring to an equine beast of burden. Yet during the term of
our previous president I described him as 'an ass,' and no one noticed.

The article is devoted strictly to phonological issues for swear words.
I would have found it more interesting if cross-cultural semantics had
been studied as well. I have already mentioned the previous religious
prohibition in English, but I wonder about what topics other cultures
and languages consider taboo. As an example, in American Sign Language
some signs around the nose are taboo, or denote something bad.

A related study that would be interesting might be a multi-lingual
dictionary for swear words, encompassing multiple unrelated languages.
Yes, there are hundreds of word lists online for swear words, but none
are comprehensive and few cover more than one language. I want to see
several languages, each in its own column, so I can scan across the
pages and suddenly notice that the Spanish column goes empty in the
section for religious taboos. 

Another issue to study might be to figure out the impact of swear
words, with perhaps a scale of one to five. Or one might work on
homophones, e.g., 'ass' has two meanings in English, one acceptable,
and the other a mildly prohibited word.

A linguist could make a career studying swear words. :)