Bread, Lentil Curry and Taboo

Swearing is a form of linguistic expression often referred to as bad language. Some people find swearing to be rude and disrespectful, while others find it quite useful in their everyday vocabulary.

According to my belief, swearing is something what comes from your environment and the environment itself decides the acceptability of it. For example, I had a relative who came from a rural background and raised cattle for living had an enormous love and respect on cattle. I remember we attend religious activities they arranged for the sake of their cattle especially to worship the God of cattle, Gopalla or most probably a Sri Lankan version of God Krishna. To my utter amusement, once I heard t my relative calls one of his favorite girls (I mean a cow) by a serious Sinhalese swear word! Learning my embarrassment, one of my cousins explained that, it is the way how they show love and pet their cattle.

As a linguist I knew that as long as the environment allows, nothing could go forbidden. Language shows no difference along with other laws of society. As we know some societies allow peculiar and seemingly odd practices to happen and some call those societies uncivilized or fundamentalist.

Taboo words are, often related to taboo behavior, such as sex and bodily functions. To call these areas taboo does not necessarily mean that it is forbidden to have sex, go to the bathroom etc. Actually what is meant by taboo behavior is that there are conscious and unconscious rules of how to do it in a socially acceptable manner.

All the linguists as well as anthropologists who study on swearing agree that it is something emotional. For example the English four letter ‘F’ word is one of the most interesting and colorful words in the English language today. Beside its sexual connotation, it is used in different situations such as dismay, trouble, aggression, passive, displeasure, difficulty etc.

Most European languages have “blasphemic” utterances, which are words or phrases connected with the Christian religion in a disrespectful way, for example: Oh, for God’s sake. ‘Hell’, as a swearword, obviously has its background in religious terminology.

The word can be used in several different situations, for example: The hell with it, Like hell, Go to hell or perhaps Bloody Hell. The word ‘damn’ is also a blasphemic utterance and is by most people connected with the religious term ‘damnation’, though it might in the beginning have had a connection with the word ‘dam’, which means ‘animal mother’.

Using swearwords or taboo words is a very old phenomenon. The swearwords have been found in 3000 years old hieroglyphs inscriptions, which suggest we might interpret as swearing being as old as language itself.

On the other hand I find swearing is also gender related. Women seem less likely to swear, as in English it is said to be ‘Nice girls don’t swear’. But both men and women seem to use swearing on social purpose. Psychologists and linguists come to a common ground at the point that when people want to be belonged in to a certain group, they tend to follow the behavior of the fellow group members. Therefore in the social purpose, there is an equal possibility to use swearing by both men and women.

In this part of world where I live, for me, swearing is something like bread and lentil curry, commonly heard and has become just words. When I first came here, I felt uncomfortable as we are not used to this kind of linguistic environment. At the same time, as a linguist, I knew that it is something cultural and I knew that my kids will not be a part of it as still cultural resistant is lot more powerful than the social influence.