Word taboo, also called taboo language, language taboo or linguistic taboo is a kind of taboo that involves restricting the use of words or other parts of language due to social constraints. This may be due to a taboo on specific parts of the language itself (such as certain words, or sounds), or due to the need to avoid a taboo topic. The taboo against naming the dead in parts of the world is an example. Taboo words are commonly avoided with euphemisms, such as the English euphemism pass away, meaning "die". It is a common source of neologisms and lexical replacement.
Causes and motivation
Restrictions on language typically originate from the need to avoid referencing taboo topics. One interpretation of the notion of taboo regards it as a prohibition on forbidden behaviour or objects, due to their perceived dangerous or sacred nature. Any members of the community who come into contact with artifacts associated with the central subject of the taboo would be subject to some penalty, unless they atoned for the mistake.
Taboo language can be regarded as a means to censor, or at least avoid the mention of taboo topics, for fear of incurring the cost of violating the taboo itself. By extension, elements of language such as words, names or phonemes can become taboo themselves, as they can be seen as an inalienable part of the tabooed entity.
Linguistic taboos
A linguistic taboo is any element of a language bearing a quality that renders it intrinsically impolite or forbidden.
Profanity
Profanity refers to language that is generally considered to be strongly impolite, rude, or offensive. Profanity may often serve an exclamation function, although typically it is used to insult another person. Thus, as a form of verbal violence, it is often considered taboo in polite company and subject to censoring (either by speakers themselves, or by some authority).
While profane terms and insults tend to be derived from tabooed objects, such as bodily organs and excrement, not all references to tabooed objects are necessarily considered to be profanity. For example, in English, erudite terms for bodily functions do not tend to function well as insulting epithets, although this constraint may not apply to other categories of taboos, such as sexual practices. It has been suggested that whether a term can be considered an expletive may depend on whether it is intended to be applied figuratively or literally.
Naming taboo
In certain cultures, to say a tabooed name is akin to assaulting the owner of that name, and sanctions will be levied onto the offender. Punishments for violations of the taboo can be dealt in the form of payment of goods to an offended party, or appeasement of an offended spirit. In some cases, deliberate violations of naming taboo have led to death by murder or suicide due to shame. In one example, a man from an Adzera-speaking village in Papua New Guinea had broken a very strong name taboo in front of his father-in-law. In shame, he fled into the mountains occupied by a rival tribe, deliberately allowing himself to be killed by the enemy.
Non-linguistic taboos
This section needs additional citations for verification. (May 2021) |
Non-linguistic taboos are terms or topics that are believed to be impolite or unacceptable for use due to social context. In contrast to profanity, they are not intrinsically impolite.[citation needed] Rather, they are perceived to be so in specific circumstances, as determined by the culturally-contingent beliefs or concepts of politeness held by a speaker or their listener(s). Coincidentally, this sometimes results in the acceptability of their use varying relative to the register that a culture considers appropriate when conversing within a given implicit stratum of social interaction.[citation needed]
Euphemism
Euphemisms are typically used to avoid the explicit mention of forbidden subjects, as opposed to avoiding the use of forbidden elements of the language. In social interactions, euphemisms are used to avoid directly addressing subjects that might be deemed negative, embarrassing, or otherwise discomforting to the speaker or their listeners.[citation needed]
An example of a taboo topic among many cultures that is commonly avoided in language is disease. While many diseases have been studied and understood over decades, the taboo against diseases such as syphilis still runs deep. In modern times, doctors tend to continue avoiding the term syphilis with their patients[citation needed], preferring to use alternative labels like treponemal disease, luetic disease (from Latin lues 'contagion, plague'), and so forth. In a similar vein, topics such as menstruation have also historically been considered taboo, thereby garnering euphemisms such as have an issue and flowers (Leviticus 15:1, 19–24). In either case, both "afflictions" were taboo as they were considered dangerous; menstrual blood was thought to carry contagious diseases such as syphilis.
Euphemisms can also be used to downplay the gravity of large-scale injustices, war crimes, or other events that warrant a pattern of avoidance in official statements or documents. For instance, one reason for the comparative scarcity of written evidence documenting the exterminations at Auschwitz, relative to their sheer number, involves "directives for the extermination process obscured in bureaucratic euphemisms".
Religion
Religion plays a significant role in the concept of taboo, as demonstrated by the etymology of the word taboo, which is borrowed from Tongan tapu ("prohibited, sacred"). The religious perspective tends to consider language as vested with supernatural powers. Consequently, religion tends to be a source of language taboo.[citation needed]
Across ancient, medieval, and modern religious discourse, direct mention of the name of the "evil spirit" Satan reflects the taboo on the devil, born from out of the belief that doing so will incite misfortune on the speaker and interlocutor.[citation needed] Instead, this antagonist is euphemistically identified by the characteristic of being harmful or betraying towards the religion. This is seen from alternative labels such as feond (fiend) dating to Old English, enemī (enemy) dating to Middle English in 1382, and arch-traitor dating to Modern English in 1751, among countless others.
Effect on language change
Taboo-motivated lexical replacement
Taboo-motivated lexical replacement is a cross-linguistic phenomenon where the avoidance of taboos lexical items by speakers can motivate the creative use of language. The tabooed terms are eventually replaced, causing language change. This taboo-driven change can lead to the remodeling of language, or create semantic shift due to the use of figurative language in euphemisms. For example, the term stark naked derives from the expression start naked, dating back to Old English in the 13th century, where start originally was steort meaning 'tail, rump' in Old English. The change in the final /t/ consonant to /k/ could be due to attempts to obfuscate the reference to the body part, or due to the influence of the phonetically similar term stark.
The following languages exhibit examples of taboo-motivated lexical replacement:
- Coast Salish languages
- Southern Bantu languages
- Tiwi language
- Haruai language
General linguistic changes
Another example demonstrating how linguistic taboos can drive language change is the case of iSi-Hlonipha, which is the practice among Nguni-speaking communities where married women were forbidden from uttering sound sequences in their father-in-law's name. This fueled a need for replacement phonemes, which led to the import of phonemes from neighbouring languages. Thus, click consonants were imported from the nearby Zulu and Xhosa languages into Nguni, which did not originally feature clicks.
See also
- Name taboo
- Avoidance speech
- Expurgation
- Profanity
- Racial slurs
- Un-word of the year
- Noa-name – Word used instead of a taboo or dangerous word
References
- Lockwood, W. B. (1955). "Word Taboo in the Language of the Faroese Fishermen". Transactions of the Philological Society. 54: 1–24. doi:10.1111/j.1467-968X.1955.tb00287.x.
- Mead, Margaret (1937). "Tabu". Encyclopaedia of Social Sciences. 7: 502–5.
- Keesing, Roger M.; Fifiʔi, Jonathan (1969). "Kwaio word tabooing in its context". Journal of the Polynesian Society. 78 (2): 154–77. Retrieved 11 April 2019.
- Allan, Keith; Burridge, Kate (2009). Forbidden Words: Taboo and the Censoring of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511617881. ISBN 9780511617881.
- Holzknecht, Suzanne (1988). "Word taboo and its implications for language change in the Markham family of languages, PNG" (PDF). Language and Linguistics in Melanesia (18): 45. Retrieved 11 April 2019.
- Leviticus 15:1, 19–24 King James Version (Oxford Standard, 1769)
- Ryback, Timothy W. (7 November 1993). "Evidence of Evil". The New Yorker.
- Esquibel, Joanna; Wojtyś, Anna (2012). "Devil aka Satan: An enemy or fiend? On the rivalry between the familiar and the foreign in early English" (PDF). Token: A Journal of English Linguistics. 1: 96–113. Retrieved 9 April 2019.
- Harper, Douglas. "Stark-naked (adj.)". Online Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved 10 April 2019.
- Allan, Keith (2018). "Taboo words and language: an overview". In Allan, Keith (ed.). The Oxford Handbook of Taboo Words and Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198808190.001.0001. ISBN 9780198808190. Retrieved 10 April 2019.
- Elmendorf, William W. (1951-01-01). "Word Taboo and Lexical Change in Coast Salish". International Journal of American Linguistics. 17 (4): 205–208. doi:10.1086/464130. JSTOR 1263104. S2CID 144956373.
- Herbert, Robert K. (1990-01-01). "The Sociohistory of Clicks in Southern Bantu". Anthropological Linguistics. 32 (3/4): 295–315. JSTOR 30028161.
- Hart, C. W. M. (1930-01-01). "Personal Names among the Tiwi". Oceania. 1 (3): 280–290. doi:10.1002/j.1834-4461.1930.tb01650.x. JSTOR 40327328.
- COMRIE, BERNARD (2000-01-01). "Language Contact, Lexical Borrowing, and Semantic Fields". Studies in Slavic and General Linguistics. 28: 73–86. JSTOR 40997153.
- Storch, Anne (2017). "Typology of Secret Languages and Linguistic Taboos". In Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y.; Dixon, R. M. W. (eds.). The Cambridge Handbook of Linguistic Typology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 287–321. doi:10.1017/9781316135716.010. ISBN 9781107091955.
Word taboo also called taboo language language taboo or linguistic taboo is a kind of taboo that involves restricting the use of words or other parts of language due to social constraints This may be due to a taboo on specific parts of the language itself such as certain words or sounds or due to the need to avoid a taboo topic The taboo against naming the dead in parts of the world is an example Taboo words are commonly avoided with euphemisms such as the English euphemism pass away meaning die It is a common source of neologisms and lexical replacement Causes and motivationRestrictions on language typically originate from the need to avoid referencing taboo topics One interpretation of the notion of taboo regards it as a prohibition on forbidden behaviour or objects due to their perceived dangerous or sacred nature Any members of the community who come into contact with artifacts associated with the central subject of the taboo would be subject to some penalty unless they atoned for the mistake Taboo language can be regarded as a means to censor or at least avoid the mention of taboo topics for fear of incurring the cost of violating the taboo itself By extension elements of language such as words names or phonemes can become taboo themselves as they can be seen as an inalienable part of the tabooed entity Linguistic taboosA linguistic taboo is any element of a language bearing a quality that renders it intrinsically impolite or forbidden Profanity Profanity refers to language that is generally considered to be strongly impolite rude or offensive Profanity may often serve an exclamation function although typically it is used to insult another person Thus as a form of verbal violence it is often considered taboo in polite company and subject to censoring either by speakers themselves or by some authority While profane terms and insults tend to be derived from tabooed objects such as bodily organs and excrement not all references to tabooed objects are necessarily considered to be profanity For example in English erudite terms for bodily functions do not tend to function well as insulting epithets although this constraint may not apply to other categories of taboos such as sexual practices It has been suggested that whether a term can be considered an expletive may depend on whether it is intended to be applied figuratively or literally Naming taboo In certain cultures to say a tabooed name is akin to assaulting the owner of that name and sanctions will be levied onto the offender Punishments for violations of the taboo can be dealt in the form of payment of goods to an offended party or appeasement of an offended spirit In some cases deliberate violations of naming taboo have led to death by murder or suicide due to shame In one example a man from an Adzera speaking village in Papua New Guinea had broken a very strong name taboo in front of his father in law In shame he fled into the mountains occupied by a rival tribe deliberately allowing himself to be killed by the enemy Non linguistic taboosThis section needs additional citations for verification Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources in this section Unsourced material may be challenged and removed Find sources Word taboo news newspapers books scholar JSTOR May 2021 Learn how and when to remove this message Non linguistic taboos are terms or topics that are believed to be impolite or unacceptable for use due to social context In contrast to profanity they are not intrinsically impolite citation needed Rather they are perceived to be so in specific circumstances as determined by the culturally contingent beliefs or concepts of politeness held by a speaker or their listener s Coincidentally this sometimes results in the acceptability of their use varying relative to the register that a culture considers appropriate when conversing within a given implicit stratum of social interaction citation needed Euphemism Euphemisms are typically used to avoid the explicit mention of forbidden subjects as opposed to avoiding the use of forbidden elements of the language In social interactions euphemisms are used to avoid directly addressing subjects that might be deemed negative embarrassing or otherwise discomforting to the speaker or their listeners citation needed An example of a taboo topic among many cultures that is commonly avoided in language is disease While many diseases have been studied and understood over decades the taboo against diseases such as syphilis still runs deep In modern times doctors tend to continue avoiding the term syphilis with their patients citation needed preferring to use alternative labels like treponemal disease luetic disease from Latin lues contagion plague and so forth In a similar vein topics such as menstruation have also historically been considered taboo thereby garnering euphemisms such as have an issue and flowers Leviticus 15 1 19 24 In either case both afflictions were taboo as they were considered dangerous menstrual blood was thought to carry contagious diseases such as syphilis Euphemisms can also be used to downplay the gravity of large scale injustices war crimes or other events that warrant a pattern of avoidance in official statements or documents For instance one reason for the comparative scarcity of written evidence documenting the exterminations at Auschwitz relative to their sheer number involves directives for the extermination process obscured in bureaucratic euphemisms Religion Religion plays a significant role in the concept of taboo as demonstrated by the etymology of the word taboo which is borrowed from Tongan tapu prohibited sacred The religious perspective tends to consider language as vested with supernatural powers Consequently religion tends to be a source of language taboo citation needed Across ancient medieval and modern religious discourse direct mention of the name of the evil spirit Satan reflects the taboo on the devil born from out of the belief that doing so will incite misfortune on the speaker and interlocutor citation needed Instead this antagonist is euphemistically identified by the characteristic of being harmful or betraying towards the religion This is seen from alternative labels such as feond fiend dating to Old English enemi enemy dating to Middle English in 1382 and arch traitor dating to Modern English in 1751 among countless others Effect on language changeTaboo motivated lexical replacement Taboo motivated lexical replacement is a cross linguistic phenomenon where the avoidance of taboos lexical items by speakers can motivate the creative use of language The tabooed terms are eventually replaced causing language change This taboo driven change can lead to the remodeling of language or create semantic shift due to the use of figurative language in euphemisms For example the term stark naked derives from the expression start naked dating back to Old English in the 13th century where start originally was steort meaning tail rump in Old English The change in the final t consonant to k could be due to attempts to obfuscate the reference to the body part or due to the influence of the phonetically similar term stark The following languages exhibit examples of taboo motivated lexical replacement Coast Salish languages Southern Bantu languages Tiwi language Haruai languageGeneral linguistic changes Another example demonstrating how linguistic taboos can drive language change is the case of iSi Hlonipha which is the practice among Nguni speaking communities where married women were forbidden from uttering sound sequences in their father in law s name This fueled a need for replacement phonemes which led to the import of phonemes from neighbouring languages Thus click consonants were imported from the nearby Zulu and Xhosa languages into Nguni which did not originally feature clicks See alsoName taboo Avoidance speech Expurgation Profanity Racial slurs Un word of the year Noa name Word used instead of a taboo or dangerous wordReferencesLockwood W B 1955 Word Taboo in the Language of the Faroese Fishermen Transactions of the Philological Society 54 1 24 doi 10 1111 j 1467 968X 1955 tb00287 x Mead Margaret 1937 Tabu Encyclopaedia of Social Sciences 7 502 5 Keesing Roger M Fifiʔi Jonathan 1969 Kwaio word tabooing in its context Journal of the Polynesian Society 78 2 154 77 Retrieved 11 April 2019 Allan Keith Burridge Kate 2009 Forbidden Words Taboo and the Censoring of Language Cambridge Cambridge University Press doi 10 1017 CBO9780511617881 ISBN 9780511617881 Holzknecht Suzanne 1988 Word taboo and its implications for language change in the Markham family of languages PNG PDF Language and Linguistics in Melanesia 18 45 Retrieved 11 April 2019 Leviticus 15 1 19 24 King James Version Oxford Standard 1769 Ryback Timothy W 7 November 1993 Evidence of Evil The New Yorker Esquibel Joanna Wojtys Anna 2012 Devil aka Satan An enemy or fiend On the rivalry between the familiar and the foreign in early English PDF Token A Journal of English Linguistics 1 96 113 Retrieved 9 April 2019 Harper Douglas Stark naked adj Online Etymology Dictionary Retrieved 10 April 2019 Allan Keith 2018 Taboo words and language an overview In Allan Keith ed The Oxford Handbook of Taboo Words and Language Oxford Oxford University Press doi 10 1093 oxfordhb 9780198808190 001 0001 ISBN 9780198808190 Retrieved 10 April 2019 Elmendorf William W 1951 01 01 Word Taboo and Lexical Change in Coast Salish International Journal of American Linguistics 17 4 205 208 doi 10 1086 464130 JSTOR 1263104 S2CID 144956373 Herbert Robert K 1990 01 01 The Sociohistory of Clicks in Southern Bantu Anthropological Linguistics 32 3 4 295 315 JSTOR 30028161 Hart C W M 1930 01 01 Personal Names among the Tiwi Oceania 1 3 280 290 doi 10 1002 j 1834 4461 1930 tb01650 x JSTOR 40327328 COMRIE BERNARD 2000 01 01 Language Contact Lexical Borrowing and Semantic Fields Studies in Slavic and General Linguistics 28 73 86 JSTOR 40997153 Storch Anne 2017 Typology of Secret Languages and Linguistic Taboos In Aikhenvald Alexandra Y Dixon R M W eds The Cambridge Handbook of Linguistic Typology Cambridge Cambridge University Press pp 287 321 doi 10 1017 9781316135716 010 ISBN 9781107091955
