Insults

[montanaisaleg]

I'm fluent in exactly one language: English. As such, I don't know much about insults in other languages.

Comments

[montanaisaleg]

Which link? The lj cut?

[pne]

Different cultures have different taboo subjects; in English, it's sexuality and genitals that are "four-letter words", while in others, taboo subjects include religion (famously in French Canadian; to some extent also in southern Germany) or, no doubt, other subjects.

So I would imagine that while English is not alone in having a sex-related word being the "worst standard insult", there will be other languages where that role will be taken by a religious swearword or something else.

[montanaisaleg]

That's my intuition too (I've heard rumors of French Canadian insults). I'm sure English isn't alone in giving "f you" type phrases special force and meaning, but I wonder which languages give that special force and meaning to other phrases, so that directly translating "f you" into that language would make the phrase much less forceful than what was intended. I'm pretty sure there are languages where insulting one's ancestors is a pretty terrible thing, but translating those insults into English turns it from an insult into a bit of a joke ("Your ancestors were all stupid and smelly" just doesn't work in English).

[pne]

("Your ancestors were all stupid and smelly" just doesn't work in English)

How about "Your mother's forehead was smooth"?

[montanaisaleg]

Is that an insult in some language? Please say it is!

[kori_to_kukki]

in germany we use the same phrase ("fick dich") very often.

[muckefuck]

My impression is that that's a rather recent development under influence from English. When I first started learning German twenty years ago, the only time I came across "Fick Dich!" was in subtitled American movies.

[axoaxonic]

The Germans straight-out steal English curse words, especially 'fuck' ('fahk!') and 'shit.' :)

[muckefuck]

The case is weaker for "shit" than for "fuck". Schitt or Schiet is found in Low German and has been for centuries. A friend from Niedersachsen used to make "Schittwittertee", which I can guarantee is not a loan from English. It's not unusual for Low German words to be found in Standard German with slightly altered meanings or connotations, so I think it quite likely that Schitt was originally borrowed as less-offensive alternative to Scheisse, in much the same way that (for instance) "shmuck" or "poppycock" entered English.

warning: explicit terms

[iriacynthe]

In (Flemish) Dutch, we don't literally say "fuck you", but we do use sexual organs as insults. Popular examples are "klote" (testicles, usually used as an adjective, like "that klote-teacher", also popular in "kust m'n kloten", meaning "kiss my balls") and "kut" (cunt, both used on it's own, and as part of other insults, a popular one is "kutwijf", meaning something like "cunt-bitch").

[lacunaz]

Bon Cop Bad Cop will actually teach you how to swear in Canadian French. As someone said above, it's all about religion!