'Whored-out to the KGB': Defining obscenities in Georgian and other languages of the Caucasus
Thomas Wier
July 2024 

This paper will explore how obscene constructions function across languages: what are obscenities, and what is their connection to anthropological taboos? It will argue that obscenities have three key characteristics: nonliteral taboo referents; lexical specificity; and grammatical idiomaticity. It will also show that these same traits found in the obscene language of Western languages can also be found in less-commonly studied languages of the Caucasus.

Format:	[ pdf ]
Reference:	lingbuzz/007649 (please use that when you cite this article)
Published in:
keywords:	georgian, caucasian languages, obscenity, profanity, expressive constructions, taboo language, gender, nakh-daghestanian, armenian, azerbaijani, language contact, phonology, syntax, semantics, morphology
previous versions:	v2 [October 2023] v1 [October 2023]
Downloaded:	794 times

 

[ edit this article | back to article list ]