2007/06/27 19:57 ::
I don’t swear! I find that if I use up the swear words in day-to-day situations, I will have nothing to use in the critical moments when I actually need to let the steam out. Interestingly, when I do get those moments, I still do not really swear. But I need to know that such release vent exists.
So, I was relieved (if a bit surprised) to find that a competition was held on swearing words and expressions in Esperanto with prizes for top three places and that there were enough candidates offered to need the judges. It took 6 months, but the candidates and the winners are now available. No translation into any other language was provided, but most of the words and expressions are recognizable by anybody who can read Roman alphabet.
This is of course nowhere close to the Russian language, which has a whole shadow language of swearing, but it is probably sufficient for now.
Last 3 posts in Esperanto
- Speed learn a language through Esperanto - January 13th, 2007
- Spam comments in esperanto? - December 28th, 2006
- On open e-book standards and whether translating to Esperanto will bring more readers? - November 5th, 2006
Last 3 posts in Weird Stuff
- Cooking sour grapes - April 17th, 2008
- Languages that make you smile - March 3rd, 2008
- On uselessness of pretending to be somebody else - January 24th, 2008
I was visiting my family in Serbia a few years ago, boy did that open my mind to the creative potential of swearing.
Some of the things that were coming out of my nada’s mouth were mind boggling, i mean, I’d be astounded if anyone said it, let alone an elderly woman who probably should have a walking frame.
Wouldn’t surprise me. Serbian, like Russian, is a much more (grammatically) complex than English and probably has its own swearing sub-language.
The bit about grandmother (but I assume not mother) using it is a bit more surprise, but probably not too much if Serbia had the same clamp-down on it as Soviet Union did.