Re: Profane?

In a message dated 6/16/01 8:41:42 PM, seraph@CFL.RR.COM writes:

<< What defines a word to be profane? In what point does a language and its
people accept the word to be a profanity and not just a word? Why and how do
people start new ones as a slang term?


Just something I have been pondering and wanted my colleagues opinions. >>

    Don't know if I have an answer for this, but something related that's
interesting to think about.
    In Chichewa (African language--east?), which is a tone language, there is
an insulting tone, which is "medium-medium-high/sharp fall" (I'm not sure how
else to describe it--I've only heard it).  So, to insult someone, you can
take any old word in the entire language that you can think of and put it
into that tone formation.  So, "I wish you good health" can become a terrible
insult.  But, going further than that, if you don't want to bother with words
in Chichewa to insult someone, you can simply whistle the tone.  A professor
of mine (the one who speaks Chichewa) said he's heard argument where people
just whistle angrily at each other.

-David