[Buddha-l] Swearing

[Jamie Hubbard]

Richard Hayes wrote:
> When I was living in Japan I was told repeatedly that there are no swear words 
> in Japanese. People speak openly about sex and other bodily functions. Maybe 
> someone who knows Japanese culture better than I could comment on whether 
> using indigenous Japanese words instead of Chinese-based euphemisms is 
> considered vulgar. The closes thing I can think of to swearing in Japan would 
> be to use the wrong level of politeness when speaking to someone. But is it 
> swearing to tutoyer someone, or just a social gaffe?
>   
Finally something I know a little bit about. . . Well, I don't know 
about the definition of "swearing" vs. "social gaffe," but the idea that 
the Japanese don't swear is an old stereotype. My sweetie is a linguist, 
and Japanese too, and one of her projects some time ago was "akutai," or 
"bad language." It is a pragmatics or socio-linguistics sort of study, 
and for a while it was actually quite a lot of fun to pull nasty 
language out of Japanese videos and the like. Believe me, you can 
achieve the same results (shock, offense, whatever) in Japanese as in 
English. You can easily achieve the functional equivalent of swearing, 
*and* many of the same kinds of words/expressions are employed.

And, Richard, when it comes to politeness, the art is actually not to 
swear by using the wrong level of politeness, but to damn by using the 
highest level of politeness (we do the same thing in English). I once 
watched my obatarien mother-in-law totally skewer a pompous Zen monk 
with the *highest* level of keigo (polite or honorific language). . . a 
strategy well-known in the English-language world as well, but in my 
experience practiced at a vastly higher level in Japan. . .

Of course, the enquiring mind wants to know, and tho I am no pro, there 
is all the range of bad language in Japanese: body part terms (ketsu, 
ketsukan, ketsukaru= ass, ketsunoana (asshole) "nanzarashite ketsukan 
zo" = something like "what the f*** are you doing" and chinpo, manko 
[look it up]: joke: what do you call Superman's child? Answer: 
Supaamanko!); typical scat stuff ("kuso" = shit) and the like, *and* 
(here is the Buddhist connection) religious/sacrilegious derived from 
Buddhist terms: chikusho = sort of like "damnit", but literally refers 
to the animal realm in the six buddhist realms, perhaps a kind of "damn 
you to hell" sort of usage; "gaki" = brat, little shithead, from preta 
or hungry ghost); "oni," demon or devil; "jigoku ni ike", lit. "go to 
[Buddhist] hell". And on and on. Of course, importing is OK too, so 
faaku yuu is also pretty current.

I am sure that there is lots more Japanese "swearing," but I am just a 
little ole religion teacher who walks to work and doesn't know much 
about that sort of thing.

Have fun,

Jim-Bob
Bobo-Tech Industries