Is there a common sound of swearing across languages?

Swear words in different languages may lack certain sounds. The pattern of profanity indicates that the approximants may not be offensive.

Swear words are thought to have sounds that help facilitate the expression of emotion and attitude but no study has investigated if there is a universal pattern in the sound of swearing.

The speakers of five unrelated languages were asked to list the most offensive words they knew in their language and exclude racial slurs. The study showed that swearing words were less likely to include approximants. According to the authors, approximants may be less suitable than other sounds for being offensive.

215 people were asked to rate pairs of pseudo-words, one of which included an approximant. The word "zog" in Albanian was changed to "yog" to include an approximant and "tsog" without an approximant. The authors found that people were less likely to find swear words in words with approximants than in words without approximants.

The authors looked at minced oaths, which are variations of swearwords deemed less offensive, for example "darn" instead of "damn." According to the authors, approximants were more frequent than swear words. The introduction of approximants is one of the reasons that oaths are less offensive than swear words.

The authors suggest that the trend in how swear words have evolved across different languages may be due to the use of approximant. Some languages have swear words that include approximants, but French speakers included in the study still rated the pseudo-swear words without approximants as swear words, suggesting there may be a universal bias.

According to the authors, their work suggests a potential universal pattern to swear words across different languages, with the lack of approximants a common feature when looking at swear words.

There's more information about the sound of swearing. There is a link to the article on Springer.com.

Journal information: Psychonomic Bulletin & Review