So I’ve been in Peru for three months now, and I’m starting to learn about the swear words here. Incidentally, we also have a francophone here, so I took the opportunity to compare various languages in a PG-13 environment.
In English, most of our bad words have to do with parts of the human body or physical actions involving the human body.
In French, apparently most of the swear words (at least in Canadian French), have to do with the Catholic church, and various objects that might be found at a church.
In Spanish, the very worst thing you can do is insult someone’s mother.
So what does this all say about our respective cultures? Are the Spanish very family-oriented, the French very Catholic, and the English amused by fart jokes? Or do the words themselves lose their original meaning once they have been co-opted into the swear word dictionary?
Adventures in Peruvia 