Swearing in your conlangs

[Jonlang]

So it's pretty much a given that every language and every culture must have some sort of profanity, words generally frowned upon with varying degrees. And in the languages I've looked at they all pretty much stem from bodily fluids, sexual behaviour and sexuality. So have any of you included swear words in your conlangs? If so what are their origins?

[masako]

Kala's list is fairly simple:

punya - jab; poke; stab [fuck]
kotsa - epithet; similar to "bastard", "bitch" or "asshole" (from ko (agentive) and tsaya)
kuna - shit (lit: to defecate)
kyosa - fornicate; have sex
nanka - general invective; "Damn it!"
tsaya (-tsa) - general invective; "Fuck!", “Damn!”, or "Shit!"

[Qxentio]

Interesting topic. Jagárh has only one swear word so far: xaqash. It's an insult that can be used for anyone and it means "snake". You see, the culture holds dragons in high esteem and a snake is essentially a crippled dragon without wings or legs. It is often ascribed a treachorous character, akin to how it is done in Christian mythology.
There is also "posh", which means coward.

[Matrix]

Hurga ker Maja has these so far:

nalar - an epithet that refers to people who trade sex for things; roughly translatable as "whore".
sarkart - literally, "dragon food". as an adjective, can be idiomatically translated as things such as "fucked", "screwed", "gone to shit", etc. as a noun, refers to a supremely overconfident person.
zargelar - literally, "asslicker".
yakayan - an exclamation; "Ai yakayan!" is pretty much "Oh, fuck!" or "Oh, shit!" Yakayan was the name of the elite royal guard order of a kingdom which was an enemy to many other kingdoms a couple thousand years ago. They were hated and feared so much that their name became taboo - and thus invective - in many languages, including the ancestor of modern Hurga ker Maja.
tilar kukukas kamus - a phrase meaning "to act like a fire maja". It refers to sudden bursts of anger seemingly from nowhere, and is considered derogatory towards fire maja.
dorfusyanar - literally "stupid love"; a derogatory version of catyanar, "half love", which is a concept referring to wild, passionate romances that fall apart quickly and violently.

[din]

I don't seem to have much for Tormiott yet. Here's a few; they're all rather mild...

corki ˈkoɹki (interj) shut up (from corc, which is from English cork)

gede ʕəðə (interj) damn it; you idiot! (n) butter churn (v) to churn

hôttaio ˈhoːtːɪjʊ (interj) damn it! (lit. cursed)

ponca ˈponka (v) to be dull, to be blunt; to be stupid (vulgar, compare saupinie); to be mentally retarded (vulgar)

tountethadda ˈtuːntəˌθɛdːa (n) ugly person; idiot, fool (lit. beet head)

[Zaarin]

You forgot religion... I only have one in Tnaqite at the moment:

Qordaʾ qoḇraʾ [ˈɢoʀd̪ɐʔ ˈɢovʀɐʔ] is a derogatory term for humans, literally "cold heart" (Elves have an average temperature about 10ºF hotter than humans); also the variant gul qoḇr [ˈgul̪ ˈɢovʀ] "cold blood." ([ɢ] is an allophone of /q/ before a vowel word initially; /ʀ/ and /r̺/ are both [ʀ] in my main character's dialect but distinct in most dialects.)

[CatDoom]

The Rrób Tè Jĕhnò lexicon offers a few possibilities:

ĕràì [əɻɛ̂ː] - transitive verb - fuck

Cognates in other Rompian languages mean simply "to have sex with," without any implied obscenity, but in RTJ the term is considered lewd, and carries a connotation of obscene or perverse behavior. Unlike the English "fuck," it is always a verb, and is therefore a much less versatile profanity


hrígh [r̥ǐq] - transitive verb - rape

While ĕràì is merely lewd, and is frequently used in jest among friends of the same sex, curses built on the verb hrígh are more than likely to provoke a violent response. Examples of this usage include hrígh dă, "rape [your] mother" and nyehrígh mò "may you be raped", the latter of which is often further elaborated, as in nyehrígh dre tréd mò, "may you be raped by a male dog."


ĕdĕtĕzríb [əd̪ət̪ʰəɖʐǐp] - noun - one who commits incest

Another good way to start a fight, this is an agent noun formed (slightly irregularly) from the verb dĕtĕzríb, meaning "commit incest [with]." It's roughly the RTJ equivalent of "motherfucker."


dlŏ [ɬ̪ǒ] - noun - filth, garbage, grime, shit

This is a fairly broad term used to describe any kind of dirty, unpleasant, and useless material. In most contexts where its used it's not really a profanity, but it's treated as such when speakers use the term to refer to someone or something other than literal garbage, thereby disparaging it as entirely worthless and without merit.


drĕ [ʈě] - noun - menstrual period

Although women are more or less free to discuss the subject among themselves, it's not considered appropriate to talk about menstruation in mixed company. A variety of euphemisms are used when discussion of the topic can't be easily avoided, but there's pretty much no acceptable circumstance in which the word drĕ can be used by or around men. And yet, young boys always seem to pick it up sooner or later, much to their parents' chagrin.


Gĕgĕsă [kəgəz̪ǎ] - noun - a chthonic otherworld believed to be the home of evil spirits

This is more or less the RTJ equivalent of "hell," and is similarly used as a profanity in exclamations of surprise and anger. The general idea is that everything about Gĕgĕsă is unpleasant, so an unpleasant odor might "smell like Gĕgĕsă," a loud noise might sound like "a roar from Gĕgĕsă," and so on.