Friday, August 2, 2013

Detail #52: Taboo registers

Australian aboriginal languages have some rather famous taboos, such as
  • the mother-in-law register
  • avoidance of using any words sounding like the names of the recently deceased
Some cool things along these lines could be:
  • taboos based on location (say, in an ethnicity much into sea-faring, boat vs. mainland vs. islands could easily be such taboo-triggering locations)
  • taboos triggered or rendered powerless by rites of passage (old, in that e.g. Damin essentially kind of is a bit like that)
  • taboos triggered by astronomical things
  • taboos triggered by weather - rain, snow, snow-cover, storms, ...
  • taboos triggered by pregnancies or especially by miscarriages?
  • taboos triggered by music
Some things these taboos could trigger could be:
  • avoidance of words on phonological grounds (the Australian taboo)
  • replacing some grammatical markers by a less detailed system
  • an avoidance with some actual weird implications: avoiding statements where certain kinds of evidentials are required. How about during music, avoid hearsay. Or, near pregnant women, avoid guesswork information. Or, avoid first-person experientials during the days before and after the full moon.

No comments:

Post a Comment