I’m in Finland and swedish is our second official language. I’ve heard groups of fennoswede teenagers all speak swedish to each other, except they will throw in properly pronounced finnish curse words (like vittu and perkele). I guess they just are more powerful
I worked at a Chinese restaurant for some years, and my boss natively spoke Mandarin but whenever he was muttering to himself about something or another he would always cuss in English. I have no idea why this should be but it was always hilarious.
My GG-Grandpappy from Hungary (was it Austria-Hungary when he left to the US?) did the same thing. I only ever met him once before he passed but I distinctly remember not understanding a word he said unless he was cursing.
Edit: it WAS Austria-Hungary still, he left in like 1916
Similar situation in South Tyrol (an province at the border to Austria): the german-speaking minority (who is the majority in the province) primarily uses italian curse words.
A theory I once read trying to explain this is that you hope that God is less likely to notice you when you curse in a different language.
I’m in Finland and swedish is our second official language. I’ve heard groups of fennoswede teenagers all speak swedish to each other, except they will throw in properly pronounced finnish curse words (like vittu and perkele). I guess they just are more powerful
I worked at a Chinese restaurant for some years, and my boss natively spoke Mandarin but whenever he was muttering to himself about something or another he would always cuss in English. I have no idea why this should be but it was always hilarious.
Cursing in another language is less stimagtizeda
My GG-Grandpappy from Hungary (was it Austria-Hungary when he left to the US?) did the same thing. I only ever met him once before he passed but I distinctly remember not understanding a word he said unless he was cursing.
Edit: it WAS Austria-Hungary still, he left in like 1916
Similar situation in South Tyrol (an province at the border to Austria): the german-speaking minority (who is the majority in the province) primarily uses italian curse words. A theory I once read trying to explain this is that you hope that God is less likely to notice you when you curse in a different language.
As a regular Swede I will say that Finnish swear words hit differently. More oomph in them xD
Tbf I also do that, but my grandma was Finnish.
I’m German and I also sometimes use perkele, just because it’s such an awesome word. Don’t know about my pronunciation though…
There’s always the old classic video of a finnish man cursing at a bear, which has a good example of how a proper perkele is said