Aspects of Euphemism in Central Kurdish

Abstract

One of the topics in the sociology of language is the linguistic taboo, which imposes varying degrees of restriction and prohibition on the speakers of each language. Accordingly, language users avoid using taboo words and expressions by applying methods regarding the types of commitment, concern, or necessity of social order, which is called euphemism. The present study adopted a descriptive-analytical approach to classify, signify, and interpret aspects of euphemism in Central Kurdish based on the Warren model. According to the socio-cultural context of the Central Kurdish speakers, the result showed that linguistic taboos mainly include moral, religious, political, and customary issues, and the sexual and physical aspects were more prominent. Therefore, Central Kurdish speakers tended to construct different avoiding techniques to euphemize the linguist taboos by using semantic and formal constructions. Due to their specific nature, metaphor, metonymy, ambiguous words, allusive expressions, synonyms, and neutralizing words were more common. In some cases, a great social action was initiated because of semantic conflict, resulting in the names of six villages being changed. Regardless of its form and quantity, linguistic euphemism avoids verbal violence, creates security and empathy, and ultimately understands the presence of others.

Keywords

• kurdish language
• central kurdish
• taboo
• euphuism
• warren model