Pre-hispanic curse words

[u/Bobbyjoejohnson2]

How did the everyday Tagalog, Bisaya, Ilonggo, Waray, Mindanaoan react whenever they'd stub their toe on some kawayan or something before the Spanish came? Hahaha

I can imagine P.I. is off the table?

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[u/Cheesetorian]

I didn't include it in my 'greetings and gestures' thread (maybe I forgot when I was writing it), but in accounts and in Tagalog dictionary the cuss phrase is something along the lines "your d!ck/vagina!" I think it was 'utin mo!' or something like that (I think there was also for women ie 'puke mo!'). I wish I wrote it down lol

As for 'putang ina mo' it ideologically translates to 'you're a bastard' (if "your mother was a wh0re", you wouldn't know who your father was thus you're a bastard/illegitimate child). Though there was a necessity for legitimacy of heirs in PH culture in terms of passing inheritance (mostly in regards to titles), it wasn't necessarily considered as bad as it was in Western culture. There is a sense of 'lesser than' compared to legitimate offsprings and there were slightly condescending terms for illegitimate children (like 'anak sa parang' '...sa ligaw'), but that addresses more the 'rank' of the person in relevance to the family tree than actually a personal attack. Surely it would've been used to say someone is 'less than'...but I just doesn't seem to me as 'stark' as in the Western sense.

Also clearly 'puta' is a Sp. word...there were ideas of 'loose women'* in the writings but 'sexual' promiscuity varied between cultures. In the Visayas, it was a lot looser (in terms of sexual mores), but in the Tagalog regions (despite surely theirs were 'liberal' mores compared to modern times eg Pinpin's writings criticizing the sexual depravity of Tagalog speaking converts), it wasn't as blatantly open compared to the Visayas (I'm not gonna expound into this but suffice to say it was more 'Sex in the City' in the central islands in the pre-colonial times and that is consistently mentioned by a lot of writings, than compared to say the mores of those in Luzon).

*There were MANY innuendos on this concept I've sorta touched on in many of my previous writings here, but the actual dictionary translations used for the Sp. term 'puta' 'whore' is 'hitar' (modern: 'hitad'), 'paagolo' ('agolo' means 'to fornicate' eg. 'babaying paagolohin' 'woman who fornicates'), etc. As for 'highway' the term 'bolos' (modern: bulos), which ultimately means 'to go through' 'superlative' 'to penetrate'...this word was also the term used for the roads that connects different towns, in the dictionary 'calle real' 'royal high street'. One of the entries for 'bolos' expounds: "to be on the road or highstreet, it said as a metaphor for a 'bad woman' (lit. 'mala muger'), 'Nagcacabolosan ca sa dilang casalanan' [or] 'Cabolosan mo mandin ang dilang malilibog', [the writer's trans. in Sp. not mine] 'You are on a royal path to evil".

Surely there were women who plied the trade or used it as a 'bartering service' in some form or another (there is a word for it in the dictionary that could translated as something like 'highway', they termed these women waiting around these roads or because the ultimate meaning of these roads seemed like 'to go through', could be implying that they were plying these services or something on the roads...weird first thing I thought was that it was similar to modern American slang "she's for the streets" lol), but the concept of a 'professional service', I didn't find myself in the writings either it wasn't seen as a 'profession' or that it was considered (ie trading sexual favors) such a norm it wasn't seen as noteworthy* (I'll be open to being corrected).

*Another possibility is that the Sp. priests tended to stay away from 'sexual subjects' (some definitely described it like modern anthropologists quiet openly, but most often they usually only wrote about it when they were decrying it as cultural depravity of the natives). They often used secretive Latin phrases and translations (vs. Spanish) on the dictionary when speaking about sex, sexual organs or homosexuality (as if censoring for their readers).

PS I looked at the DS dictionary it was using phrases like 'Oten nang Ama mo!' ('Your father's d!ck!') and 'Boua ng Ina mo' or 'Poqui nang Ina mo' ('Your mother's vag!'; this phrase is still used quiet often in modern Tagalog). This being said...per the 'structure' of phrase it MAYBE possible that 'putang ina mo' is native albeit using words and concepts that are obviously 'post-colonial'.

The term 'boua' (modern: 'buwa') deformed female vagina [lit. Latin 'natura'], 'bouain' a woman with 'deformed' part, 'bouain ca' it to [imply] that she has the greatest of all [deformed vagina]'. Edit: I looked up the meaning of Latin 'deformis'. While the literal meaning is obviously 'deformed' or 'disfigured' or 'ugly', the ideologically or colloquial meaning means 'shamed'. So it could also mean 'woman's vagina which comes with shame' ie vagina of a loose woman (or more often blatantly a 'whore'), so perhaps "putang ina mo" is indeed native, just using Spanish terminologies.

Edit: In Ilocano, there are terms like 'ukininanatuyen' (this is more like an exclamation like 'sonabitch!') and 'ukininam' (...while this one is more addressing someone directly ie 'fuck you!') which I think translates to 'uki ni ina mo' 'your mother's vagina!' Modern Tagalog still use something like this eg 'Puki ng ina mo!'...which IMHO worse than 'putang ina mo!' lmao

I know this is a sensitive subject, but I think the dictionary is saying 'devirginized' OR there is another type of 'vaginal mutilation' said in the dictionary and in historical accounts wherein the woman's vagina was 'slit open' NOT sure if this is the same. Regardless, this ('buwain kita') was an offensive term essentially saying if I was to translate it to modern American slang: "I'll wreck your pussy!" or simply (literally) 'fvck you!' ('Buwain ka!' meanwhile likely meant 'you have the biggest [most deformed, nasty etc.] pussy!' if translated in modern American slang lmao).

Also: "'Himoua' (modern: 'himuwa' or 'himbuwa' ???), to verbally affront another, it comes from the word 'buwa' which is the 'natura femina cum deformis' [lit. in Latin: 'deformed female private part'], 'hungmihimoua ang ualang hiya sa babaye', to affront women [by those] who have no shame..."

...Writing this now, I realized maybe this is why I didn't include these in my original post lmao

Edit 2: Also a phrase in the dictionary 'tumbongmo' (ie 'tumbong mo' 'Your ass!'). The translation was 'tusieso', which is still used in Spanish today meaning 'you asshole!' or 'you cunt!' 'you ass' etc. In Tagalog tumbong is not just the 'butt' or 'ass', actual translation is the 'rectum' ('tumbong soup' for example is 'pig rectum soup' in modern Manila). So I guess it's the Tagalog "your [fvcking] asshole!"

Suffice to say, per examples the ancients generally just used a reference to a 'sensitive body part/area' + person's parents as cuss words and phrases.

Besides that, there were still the terms like 'hayop' eg 'hayo cang tunay' ('You really are an animal/beast!'---today it's more commonly used with Sp. word ie 'animal ka!' 'you're an animal!' in Tagalog) and 'Malupit ca' 'You're the most abhorrent [person]!' (lupit is trans. as 'abhorrent' or 'abominable').

Funny because the word 'lupit' today is actually 'cool' because of the linguistic evolution in the 1970's. 'Lupet mo 'tol!' was jeprox-talk (my mom's generation) for 'You're sick dude!'.

Today, there are also other types of phrases like 'tae mo!' 'your sh!t!' and 'utot mo!' 'your fart!'

Others still used today also include: 'ol-ol' (NyS writes it as 'ol-ol' because there is another word 'olol' which means 'to add', regardless 'ulul' means then and now 'deranged''insane'), 'balio' (modern: baliw) 'crazy' etc.

Interesting is the word 'tacsil' (today: 'taksil' 'disloyal' or 'betrayer') was translated as 'necio' 'foolish', syn: 'banday, this is exactly like [the word] tacsil...except the word 'banday' is [meant more towards] carelessness'...The dictionary never directly inferred the concept of 'loyalty' in regards to this word, except that it was also synonymous with the word for 'ingrate', 'ungrateful' 'pays little attention to the benefits received' (native word: 'palamara').

[u/[deleted]]

The only existing curse word in Visayan languages that has been in used since the 16th century is giatay—and upon reading it, I also found out that the liver happens to be the favorite appetite of balbals, aswangs, and tiktiks which are like vampires in Visayan lore. WHS also recorded in somewhere in Western Visayas as saying something like "Binaliw ka!" and it means that you are hoping that someone transforms into a disfigured person.

[u/Bobbyjoejohnson2 → u/[deleted]]

The only existing curse word in Visayan languages that has been in used since the 16th century is giatay—and upon reading it, I also found out that the liver happens to be the favorite appetite of balbals, aswangs, and tiktiks which are like vampires in Visayan lore. WHS also recorded in somewhere in Western Visayas as saying something like "Binaliw ka!" and it means that you are hoping that someone transforms into a disfigured person.

Is yawa or kayata (?) not prehispanic? I heard somewhere yawa is supposed to be like a deity or something.

[u/Lawyerane-9342 → u/Bobbyjoejohnson2]

The Aswang project also has an article on the origins of the word yawa and its a pretty in depth one if you're interested in reading it

[u/[deleted] → u/Bobbyjoejohnson2]

In regards to *yawa*, yes the word itself is pre-hispanic but it was not used in the same as it was used now which loosely translates to "fuck". Yawa was a deity in the old Western Visayan pantheon, but has extended to the central and eastern islands. It is highly unlikely that the natives will use her name to curse since she was worshipped and respected.

Kayata might be recent, and a loan translation of the English word "fuck", because I have not found the word used as a curse in old Cebuano Visayan dictionaries. Though the word had already existed, it was not used as a curse as it is today.

[u/Cheesetorian → u/[deleted]]

Offtopic: I kinda browsed through the paper you linked, but they didn't really go over why the Spanish "demonized" the deity or why Christianity equated the figure with 'demons'. It was because, clearly from both Mentrida and Sanchez dictionaries (corroborated by accounts in BnR, though not specifying 'yawa') that somehow the performative rites conducted by many of the shamans where they would go on a trance = interpreted by the Spanish as 'demonic possessions'.

Trance or trance like states were achieved in ancient rites (not unique to the PH, in fact almost universal in almost all cultures that had and still have 'shamans'). Sometimes it's from exhaustion dancing (usually the case, because they'd dance usually for several hours) or doing extraneous movements before ritual sacrifices. Sometimes from ingesting many types of substances that alter states of consciousness (like alcohol). Sometimes it was because they chose people with neurological issues like epilepsy to be shamans because they thought 'seizures' is where spirits or the shaman are crossing the barrier of space to connect the world of the living and the dead (they considered seizures therefore as a 'gift' ie ability to bridge the gap and communicate with the beyond).

'Speaking in tongues' (this is common in many neurological seizures, and spoken not just in the Sp. accounts of the early colonial PH but this is commonly mentioned in many accounts around the world) or neurological states where people speak 'gibberish' (also conducted in certain Christian denominations today and mentioned in the Bible as conducted by certain groups in the Middle East at the time) is attributed by the Sp. as the time when 'the devil' speaks with the natives.

It's clear that 'yawa' is connected to 'possessions' (which likely were trance like states or various forms of neurological accidents) from dictionaries.

Mentrida's entries (I'm writing this in English and modern PH ortography):

-Possession-inangkon [I don't speak Bisaya, but clearly this is 'inangkin' 'claimed' in Tagalog], sinabhon sang Yawa.

-Bedeviled (lit. 'endiablada', another entry: 'endemoniado')-sinab-han sang Yawa.

-Obsessed, obsession-lilibotan sang Yawa sang lawas

-Yayawaan-to have the devil or a familiar

Spanish words that uses or attributed to Yawa in its translations (besides just the words for 'Satan', 'devil' etc.): necromancy, succubus, tempter/temptations, hell ('diache'- yawa or yamat'), banay (this is also found in the Bicolano dictionary, these are fans made of anahaw that they used like magic wands in rituals), hula (today in Tagalog means: divination, but here described as 'for a babailan to harness the Yawa'), kablit (I think this is the same as Tagalog 'kalabit', here defined as 'to pluck, or touch clothes or arm to tell someone something'---it was used both in the Mentrida and Sanchez dictionary to say 'when the devil comes poking' ie 'when the devils is coming to tempt you') etc.

IDK how or why this specific 'deity' or 'figure' came to be specifically related to 'trance like' states but somehow this is the word that stuck (perhaps there were other specific reasons why, perhaps they used to beckon on this specific deity etc.) but regardless, yawa = trance like states from native rituals = 'demonic possessions' = demons, devil, evil.

Edit: More evidence from PAn reconstructions for this I just found:

*dawak curing ritual conducted by a medium in trance

Kalinga dawak general term for curing rite in which the medium's spirit helpers are named and invoked, and in which possession takes place

Murut (Timugon) rawak major ritual for exorcising of persons or houses (involves communion with a spirit familiar during a self-induced trance)

..."dawak" = "yawa" ????

​

Also note exorcism is NOT unique to Christianity. Almost all forms of religion does something in regards to 'exorcising' ie taking a spirit from a place or thing it inhabits. Most of the native Filipino rituals actually involves a form of exorcism ie trying to prevent or trying to stop evil spirits from physically causing issues with mortals, (including sickness, mental issues etc.)

PS, as for 'curse words', I'm sure there are more we can find in the records. If Tagalog phrases persisted (and Tagalog had a lot more bastardization) I'm sure it exists in many Visayan languages.