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I remember coming across an interesting language where the first sounds out of a baby's mouth were not considered to be "mother" and "father," but were instead considered to be a curse word. I want to say it was "ke," but I'm not certain. That culture viewed babies as effectively chaotic demons. Parents did not raise their child at first, but it was taken to nearby relatives to be raised until the child was "proper" enough to be introduced to the parents.

I wanted to cite this fascinating language in a debate, but I am having trouble finding it again amidst all the parenting help sites that Google offers when talking about first words or children swearing. But I'm hoping this is a famous enough case that someone can remember which culture and language this was.

Cort Ammon
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    This sounds like a story someone made up. Maybe this is a claim about Piraha. – user6726 May 11 '18 at 15:43
  • @user6726 I think they may have been an island tribe, but I'll have to check the Piraha. You might be right. The Piraha have a tendency to surprise me by turning all of my assumptions upside down, so it'd fit. – Cort Ammon May 11 '18 at 15:49
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    @Cort I think you should reread the tone of 6726's comment. ;) – Luke Sawczak May 11 '18 at 17:46
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    It might have been in New Jersey or Finland. Possibly New Zealand: https://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/tv-radio/tv-guide/68024538/urzila-carlson-my-babys-first-word-was-a-swear-word – user6726 May 11 '18 at 18:36
  • @CortAmmon Lots of people make claims about Pirahã's weirdness, but very few have reliable evidence to back them up. When it comes down to a single data point that nobody else has been able to reproduce, versus every single other language on the planet, Occam's razor suggests that the one data point might be bad. – Draconis May 11 '18 at 20:17
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    https://stronglang.wordpress.com/2016/09/29/guest-post-little-samoan-potty-mouths/

    http://publicism.info/psychology/f/9.html

     – J.Past May 12 '18 at 12:50
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    "...in this particular case, the kids didn’t have potty mouths; the adults had potty ears." :-) – J.Past May 12 '18 at 12:55
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    @J.Past I think that's it! Nice find! That's just close enough to what I remember that I can blame the rest on my mind's creative literary license! Thanks! – Cort Ammon May 12 '18 at 15:23
  • Your memory is pretty good, even up to the pronunciation of 'tae': "Samoan words spelled with t are only pronounced like the English t in formal speech. In informal registers—for instance, when telling someone to ‘ai tae—it’s pronounced like k. So the word begins with k..." – J.Past May 12 '18 at 16:17
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    @J.Past Make your find an answer instead of a comment, it is worth that! – Sir Cornflakes May 12 '18 at 19:32

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