Dutch taboo words adrift

Abstract In this chapter, it is investigated to what extent Dutch influenced other languages’ maledicticons, i.e., taboo-language usage such as swearwords, insults, euphemisms and dysphemisms, impolite language, etc. (collectively called maledicta). The focus here is how borrowing of especially lexical maledicta motivates language change. The description is set against a general background of what we know about lexical semantic change, specifically also from a maledictological perspective. Subsequently, the chapter summarises our current knowledge about the spreading of Dutch maledicta, before delving into the analysis of a dataset extracted from Van der Sijs’ Nederlandse woorden wereldwijd ( NWWW 2010 ). The chapter closes with suggestions for future work.