The theory, as far as I understand and remember it, is that these language started in the Urals (and the closest relative to Hungarian are Vogul/Mansi and Ostiak, languages spoken by a handful of people near the Ob river in Siberia. You can clearly see the relation with numbers here. Compare with Finnish numerals where there is no overlap [unless “four” is related. I don’t know if that’s a real cognate or not.])
The Hungarians/Magyars apparently came down from the Urals and into the Carpathian Basin starting around the ninth century. There’s a nice little write-up here under "ethnic affiliations and genetic origins.
While out drinking with a female Japanese co-worker once she told me that to call a Japaness woman a female dog would just get you a dumb, confused look because the culture does not equate this as an insult. She told me that to properly insult a Japanese woman you need to call her a big cow.
I then asked the big cow to bring me another beer; and yes, she was offended!
But calling a woman a “teef” to her face…them’s fighting words.
Dutch has two words for cnt. One, “trut” is so old etmyologically, most people don’t realise it means cnt. It is a moderate insult, often used endearingly.
Calling someone a “trut” when angry, is rude, but not as rude as calling her “teef” (bitch). So the severity of the insult is switched compared to the English usage, where bitch is less bad then c*nt.
Our second word for *cunt" is “kut” and that is seldom used as an noun. “Kut” is an adverb. You can have “kut weer” (nasty weather) or missed the kut train because the kut ticketmachine was out of order, again. Calling someone a “kut” is strange. A kut-what? would be the first question asked. “Kut” is used the same way “fuck” is used in English, and only slightly less versatile.
Doesn’t work in French - you occasionally hear the word “chienne” applied to a woman, but it’s usually humorous, and at best ambiguous. “Pute” - whore, is probably the closest all-purpose feminine insult, also featured in the expression “fils de pute” - son of a gun
I strongly disagree that this is the case in Norwegian! The word for a female dog is tispe, which I have never heard used to insult a female human. (Not even by a Northerner, and if they don’t use a swear word, it just isn’t used.) I hear teens and young adults using the English word “bitch”, and some people use fitte, a crude word for vagina… but never tispe.
Norwegians tend to be very equal-opportunity with their insults.
Seconded. “chienne” (female dog) can be used as an insult, even sometimes in reference to sexual behaviour, but it’s not particularly common. As said, “pute” (whore) or “salope” (slut) would be better translation. Rather “salope”, actually, since it’s used mostly in the same way as “bitch” : either to say that the woman is sexually promiscuous (say, the girlfriend who cheated on you) or that she is a particularly unpleasant woman (the female boss who had you fired).
Also the translation of “cunt” is “con” (or “conne” for a female). However, it’s isn’t perceived at all like “cunt” in the USA. It’s by far the most common insult. Plenty of people will say “what a cunt I am” because they just made some mistake, or “Don’t worry about what she said, she’s just a cunt anyway” , or “You’re such a cunt” because you made a bad joke, etc… it’s used for both genders and without any reference to sexual behaviour. I generally translate it in English by “moron”.
Also, I suspect that the vast majority of French people don’t even know that it refers to female genitalia. It became so common that the original meaning has been lost (maybe you would still find it in contemporary porn literature with this meaning, but I couldn’t tell for sure).
I feel for the Frenchman who would have looked up the translation of “con” and would use “cunt” as liberally in the USA as he would use it in France.
