I read it was Russian, but some others seem to be pretty high up there as well.
When I say “swear words” I mean words or phrases that would get you in trouble, or at least get you sneered at, if you said them on the street.
Chinese should be a contender, especially some of the dialects like Cantonese, Taiwanese and Shanghaiese. Japanese is pretty low down the list.
English doesn’t have THAT many… a lot are just combinations of other words…
Do dialectal swear words count?
Every Spanish speaking region that I know of seems to have its own set of profanities. “to Fuck” can be chingar, joder, coger, etc. depending on the country.
If you put words from all the dialects together you would have a ton.
As English is a living, breathing language which owes it’s strength and vitality to the habit of stealing any word from any other language which will serve the purpose (bungalow, rendezvous, blitz, etc. etc.) I claim the mantle.
English has more swear words than any other language because it will use all the others as well as it’s own.
I heard somewhere that Greek has the most - or at least is the best language possible to insult anyone in. I really am doubtful, but I’ve heard things about our Mediterranean companions living in the Greek isles…
English would probably be the best overall insulter - we have buttloads of cursewords, and myriad ways of combining them (see: any Pit thread). In my opinion, German would be pretty far down, but it would still have it’s share of wirtydurds.
What about words that, in another context, would be innocuous? I never say ‘damn’ in it’s slang context, but I have no qualms against saying it in a religious or figurative context (although I prefer ‘condemn’, which sounds like it would have about the same root word). Do these get counted, or not? How is ‘curse word’ defined, exactly?
This thread’s pretty interesting; I think I’ll sit here a while.
It really depends. I mean, there are so many different shades of obscene…
FWIW, the most versitle swear word is in the English language, and that word is fuck.
I asked this on USENET years ago, and somebody posted a claim that somebody had actually researched it, and come up with Hungarian.
Actually, I got curious because of a remark made by somebody who spoke Russian. I mentioned that I used to know a word in Russian that I understood was an unbelievably obscene insult, but I never learned what it meant. He told me that Russian has a huge number of obscene words, and that got me wondering.
Another thing I would be curious about is how universal the nature of obscene words is. In English, they mostly have to do with sex and excretory functions, with the theological term “damn” thrown in (and it hardly counts anymore). You can also take the Lord’s name in vain, as per Biblical prohibition. Are sex, elimination and religion pretty much the sources for obscene language in all cultures?
Of course, in recent years, racial slurs have been gaining “obscene” status in English. Many people on this board will unhesitantly print “fuck”, but insist on masking “nigger” with asterisks or other circumlocutions, even in acceptable contexts like reporting verbatim dialog. Racial slurs were always meant to inflame, and are to be categorized as “offensive”, but I’ve been wondering about this phenomena that they are rapidly becoming more “forbidden” than traditional swear words.
I don’t know what language the Taliban speaks but whatever they do will have the most swear words soon if not already.
Sign language. Not on does it have plenty of them but it has regional variationa throughout the US & other countries.
And what about themes?
Do other languages stay with our triumvirate of cursing themes (religion, scatology, sex), or are there other themes for their profanity?
Heres just a few polish swears:
Kurwa, Gòwno, rozpierdol, rozpierdolic, zapierdolic, pierdolic, pierdol, wpierdol, wpierdolic, suka, dziwka, zajebiste, jeb, jebac , rozjebac, zajebac, przejebac, chòj, kutas, przejebales, rozjebales, pierdolis. And thats only a few.
My understanding of Russian profanity is that there’s something like five basic words, but between the fact that it’s a highly inflected language and a healthy dash of Russian creativity, you’ve got something like a dialect unto itself made up of nothing but bad language. An actual Russian speaker will no doubt be along soon to set us straight. (I speak about fifteen words of Russian, mostly when I’m drunk.)
There’s an anecdote about a factory back in Soviet times. They were going to get a special award from the Party for their productivity, and the Party bosses were going to come visit the factory to deliver it. In anticipation of the big day, the managers of the factory said that no one was allowed to use profanity when the bosses were doing their visit. Result? When the bosses came to visit, productivity dropped sharply, and they generally looked like a bunch of buffoons. Why? Nobody knew the “polite” word for anything in the factory. 
FWIW, Google translates these as:
“Whore, shit, rozpierdol, rozpierdolic, zapierdolic, fuck, fuck, the shit, fuck, bitch, slut, awesome, jeb, fuck, rozjebac, zajebać, przejebac, Choja, dick, przejebales, rozjebales, pierdolis”
Obviously Google is not familiar with many of those words (as spelled, at least), but I do love that one of them apparently means “awesome”. 
A common one in Yiddish, etymologically clear FWIW, is to wish cholera on someone. It is still a nasty thing to say.
So disease might be a theme, or whatever most bad and fearful thing (cf God is fearful) to wish upon someone. Calling someone an elephant in some cultures may be a truly nasty or hateful curse.
ETA: But curses are different than profanity, so ignore this post, probably.
Russian doesn’t have that many “swear words”. But the same swear root can be used in dozens of word forms and expressions in a way that is much more versatile than in, say, English.
I count in your list 8 words based on one root for farting and 8 words based on another root for sexual intercourse. I don’t think those should be counted as separate swear words… It’s like counting “fuck up” and “fuck off” as two different “swear words” in English.
But you do count them this way, then yes, Slavic languages would have a huge number of such “swear words” just because of the way words are formed.
My new band name. You can call us “Fuck, fuck, the shit” for short.
Yes, I guess it should be translated as “beautifuckingful”.
In Russian (and in Slavic languages in general) the swear roots can be used to form words that are not necessarily insulting, and in fact among certain class of people are used in everyday language as regular language. For example, “mne po khuy”, even though it contains the word for male sexual organ, just means “I don’t care”. And “blya” (a contraction for the word for prostitute) is very commonly used as a discourse particle or filler (as the word “like” is used in English).
Coming out of an SF convention I passed two guys who had lost their car. One turned to the other and said: “Man, we are so intercoursed!”