THE USE OF YOUTH LANGUAGE AND COARSE WORDS IN THE MASHREQ AREA
THE USE OF YOUTH LANGUAGE AND COARSE WORDS IN THE MASHREQ AREA

Summary/Abstract: A language is not a uniform, immutable block but varies over time, in diachrony. Each language changes in the lexicon and its structures in relation to the passage of time and to the changes that take place in culture and society. Over time, vulgar or offensive language has evolved (Allan, Burridge: 2006). The curse expressions or coarse words are an aspect of the linguistic creativity of the Arabs and belong most of all to the domain of orality (Zawrotna: 2016). The language of young people and adolescents, in general, is made up of a very expressive nonconformist vocabulary sometimes imbued with highly colloquial, even vulgar terms and not very comprehensible for those who are not part of the group. Youth language seems to change very rapidly: some terms attested in a certain period seem to be obsolete just a few years later. There are not many studies on youth language in the Arab world, especially in the Mashreq area. The present research, which also takes into consideration previous works, is based on a collection of data deriving from oral and written sources of the Mashreq area. The oral sources are made up of interviewees aged between 18 and 30 years of Egyptian origin.The written sources consist of the texts of rap songs from the Syro- Lebanese area. This kind of text has been selected because rap is a typically youthful artistic expression and therefore uses a sometimes even irreverent youth language.

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