The premise of this topic is simple: every culture has has expletives, curse words, swears, or whatever you want to call them, so what words/phrases are the Matoran Expletives?
There are a couple of easy ones: “My Mata Nui” and “Go to Karzahni” come to mind, but what about others? I’m sure there’s probably one or two to do with Makuta, and probably a couple of racial slurs that could be found in Legends of Metru Nui (everything Matau says probably). But what’s the Matoran equivalent of the F-bomb? Does their version of BS have to involve Kane-Ra? Because that’s a mouthful… These are the strange thoughts that plague my mind at 4 AM and I invite you to join in the discussion! Please post your ideas for Matoran Expletives below, preferably with a vague description of what they mean (that doesn’t violate board rules of course).
mods please don’t kill me, I promise this topic has a purpose.
A lot of English’s taboo phrases or words are idioms that don’t really translate into other languages due to cultural significance. BS, for example, is just rediculous at face value and the chances Matoran would have an equivalent in their language are almost zero. ‘Go to Karzahni’ makes a lot of sense in Matoran, and it just so happens to have a similar phrase in English- however they don’t have the same cultural significance, even if the connotation is the same. I take issue with ‘Mata Nui!’, because in the Christian faith there is a prohibition against use against such a word in that connotation. Simply lifting it into the Matoran Universe feels empty to me, because there has been no evidence that using the name of the Great Spirit in a negative fashion is a cultural taboo.
I can see an Fbomb equivalent in the Matoran Universe, though, for as psychological studies have demonstrated, individuals are able to withstand a higher degree of pain or duress by uttering curses than by remaining silent, and undoubtedly the Great Beings would have been aware of this.
Yeah, the premise is mostly based on that second paragraph you put, as for “My Mata Nui” I only included it because I’ve seen it around the community and I wanted to preempt it. On the topic if BS I think you are mistaken, while I am in the camp that it wouldn’t involve Kane-Ra, I do believe that the term would exist in some form as a way of comparison of a doubted claim to something worthless or revolting such as excrement in english.
Piraka was meant to be an expletive, isn’t it? And I think Roodaka and Spiriah became expletives for treachery and failure respectively after the actions of their namesakes.
@Matanui606 While BS is only considered an expletive due to the second word that composes it, that second word, which is rather crude to humans to say in many contexts, is only so because we have developed a cultural revulsion to our ‘excrement’. Matoran, having no similar function, would probably not have an equivalent phrase or word. It developed due to our revulsion of the stuff, however in context, we tend to use it to represent anger or frustration instead of revulsion, and thus I find ‘BS’ to be relatively unhelpful in determining a cultural equivalent.
@ToaKhrazix Yeah, Piraka was probably the worst word we know of that you could call a Matoran. Spiriah and Roodaka, on the other hand, while synonymous with those words, were not actual expletives to my knowledge
@Ulti Maybe part-beast meant barbarian or uncivilized? Matoran placed high esteem on civility. On another note, I can’t remember anyone saying Glitch as an expletive.
Also, I remember Reidak uttering a ‘long line of curses’ after getting tossed off the boat by Avak or Vezok on their search for the kanohi dragon. In Legacy of Evil, I believe.
Well, in book no, because it was a Lego product so they can’t have that, but in universe I would be surprised if there wasn’t some form of ‘greater’ insult.
