Originally Posted by
RollCNY
Interesting tidbit from the development of the English language: Angles, Saxons and Danes had no swear words as profanity. They swore to things, and on things, but not at things. All of the current English swear words that you use to swear at something are of Dutch origin.
But Dutch is also a Teutonic language. So the development of the swear words came after the "split"? Looking at it another way, it isn't the words that some folks didn't have, it was the custom and how the words were used. For example, surely the German tribes had a word for damnation in the religious sense. I presume you are saying they simply didn't invoke that word to issue a curse on someone. Could that really be true?