Children's Knowledge of a Name-Based Avoidance Register: A Quantitative Study among Datooga of Tanzania

Abstract

Among Datooga pastoralists of Tanzania, an elaborate in-law naming taboo has led to the emergence of a conventionalized avoidance vocabulary used by married women. We report on a survey investigating Datooga children's knowledge of this special vocabulary. The questionnaire and our expectations were pre-registered and the results were analyzed using regression analysis. Though use of the avoidance vocabulary is gender-specific, girls were only slightly more knowledgeable than boys about avoidance words. More predictive of children's responses was sociolinguistic environment: children from more “traditional” backgrounds showed greater knowledge of avoidance words. Based on this finding, we discuss how social change may be affecting this particular kind of knowledge transmission. Low overall accuracy reveals the gradual nature of certain types of sociocultural learning. [language learning, knowledge transmission, avoidance registers].