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A taboo is a vehement prohibition of an action based on the belief that such behavior is either too sacred or too accursed for ordinary individuals to undertake, under threat of supernatural punishment.〔''Encyclopædia Britannica Online''. "(Taboo )." Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2012. Retrieved 21 Mar. 2012〕〔Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary, 11th Edition. "(Taboo )."〕 Such prohibitions are present in virtually all societies.〔 The word has been somewhat expanded in the social sciences to strong prohibitions relating to any area of human activity or custom that is sacred or forbidden based on moral judgment and religious beliefs. "Breaking a taboo" is usually considered objectionable by society in general, not merely a subset of a culture. ==Etymology== The term "taboo" comes from the Tongan ''tapu'' or Fijian ''tabu'' ("prohibited", "disallowed", "forbidden"), related among others to the Maori ''tapu'', Hawaiian ''kapu'', Malagasy ''fady''. Its English use dates to 1777 when the British explorer James Cook visited Tonga. Describing the cultural practices of the Tongans, he wrote: The term was translated to him as "consecrated, inviolable, forbidden, unclean or cursed". ''Tabu'' itself has been derived from alleged Tongan morphemes ''ta'' ("mark") and ''bu'' ("especially"), but this may be a folk etymology (note that Tongan does not actually have a phoneme /b/), and ''tapu'' is usually treated as a unitary, non-compound word inherited from Proto-Polynesian *''tapu'', in turn inherited from Proto-Oceanic *''tabu'', with the reconstructed meaning "sacred, forbidden".〔Online Etymology Dictionary. "(Taboo )."〕〔 (【引用サイトリンク】title=Online dictionary )〕 In its current use on Tonga, the word ''tapu'' means "sacred" or "holy", often in the sense of being restricted or protected by custom or law. On the main island, the word is often appended to the end of "Tonga" as ''Tongatapu'', here meaning "Sacred South" rather than "Forbidden South". 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「taboo」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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