Euphemism and Taboo Language in Funeral Discourse Among the Urhobo People of Delta State

This study examines the use of euphemism and taboo language in funeral discourse among the Urhobo people of Delta State, South South Nigeria. Death-related communication in Urhobo culture is governed by intricate linguistic norms that reflect cosmological beliefs, social hierarchies, and communal mourning practices, yet these have not been systematically studied from a linguistic pragmatics perspective. The study employs a qualitative ethnographic approach, with data collected through observation of funeral proceedings in four Urhobo communities in Warri and Ughelli Local Government Areas, supplemented by interviews with twenty culture bearers. The theoretical framework draws on Wardhaugh's sociolinguistics of taboo and Rawson's taxonomy of euphemism types. The analysis identifies lexical, syntactic, and paralinguistic strategies used to refer to death, the deceased, the afterlife, and funerary objects. Findings reveal a rich system of circumlocution, metaphorical substitution, and semantic bleaching in Urhobo funeral speech, with significant variation based on the deceased's age, social status, and cause of death. The study also documents the increasing intrusion of Christian and English-language funeral conventions into Urhobo discourse, contributing to the erosion of traditional linguistic norms. These findings add to the sociolinguistic documentation of minority Nigerian language communities and recommend community-led initiatives to record traditional funeral discourse. Keywords: euphemism, taboo language, funeral discourse, Urhobo, Delta State.