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macleginn
tuukkah
In Finnish, "not" is an auxiliary verb, so "do" + "not" and similar combinations are just one word:
"I do not" => "En"
"(It) does not" => "Ei"
horsawlarway
That's interesting - since basically every auxiliary verb I can think of for english
(Am, is, are, was, were, will, have, has, had, may, might, can, could, shall, should, must, ought to, would)
has a contraction form with "not" (although some are fairly colloquial, or considered out of date):
(amn't, isn't, aren't, wasn't, weren't, willn't, haven't, hasn't, hadn't, mayn't, can't, couldn't, shalln't, shouldn't, mustn't, oughtn't to, wouldn't)
thaumasiotes
> amn't
Amn't is neither standard nor historically supported; the word naturally developed into the modern word ain't, which is stigmatized.
Standard English essentially requires "I'm not" instead. Where avoiding the inflectional form is impossible, the standard awkwardly provides first-person aren't.
> willn't
Not sure what you were thinking here; there is a negative form of will, but it's won't.
> shalln't
And this is shan't.
jononomo
It is not "shalln't", it is "shan't" -- https://www.dictionary.com/browse/shant
Also, you can abbreviate "it is" as "it's" and "is not" as "isn't", but what do you abbreviate "it is not" as?
tedd4u
Isn’t is it “won’t” for “will not”? (Not “willn’t”)
ruined
the contraction for "am not" is "ain't", not "amn't", which isn't a word
CSSer
The Hungarian and Finnish location and direction suffixes thing sounds a lot like latin case. Do you know off-hand if it’s related?
macleginn
"Relatedness" is a very thorny notion here because we cannot discount the possibility of long-range contact influence in Western Eurasia. Many ancient Indo-European languages had some kind of ablative or locative case, and accusative was often used in a directional sense.
However, localtive-case systems of Hungarian and Finnish are much more developed than anything we see in Indo-European (Latin has at most 3 cases with locative/directional semantics; Hungarian has 9; Finnish has 8), so it's a different system anyway.
beeforpork
It's not related. But suffixing is a very common way of expressing stuff also in unrelated languages, e.g., your Finnish locative works just like it does in Japanese or Tamil (structurally, not literally: it is a different ending) -- and those three are totally unrelated.
Structurally, Finnish endings are also quite different from Latin as the ending is always the same (almost, except for vowel changes), while Latin has an array of endings for the same function and you need to learn about declension classes of nouns to understand how to select the right one. Finnish 'cases' are more like suffixes like '-ne' or '-que' in Latin. E.g., '-ssa' or '-ssä' is 'in (location)': 'Amerikassa' 'in America', 'Sveitsissä' 'in Switzerland'. In Japanese the ending for 'in' is '-de' and in Tamil, it is '-il'.
thaumasiotes
> Finnish 'cases' are more like suffixes like '-ne' or '-que' in Latin. E.g., '-ssa' or '-ssä' is 'in (location)': 'Amerikassa' 'in America', 'Sveitsissä' 'in Switzerland'. In Japanese the ending for 'in' is '-de' and in Tamil, it is '-il'.
This seems to confuse inflectional suffixes with analytic particles. Certainly -ne and -que in Latin are not suffixes; they are clitics, exactly analogous to the English articles a(n) and the (not usually considered "prefixes"). They are not part of the word after which they appear. In contrast, the -i in humi "on the ground" is a part of the word, which mutated into that form to express a locative use.
(As a side note, that is not at all the norm in Latin - location is usually expressed with a preposition, as in sub monte "under [at the foot of] the mountain". Humus is one of only a handful of words that preserve the locative case.)
I believe the situation for Japanese de is similar, with de being either a clitic or a fully independent word. I have no knowledge of Tamil or Finnish.
nulbyte
Related in that they serve similar functions, perhaps. However, while Latin is an Indo-European language, Hungarian and Finnish are Uralic languages. The difference is notable in the number of cases; Latin has six, while Hungarian has 17.
CSSer
Does anyone know why this was downvoted? It was a genuine question. I’m confused. Accident, maybe?
Tainnor
Thanks.
Most people know exactly nothing about linguistics, but because everyone speaks a language, they feel qualified to talk about it. The results are mostly ridiculous to anyone actually trained in the field.
dang
I'm sure all that's true (we see the same things in diet threads too - you eat food? no way, me too!) - but still, please don't post empty putdowns like this to HN. It just makes things worse.
When you know more than others, the thing to do is to share some of what you know, so we all can learn. That's what macleginn did in the GP comment, making the thread much better.
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
Tainnor
I get your point, but the reasoning for my "putdown" can be found in GGP's comment, so I feel like you're getting hung up on a minor issue here. I was merely corroborating the first sentence of GGP's comment.
Certainly, if the bar for comments here is "it has to make the reader substantially more knowledgeable", not a lot of comments would remain. Even in this very comment section, I can find other "empty putdowns" or not very substantiated comments.
vt85
[dead]
messe
> Nepal's Kusunda language has no known origin and a number of quirks, like no words for "yes" or "no".
That's not that uncommon, Scottish Gaelic and Irish, both spoken in the UK (take note British Broadcasting Corporation), have that same quirk—at least traditionally. There's some anecdotal evidence that with the number of non-native speakers learning the language, that Tá/Níl and Sea/Ní hea are starting to fill that gap in Irish.
> including lacking any standard way of negating a sentence, [...], or any words for direction.
These are much more interesting features (or lack thereof)! Why wouldn't the article lead with that?
EDIT: This is even funnier after seeing that the author even has a name of Scottish Gaelic/Irish origin: Eileen McDougall.
eloisius
Mandarin also does not have direct equivalents of ‘yes’ and ‘no’. There is a negator word 不 bù, but just answering 「不」 wouldn’t make sense. You answer a question with the verb that was asked. ‘Do you like coffee?’ ‘Like!’ or ‘不like‘. It doesn’t feel any different or make me experience any sort of mental contortion to use this pattern to convey the exact same information I’d convey in English.
I used to really like these pop linguistics kind of articles about exotic languages without tenses or plurals or what have you. It made my imagination churn to think about how it might influence your conception of the world if you expressed time in terms of length, size, or quantity. I remember a RadioLab show about the ancient Greeks having no word for blue, and that as a result they couldn’t perceive it.
I’ve since learned that this all stems from a theory called linguistic relativism, that the language we use constructs our worldview. I’m much less excited in this kind of idea since learning mandarin. I express the exact same thoughts and ideas I have in English, even if I express them without syntactical tenses, plurals, or whatever. Feels the same.
Aransentin
> You answer a question with the verb that was asked. ‘Do you like coffee?’ ‘Like!’ or ‘不like‘.
Surely this explains that Chinese bootleg Star Wars translation meme where Darth Vader's "Nooo" is subtitled as "Do not want"?
eloisius
I didn’t know this was the root of the ‘do not want’ meme. TIL. If I was to translate bootleg copy of Star Wars I think Darth Vader was probably trying to express ‘幹！’
Jokes aside, yes that make sense, you could express your regret or refusal by saying 我不要！ or you could say something like ‘how awful!’ Chinese translated literally sometimes feels so corny.
xobs
That's it exactly. "要" means "want", and "不要" means "not want".
adastra22
Yes, because that's what a Mandarin-speaking Darth Vader would have said in that context. 不要 literally means "don't want" but is probably the most common negated verb combination used as "no." It's what a 2 year old would yell if you made them do something they didn't want to do. Here it's more an emotion expression "no, this is not what I wanted!"
raffraffraff
I read this response to my wife and she's in stitches.
Tainnor
> linguistic relativism
is a really hot button issue in linguistics, because it obviously correlates with certain ideological worldviews one way or another.
If you actually look at the data... it's complicated. In my view, neither the hardcore relativists nor the hardcore universalists are right. Probably there is some symbiotic relationship between the concepts we express in language and the saliency of certain distinctions in our habitual cognition.
IOW, it's highly unlikely that the Ancient Greeks didn't perceive the colour blue (much less so that this was caused by their language), but it is possible that the distinction between the colour blue and certain other colours was not seen as as significant as other distinctions (e.g. saturation, brightness). But all this theory ultimately stems from this one expression in Homer about the "wine-red sea" and one can only speculate.
If you want a good pop-sci overview of the situation, though still written by a linguist, try Guy Deutscher's "Through the Looking Glass". That said, he does come down a bit more on the pro-relativism side, so you may also want to read the counterarguments in John McWhorther's "The Language Hoax", which I haven't read though.
Ichthypresbyter
The book is "Through the Language Glass", which I agree is very good.
a1369209993
> In my view, neither the hardcore relativists nor the hardcore universalists are right.
I don't remember the exact phrasing, but I believe the relevant quote goes something like:
"The strong version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is obviously false to anyone who's ever felt the need to coin a new term to describe something they didn't previously have words for.
The weak version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is obviously true to anyone who's ever felt the need to coin a new term to describe something they didn't previously have words for."
(In the context of a formulation where the strong version is that language limitations make certain things impossible to think or express, and the weak version is that language limitations just make certain things difficult or inconvenient to think or express.)
Swizec
Not having the word for a color, or living in an environment where it doesn’t feel relevant, does impact your ability to distinguish that color. You can still see it, of course, but it takes you measurably longer to perceive. Almost like a form of mild color blindness. Like you have to focus harder to tell colors apart if you don’t have a word for them.
Enginerrrd
Oooh I really like that for when people ask ambiguous questions. So is there an equivalent in mandarin for "Have you stopped beating your wife"?
It seems like maybe you could just say "no beat" and there's no linguistic trap.
Tao3300
> "Have you stopped beating your wife"?
The correct answer to this perennial bad riddle is "only because your mom got jealous".
eloisius
I think I’d have trouble explaining this joke to someone. There is a way to say ‘I’ve stopped’: 我停止了, but I think they’d probably just answer me 我從來沒有打過我的太太 ‘I’ve never beaten my wife’.
It does make the binary logic humor answer ‘yes’ to ‘do you V A or B?’ impossible, because there are different ways to express ‘or’ for questions or statements. I suppose puns and humor dependent upon word play is one area where I do think differently in Chinese vs English. You can crack jokes if you know how similar sounding words might be mistaken.
messe
I'm not sure how that's any less ambiguous than answering "I don't beat her".
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thaumasiotes
> Mandarin also does not have direct equivalents of ‘yes’ and ‘no’.
This is going a little too far; 是的 is a direct equivalent of "yes".
derekzhouzhen
It is different. "是的" means "That's correct"; So if someone ask me "you don't smoke?" and I answer "是的" that means I don't smoke, which is actually what "no" means in standard English.
eloisius
It’s the equivalent to ‘yes’ in a subset of contexts where ‘yes’ would make sense, for example ‘Is he the guy you were talking about?’ 「是的」 would make sense to say yes. But it wouldn’t work as an answer like ‘yes, I like hiking’.
mazlix
I wouldn’t say that. Maybe someone would understand what you mean but it’s definitely not as versatile as yes.
I’d say the closest to yes is 嗯
adastra22
> I express the exact same thoughts and ideas I have in English, even if I express them without syntactical tenses, plurals, or whatever. Feels the same.
It feels the same now. But you're not (and can't) compare what it was like to think that way before learning mandarin and after. Even your memories are modified by your present linguistic understanding.
Language doesn't strongly determine how you think and feel. It's more complex than that. But many studies have shown the benefits of bilingualism, and the limited-in-scope effects that language can have on your thinking. Linguistic relativism is a real thing.
brazzy
> There is a negator word 不 bù, but just answering 「不」 wouldn’t make sense.
That goes a bit too far. It would certainly be understood, but be considered quirky, or an indication that you're not a native speaker.
My kids are bilingual German/Mandarin, and use it like that quite a bit.
tgv
So how do these languages (Scottish Gaelic and Irish) express affirmation and negation then? I couldn't find it on Wikipedia. I can imagine that affirmation would be a repeated variation on the question, as some languages do (e.g., "Have you got your ticket?" "I have it"), but negation?
messe
There is a word that negates a sentence/clause, just not a word for no. You're correct that we repeat the verb (tá is the independent form when no particle precedes it, fuil is the dependent form, which here has an initial mutation adding bh to its beginning). "Have you got your ticket?":
- An bhfuil do thicéad agat? (LIT: is your ticket at-you?)
- (interrogative) is your ticket at-you?
- Tá mo thicéad agam.
- is my ticket at-me.
- Níl mo thicéad agam.
- Ní-fhuil
- not-is my ticket at-me.
- An gcanann tú?
- (interrogative) sing you?
- Canann mé / Canaim
- sing I / sing-1st.pres
- Ní chanann mé / Ní chanaim
- not sing I / not sing-1st.pres
EDIT: Unfortunately, code blocks are necessary for alignment, so I've added '-' to the beginning of each line to aid in legibility on mobile.
dorchadas
Apart from Donegal, you won't really find the analytic first person singular present anywhere outside of the verbs tá and bíonn. Even in Donegal, the synthetic is best.
Also, you don't have to repeat the pronoun (unless it is one with the analytic form).
An gcanann sé? Canann.
davidw
> Canann
Interesting; same root as Italian 'cantare'.
frosted-flakes
You should know that your code blocks are complete gibberish on mobile browsers.
tgv
Thanks, most informative.
Gordonjcp
In Scottish Gaelic you'd use "Tha" or "Chan eil" to literally say "yes" or "no".
"Tha" - pronounced like "Haa" - is more like "It is" or "I am", "A'bheil thu sgìth?" "Tha, tha mi sgìth." "Are you tired?" "Yes, I am tired".
"Chan eil" - the "ch" is like in "loch", that back-of-the-throat sound, and "eil" is like "ale" - is a syntactically gendered form of "Cha" and "bheil", where the "bh" pronounced a bit like a "v" is dropped and an "n" is added. "Syntactically gendered" isn't like male female person gender, it's like plug socket gender - you can't say "Cha eil" because there's a stupid-sounding stop in it, like you can't say "a apple". You'd say "*an* apple" so you've got a consonant between the vowel sounds.
But yeah in general I'd ask you "Are you hungry?" and you'd say "I'm not" or "I am" rather than "No" or "Yes".
Of course modern Gaelic is a heavily code-switched language so you'd probably just use "No" or "Yes" directly anyway if you were speaking in a modern idiom.
messe
Hmm. If I asked the following (forgive my spelling/grammar, it's be a while since I've studied Scottish Gaelic, so I've probably fecked up the mutations and question particle, I've put what I intend it to mean in English)
> Am bidh thu sgìth? Are you tired? (regularly)
Would you answer "Bidh", "Tha", or "Tha, bidh mi sgìth"?
raverbashing
> as some languages do (e.g., "Have you got your ticket?" "I have it"), but negation?
They say "I haven't it" (they negate the verb)
(Which in English sound weird, but you can negate the verb without using 'no')
Macha
I mean practically Níl on its own is no in actual spoken Irish, but that is a relatively recent usage that came about because approximately all Irish speakers learned English as a first language and want to import the usage.
But yes, officially and historically the correct response was like "Níl aon tickead agam" or "There is no ticket on me", or less directly translated/less awkwardly "I don't have a ticket"
Asraelite
I don't quite understand the point you're trying to make. "I haven't it" and "I don't have it" are essentially the same: the clitic "n't" applied to a verb to negate it. In one case you use an auxiliary verb and in another you don't, but the method of negation is the same.
gerdesj
I aint is an old but still used negation of to have. So: "Got your ticket"? "I aint"! However this is heading into regional variance territory. Granny Weatherwax (Discworld witch) famously wore a sign saying: "I aten't dead" when off Borrowing.
bergenty
Sounds like most of them just negate the operative verb in the question.
Do you have a pen? Have Not have
mjklin
In fact filmmaker Manchán Magan had to borrow the English word “no” to title his documentary “No Béarla” (No English) in which he roamed Ireland attempting to speak only Irish.
Macha
I think that's pretty much to be a bit more harsh on Irish people who don't speak Irish, and also to be more recognisable as a title to non-Irish speakers (who would likely at least still recognise Béarla from years of Irish lessons).
"Gan Bearla" or "Without English" would have been an equally short title without resorting to a bilingual title.
youngNed
> take note British Broadcasting Corporation
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize <-- Gàidhlig / Gaeilge / Cymraeg language options available
Gàidhlig
- https://www.bbc.co.uk/alba <-- a tv channel
- https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/live:bbc_radio_nan_gaidhea... <-- a radio channel
- https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/p09xzjpm
- https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/group/p09xwbsz
Gaeilge
- https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/group/p084p79m <-- not a dedicated channel like Gàidhlig but regular TV programming
- https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/subjects/zqtw7ty
- https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007cpvp
- https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00cmsk6
I mean, thats just a very quick look, yes Gàidhlig is better served than Gaeilge but my feeling is that those looking for Gaeilge resources are probably looking elsewhere ;-)
nailer
The point was that the BBC writer of this article should already be aware of Gaelic languages.
youngNed
> The point was that the BBC writer of this article should already be aware of Gaelic languages.
Ah yes, i see that now, TY for pointing that out (i would imagine that the writer is not a 'BBC writer' but a freelancer, but yes, i see the point
chris_j
Ditto the Welsh language (also a Celtic language spoken in the UK), where there traditionally weren't words for yes and no and where the words used instead depend upon tense, person and the verb being responded to.
DFHippie
> depend upon tense, person and the verb being responded to
Or the structure of the sentence.
-- Dych chi'n dwp? -- Ydw. (-- Are you stupid? -- Yes.) [verb initial]
-- Athro wyt ti? -- Ie. (-- Are you a teacher? -- Yes.) [noun initial]
messe
Interesting to know! I suspected that might be the case, but didn't include it as I'm not all that familiar with the Brittonic languages.
w0mbat
I came here to mention Irish/Gaelic traditionally lacking "yes" and "no". This leads to replies that seem a bit verbose but are kind of charming, e.g. "Would you like a cup of tea?" "I would not".
dorchadas
> There's some anecdotal evidence that with the number of non-native speakers learning the language, that Tá/Níl and Sea/Ní hea are starting to fill that gap in Irish.
Only among non-natives or natives of the Neo-Irish that is starting to form outside the Gaeltacht. This is not a change that is happening, from my experience, in the Gaeltacht raised with traditional Irish speaking parents. It's really a sign of the weakening of the language.
Macha
Do you want to have the language as a living language or as a fossilized relic? It's long been a complaint of the gaelgoir crowd that Irish people do not use the Irish language and they're losing touch with the culture.
A consequence of the push for more widespread usage of the language that came from that is that a language in use evolves. Even English language media from 50 years ago is markedly different in the way the language is used.
So I feel the influence of the Duolingo/meetup generation of Irish language speakers is both inevitable and arguably a sign of the increased uptake of the language - if such people were small in number compared to the traditional speakers, they could not have had this outsized influence.
Also in the case of Tá/Níl as Yes/No in particular, the roots of that probably also have something to do with bilingual government forms adopting it as a space saving measure, so these new speakers have a lifetime of seeing Tá/Yes and Níl/No options on professionally translated forms that may also have primed this development.
seabird
There is no reason a living language can't be a fossilized relic. French has the fairly conservative French Academy. The German case system as you would learn it from a textbook has been kept on life support by academics and formal users for centuries.
dorchadas
> Do you want to have the language as a living language or as a fossilized relic?
I want to see it remain a living language. I don't want to see it becoming, as it is in idiom, sounds and grammar, "English in Irish drag" (quoting a prominent linguist on the matter). It's not Irish. It's people substituting Irish words into English grammar, using English sounds and idioms to do so. That's the death of Irish.
> It's long been a complaint of the gaelgoir crowd that Irish people do not use the Irish language and they're losing touch with the culture.
There's a huge difference between the 'gaelgoir' crowd and native speakers (none of whom would call themselves Gaeilgeoirí -- those are specifically the learners who come in with notebooks or to the summer schools).
> A consequence of the push for more widespread usage of the language that came from that is that a language in use evolves. Even English language media from 50 years ago is markedly different in the way the language is used.
There's a difference between language evolution and language death. There's also a difference between learners not learning properly and native speakers changing the language naturally (.i. not under conditions of language death)
> So I feel the influence of the Duolingo/meetup generation of Irish language speakers is both inevitable and arguably a sign of the increased uptake of the language - if such people were small in number compared to the traditional speakers, they could not have had this outsized influence.
The problem is the shitty level of Irish held by most school teachers, even those in the Gaelscoileanna. And their ignorance on proper Irish idiom, grammar and sounds that then gets passed on.
> Also in the case of Tá/Níl as Yes/No in particular, the roots of that probably also have something to do with bilingual government forms adopting it as a space saving measure, so these new speakers have a lifetime of seeing Tá/Yes and Níl/No options on professionally translated forms that may also have primed this development.
And those forms are purposefully translated so that Tá/Yes Níl/No is an answer to an "An bhfuil" question, following proper Irish grammar (usually "An bhfuil tú i bhfábhar ...").
But, natural language change is not what's happening with Irish. Instead, we're seeing a split between the traditional Gaeltacht raised native speakers and a pidgin/creole forming in the urban areas. Sadly, only one can survive and it's less and less likely it'll be traditional Irish. Instead, we'll be left with something that calls itself Irish, but is really no different from English in the way it expresses concepts, the sounds it uses to express those concepts and, outside perhaps the very basics, the grammar it uses to express those concepts. The only thing different is the words it uses. That's not Irish.
You'd never see this happening with any majority language -- French speakers would be rightfully up in arms if someone spoke French with English sounds, used English grammar and then claimed their French was just as authentic as the natives'. Sadly, we accept it -- praise it -- for Irish. At the expense of the traditional, rich native language and the Gaelic worldview (assuming linguistic relativity and/or cognitive metaphors shape the way we think; I lean towards the latter)
messe
> This is not a change that is happening, from my experience, in the Gaeltacht raised with traditional Irish speaking parents.
Of which there are less and less of. I think the only way Irish can survive in the long term is in a semi-creolized form with a lot of English influence. It's all well and good trying to codify a variety of "proper Irish", but realistically if it is to gain any amount of new speakers, it's going to have significant influence from the native languages of those new speakers—which will be English.
This isn't unnatural. Languages are influenced by non-native speakers all the time. See English: a Germanic language with much of its vocabulary derived from Norman French, Latin, and Greek, and a loss of almost all inflection save for some irregular verbs, and referring to ships in the feminine.
Look, I'd like as much as the next person to preserve Irish as native speakers speak it, but the chance to do that died over a century ago.
dorchadas
> I think the only way Irish can survive in the long term is in a semi-creolized form with a lot of English influence.
Then that's not Irish. It's a Neo-Irish creole. Which is fine -- great even! -- but let's call it what it is.
> See English: a Germanic language with much of its vocabulary derived from Norman French, Latin, and Greek, and a loss of almost all inflection save for some irregular verbs, and referring to ships in the feminine.
There's a huge difference between what's going on with Irish and what happened with English under Norman rule. For instance, the sound system is still fairly Germanic, the grammar most definitely is. Both these things are being lost in Neo-Irish.
> Look, I'd like as much as the next person to preserve Irish as native speakers speak it, but the chance to do that died over a century ago.
I think there is still a chance, if radical steps are taken. Sadly, you're right; they won't be taken.
I'm fine with something surviving, but we need to be honest about what it is, and how the State has failed those who actually speak traditional Irish and all but guaranteed its death, thanks, in part, to the way it implemented it in the schools. It should've always been a Gaeltacht outward revival.
Ichthypresbyter
I think Tá/Níl were used (after some debate) as Yes/No on the Irish-language ballot papers in various recent constitutional referenda in Ireland.
(Gaelic in Scotland does not have the same official status as Irish in Ireland or Welsh in Wales, so the Scottish independence referendum ballots were only in English.)
messe
Yes, they were. I can't remember the exact wording of the question, but I believe it was along the lines of "Are you in favour?" so the answer could be "I am/Tá", or "I am not/Níl". I could be wrong, so if somebody can remember the wording on the ballot paper, please don't hesitate to correct me.
qsort
Most famously, Latin has no word for "yes". Different circumlocutions to say "yes" evolved into the words for "yes" in romance languages.
"sic" -> si/sim (italian, spanish, portuguese)
"hoc" -> oc (occitan)
"hoc ille" -> oui (french)
messe
French has "si" from "sic" as well! Used in an affirmative response to a negative question. Pulling an example from wiktionary:
Tu ne m’aimes pas, n’est-ce pas ? — Si !
You don’t like me, do you? — Yes, I do!remram
This has interesting consequences on my speaking English.
Do you not like me?
Of course there is no "si" in English and I know that, but because I grew up speaking French, I intuitively understand "no" to mean agreement, which is not usually what a native English speaker means. I will also tend to reply "no" to mean agreement, though I will not reply "yes": I will notice that I can't say "si", but forget that the absence of "si" also means I can't say "no".
Wildgoose
English used to have this distinction, we used to use "yes" as a strong affirmative, and "yeah" otherwise. We still use both words but the distinction between them has disappeared.
samatman
I'm curious if you or someone else can answer this: is this use similar or identical to the German "doch"?
I've always like "doch", which was explained to me as meaning "I agree with you", and spares the speaker the effort of matching the negatives or not in the question.
"Are you going to the club then?" "yes" "doch" "Are you not going to the club then?" "no" "doch"
Taywee
That's not how "doch" works. It's the German "though" and works to mean effectively "on the contrary" in response to a negative question. It doesn't work in response to a positive question.
"Du magst mich nicht?" You don't like me? "Doch" Yes I do.
simiones
No, "si" is only used as a positive response to a negative question.
A: Tu ne vas pas au club, n'est-ce pas? //You're not going to the club, right?
B: Si! //Yes! ; this means B is going to the club
B: Oui! //Yes! ; this means B is agreeing with A, indeed B is not going to the club; in practice this is probably somewhat ambiguous
B: Non! //No! ; probably this also means that B is not going to the club, though it could also mean that B is contradicting A: B is going to the club.
In contrast, if A had asked "Tu vas au club?" (Are you going to the club?), B wouldn't normally answer "Si", since "Si" only makes sense as a response for a negative question.
qsort
It's more about resolving the ambiguity of a negative question. Taking GP's example:
You don’t like me, do you?
French resolves that ambiguity with "si" to mean the latter. In languages like English that don't have the same concept, you would repeat a bit of the question to clarify.
Tao3300
I was going to say that I was fairly sure Latin didn't have "yes", but I was a C student scraping by on the peripheral historical content rather than the language.
schoen
Other circumlocutions that I don't think made it into any Romance languages:
"ita" ('it is so', 'indeed')
"ita vero" ('it is so, truly')
"maxime" ('entirely')
"valde" ('very much (so)')
"vere" ('truly')
There are great circumlocutions for "no". I remember Nancy Llewellyn had a whole list, including "haud quaquam" ('hardly/scarcely to any degree'), "nullo modo" and "nullo pacto" ('in no way'), and "nullactenus" ('to no extent'). Latin students are most often taught "minime" ('minimally', 'scarcely').
Without the circumlocutions I think you would simply do what so many other languages described here do, which is repeat the main verb of a question, either negated or not negated.
pyuser583
Nec/necque are a good way to negate in Latin.
pyuser583
In the 11th Century, Peter Abelard wrote a famous book called “Sic et Non” - which is always translated as “Yes and No.”
Even in Classical Latin “ita” was pretty close to yes.
I think an ancient Roman would understand and possibly use sic and ita much as we use “yes”.
But it’s been a while. My Latin is rusty.
thematrixturtle
Skepticism is usually warranted about claims that <super obscure language> has a <really unique feature> or doesn't have <really common concept>. Linguists like to publish this kind of thing because it's catchy, but many of these claims don't stand up to closer scrutiny.
A few examples:
* Daniel Everett made an entire career out of claiming various dubious things about the Piraha language, including that it has no colors other than light/dark, lacks recursion and has phonemes used in no other language on the planet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirah%C3%A3_language#Unusual_f...
* Guugu Yimithirr supposedly only has absolute directions (north, west, etc, instead of left, right) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guugu_Yimithirr_language
bradrn
This is a problem with press coverage much more so than linguistics. As usual when they cover things they’re not familiar with, journalists often wildly exaggerate these claims to make them sound more interesting. By contrast, from what I’ve seen of the linguistic literature, actual linguists tend to be fairly measured in their assessments of languages, and generally support their arguments with evidence. For instance, we have more than enough evidence that Guugu Yimithirr really does only have absolute directions [0]; there are of course some subtleties in how they are applied, but either way it undoubtedly has no words corresponding to relative directions. This isn’t even too rare, either — e.g. many languages of Vanuatu are exactly the same [1]. Everett is the only case I can think of where there genuinely has been the sort of wild exaggeration more often found in the press. (Though even there, I suspect his critics have been looking rather more at the predictions of Chomskyan formal syntax than at what’s actually happening. It wouldn’t be the first time.)
[0] Haviland 2008, Guugu Yimithirr Cardinal Directions: https://doi.org/10.1525/eth.1998.26.1.25
[1] François 2005, The ins and outs of up and down: Disentangling the nine geocentric space systems of Torres and Banks languages: http://alex.francois.online.fr/data/AlexFrancois_2015_North-...
macleginn
The second claim is much less radical than the first one. In many small communities, absolute directions (often based on local landmarks rather than abstract cardinal directions) are perfectly reasonable, but these systems have to be recalibrated when speakers migrate. Viking migrations and their interaction with speakers of Greenlandic Inuit is an interesting case outside Australia: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03740463.2017.1...
Tainnor
Nobody knows anything about Everett's claims, because they're so outlandish and nobody has been able to verify them.
But the absolute directions in GY are well-established, and not really all that unusual cross-linguistically. Relative directions also play a minor role in a number of other smaller languages.
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linkdink
Languages without yes and no are called echo languages. English used to be four-form with yes/no and yeah/nay, but now it's two-form.
brutusborn
For anyone who doesn't want to watch the whole video, yeah/nay is for answering 'negative' questions (e.g. "do you not like it?")
laszlokorte
In the video he says that "yes/no" are for negative questions and "yea/nay" are for positive questions.
linkdink
This is why people who are interested should just watch the video. It's only about 4 minutes of actual content.
throwaway2037
It is amazing that no one yet has posted about the Japanese language. Yes, "technically" there is a term for "no" (いいえ). In practice, outside of official documentation, almost no one uses it in daily life. (When you fill official docs, はい==yes, and いいえ==no.) There are so many stupid Japanese language training books that teach you about "いいえ", but you will never hear it in the Real World, except during language trailing dialogs! Most Japanese people will say "違います" (chiigamasu / "it is different") to avoid saying "no" directly.
bdowling
YouTuber That Japanese Man Yuta recently posted a good video explanation/exploration of this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9JdP6pA5LY
mazlix
Why do you say that? What’s your experience? I’ve spent years in Japan and live with 2 native Japanese and hear はい and いいえ all the time…
When you give a Japanese person a compliment the most comment response IME is いいえ (nooo I’m not)
And はい is said all the time
yadaeno
In verbal communication, you use the negative form of the verb in question instead.
In computer dialogues you see いいえ, also if im not mistaken people say いいえ when they are flattered.
Tainnor
The casual equivalent of いいえ, to my knowledge, is ううん.
becquerel
There are a lot of languages which don't have words which map neatly onto the English 'yes' and 'no'.
BossingAround
Yes, such as Chinese.
shawabawa3
But there's also no word for negation which is how Chinese gets around not having no
samatman
Bu is one of maybe thirty words in Chinese I know.
You've never been asked "yao bu yao"?
SeanLuke
Sure, Chineses has a word for negation. In cantonese, it's "mh", and can be attached to nearly every verb.
a9h74j
If you can negate a verb regarding action, what about a presumed statement of fact. Are there still equivalents of 'true' and 'false'?
Rebelgecko
That's how a lot of older Latin does it. For example if the question is "Did you go to the forum today?", the questionee might respond "I did not go to the forum today" (or something more concise like "I didn't go", or if they were being super informal just say the equivalent of "didn't")
bobthepanda
the verbs "to be" and "to have" are used to make affirmative statements so you would just negate those, which is also valid English.
e.g. "Is he coming to the meeting?", instead of "Yes/No", you would basically say "They are/They are not" (Chinese also doesn't really distinguish "him/her" for third person pronouns)
SeanLuke
Not sure about Mandarin and other dialects, but Cantonese has no words for yes or no as well. Instead, cantonese speakers generally repeat the verb asked in a question in a positive or negative way, as in [Speaker A] Will you or will you not go to the dance? [Speaker B] Will not. Or in other circumstances they'll just use the be-verb ("haih"), or its negation ("mh-haih"); or the have-verb ("yauh") or its negation ("mouh") when appropriate.
JamesSwift
Similar in Mandarin (`shi` and `bu shi`), but you can also just use `shi` and `bu` by themselves. Not sure if thats just colloquial or what, I'm not a native speaker.
SeanLuke
In Cantonese you can't just say "mh" (the equivalent of "bu"). It's a negator like "not". You have to say "mh [verb]".
mytailorisrich
Yes, it's the same in Mandarin.
archibaldJ
> When saying "I saw a bird" compared to "I will see a bird", a Kusunda speaker might indicate the past action not by tense, but by describing it as an experience directly related to the speaker. Meanwhile, the future action would remain general and not associated to any subject.
Nothing strange about this. I think Chinese is similar too. The intention of the speaker is more important than the words he/she says.
Related (and one of my fav papers in linguistics) - Interality as a Key to Deciphering Guiguzi: A Challenge to Critics https://cjc-online.ca/index.php/journal/article/view/3187
kenneth
I'm learning Chinese, and it was also quite tricky to realize that it also does not have a word for yes and no. (Despite what translators will tell you, yes is not 是 (shi), no is not 不 (bu), rather 是 means 'to be' and 不 negates whatever verb comes after)
Rather, Chinese responds indicates affirmative or negative by repeating the verb of the question in either plain or negated form.
e.g.
Q: Do you like hot pot? A: like | not like Q: ni xihuan huoguo ma? A: xihuan | bu xihuan
Q: Do you have covid? A: have | not have Q: ni you mei you wuhan feiyan? A: you | meiyou
Q: Are you american? A: is | is not Q: ni shi meiguoren ma? A: shi | bu shi
etc.
This was quite strange to get used to, but makes perfect sense once internalized.
ericsoderstrom
English is missing some seemingly basic answer words too, which are present in other languages. Like no single word for unambiguously answering a negative question.
E.g. Q: Aren't you finished yet?
Answering 'yes' or 'no' would be ambiguous
mike_hock
"Aren't you finished, yet?"
"Yes."
"Is that yes, you aren't finished, or yes, you are finished?"
"No."
"Is that no, you aren't finished, or no, you are finished?"
"Why did you ask me a yes or no question if neither yes nor no answers your question?"
autoexec
Since the meaning of no and yes aren't good enough, what do the one word answers other countries have mean?
xchip
As long as it uses NAND they are fine
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As usual, minority-language reporting is filled with weird formulations.
> Their language, also called Kusunda, is unique: it is believed by linguists to be unrelated to any other language in the world. Scholars still aren't sure how it originated.
Languages with no known relatives are called isolates, and there are a lot of those: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_isolate And languages do not normally "originate", unless they are constructed, like Esperanto, or arise in unusual circumstances, like spontaneous sign languages in isolated deaf communities.
> And it has a variety of unusual elements, including lacking any standard way of negating a sentence, words for "yes" or "no", or any words for direction.
As pointed out in other comments, not having words for "yes" or "no" is not very surprising. As for a "standard way" of negating a sentence, I wonder what that means. Kusunda has negative verbal suffixes, which vary based on some grammatical features, but so do many other languages. Location and direction is also usually specified by suffixes like in, e.g., Hungarian or Finnish.
See a grammatical overview for details: https://escholarship.org/uc/item/83v8d1wv