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Words for “yes” in Romance languages

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Re: Words for “yes” in Romance languages

#71

Post by danaliv »

midhir wrote: post #40

"So we can look at, for example, Old Irish, where they said tó to mean yes" Really? In modern Irish we substitute Tá for yes but it's not really yes. We don't have yes or no, we repeat the verb of the question positively or negatively. Tá is kind of 'am', níl 'am not' like "Are you going to watch Mrs Browns Boys tonight?" "I am not." Are they really comparable? Maybe somewhere along the line Tá (pronounced 'taw') was…

I was wondering about this. Thanks for chiming in. I don't know Irish but I do know a bit of Scottish Gaelic, and it is as you say: there is no word for yes (or no), not even in the way the author suggests. Affirmation or negation is done by repeating the verb of the question. In the case of simple "to be" questions, that verb is either tha or 's. But a question like "have you read the book?", which would be structured "read you the book?", would be answered either "read" for the affirmative or "(not) read" for the negative.

In any event, tha—which I presume is the Scottish equivalent to Irish tá—doesn't mean yes either.

Re: Words for “yes” in Romance languages

#74

Post by gigogkggi »

mjfisher wrote: post #69
Slavic wrote: post #64

Stopped reading at "some slavic shit"

I've become increasingly interested in how people become offended recently. Offence tends to be bound up in notions of identity, and I think the way people offend and become offended is increasingly a factor in a world becoming more polarised. Would you be able to expand a little on your feelings? Would you expect people from other cultures mentioned in the article to be similarly offended? I'm not asking you to just…

The tone is dismissive, duh.

Let's try another version, some Mexican shit. Trump comes to mind? Yup! You got it.

Re: Words for “yes” in Romance languages

#76

Post by Vinnl »

EB-Barrington wrote: post #61
davidgay wrote: post #32

My favourite on the yes/no front though is the border between Greece and Bulgaria where "Ne" (Не) means no in Bulgarian and, IIUC, yes in Greek. And then the Bulgarians also have approximately reversed vs Western Europe head movements for yes and no, to maximise confusion :)

Albanians (like Bulgaria, Albania shares a border with Greece) also nod up and down for no, and turn their heads left-to-right for yes. As in Bulgaria, this is not universal throughout the populace - making it all the more confusing when you come across it during conversation. Related: in Albanian, yes is "po", no is "jo".

It's even worse that some of them compensate when you're a tourist, nodding for yes and shaking their heads for no. But you can't know whether they're doing that.

Re: Words for “yes” in Romance languages

#77

Post by loggedinmyphone »

pessimizer wrote: post #54
davidgay wrote: post #32

My favourite on the yes/no front though is the border between Greece and Bulgaria where "Ne" (Не) means no in Bulgarian and, IIUC, yes in Greek. And then the Bulgarians also have approximately reversed vs Western Europe head movements for yes and no, to maximise confusion :)

> And then the Bulgarians also have approximately reversed vs Western Europe head movements for yes and no, to maximise confusion :) This is strangely the most shocking fact that I know. It's one of those facts that remind you that just because something is universal doesn't mean that it's not cultural.

Shaking one's head for "no" is far from universal - it means "yes" in parts of India as well.

Re: Words for “yes” in Romance languages

#78

Post by igravious »

posterboy wrote: post #45

I wonder, is occitan not related to occident and orient? and oil, well, that's norse for beer, remember where normandy has it's name from? That doesn't explain yes, no; but eu, as in euphemism might[1]. Heureka! In other news, what does si in greek letters look like? "σι"! Pretty close to oi nowadays and Celtic druids are speculated to have visited Greece. That doesn't invalidate the "this there" story, but maybe pre…

No need to wonder.

The Occitan Wiktionary page https://oc.wiktionary.org/wiki/occitan says “Del latin medieval occitanus, que se tròba dins lingua occitana. Derivat de òc, benlèu sus lo modèl de aquitanus.” – the English Wiktionary page of same says “From Medieval Latin occitanus in the phrase lingua occitana, Latinization of langue d'oc. The ending -itanus perhaps after aquitanus.”

And Occident https://www.etymonline.com/word/occident “late 14c., "western part" (of the heavens or earth), from Old French occident (12c.) or directly from Latin occidentem (nominative occidens) "western sky, sunset, part of the sky in which the sun sets," noun use of adjective meaning "setting," from present participle of occidere "fall down, go down" (see occasion (n.)).”

Somebody would have wondered about the connection before, surely.

Even though I didn't particularly take to the sprinkling of profanity and hip-hop lingo I think "on some Slavic shit" roughly translates to "on some Slavic thing/trip" and isn't intended to be derogatory. Am open to corrections here.

The rest of your post I'm having a hard time disassembling. I don't think you can just free associate from one language to another switching between written and spoken changing alphabets along the way and between past and present. I mean, if you actually did come up with a valid and novel derivation of something that's the kind of thing one could put into a paper get peer reviewed and published.

Re: Words for “yes” in Romance languages

#79

Post by mprev »

make3 wrote: post #4

I really like profanity laced erudite articles, for some reason. Maybe it scratches a similar hitch that Rick does in Rick and Morty. Which makes me think, man I'd love to read a scientific paper written by Rick! :)

It took away from the whole thing, for me. Almost like the author is not wanting to look like a nerd and, so, over-compensating.

Re: Words for “yes” in Romance languages

#80

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

davidgay wrote: post #32

My favourite on the yes/no front though is the border between Greece and Bulgaria where "Ne" (Не) means no in Bulgarian and, IIUC, yes in Greek. And then the Bulgarians also have approximately reversed vs Western Europe head movements for yes and no, to maximise confusion :)

I'm Greek and indeed "nai" means yes in Greek. But I thought "ne" means "no" in Serbian, not Bulgarian. It's probably both.
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