Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Words for “yes” in Romance languages

benito-cereno.tumblr.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 172 posts

Re: Words for “yes” in Romance languages

#101

Post by gkya »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #81
EB-Barrington wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

French people also nod upwards to say "no". This is just one swift nod, not an up-and-down nod, and it's usually accompanied by a quick drawn-in breath. I've never seen that anywhere else. My friends who did that were Occitan btw. so maybe it's not all of France.

In Turkey we have raised eyebrows for a no, often denoting also some sort of pity/empathy if the lips are squeezed into a half-smile form (sometimes this is accompanied by a slow bobbing of the head).

Re: Words for “yes” in Romance languages

#103

Post by DFHippie »

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…

In Welsh you use "do" to assent to things asserted about the past. "Wyt ti wedi bwyta?" [Have you eaten?] "Do." [Yes.] The negative is "naddo". If you ask a question with something other than the verb initial, the affirmative is "ie" and the negative "nage". Otherwise, it works like you say in Irish or as in an English wedding ceremony. "Do you take so-and-so to be your lawfully wedded spouse?" "I do."

Re: Words for “yes” in Romance languages

#104

Post by jinushaun »

acobster wrote: post #22
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! :)

This. ;) I think what tickles me about it is that they clearly know what they're talking about, but they're also actively setting themselves apart from the Ivory Tower and signaling that their interest is one that brings them some earnest fucking joy.

I enjoy reading this kind of stuff regardless, so adding profanity to make it “cool” strikes me as childish and lame.

Re: Words for “yes” in Romance languages

#105

Post by DFHippie »

danans wrote: post #18
gigogkggi wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Astu (अस्तु) is imperative, asti, (अस्ति) is what would be used.

Either works depending on the context. "astu" is more like "let it be so". Still, there is no single generic affirmative particle.

I believe the direct cognate of this in Latin is "esto".

Re: Words for “yes” in Romance languages

#106

Post by js2 »

kleiba wrote: post #87

I personally find the use of single word "This." in reply to a comment on forums (such as e.g. HN) really annoying. (But then again, I've reached an age where you tend to find everything new awful.) I guess the reason why it pisses me off is that it doesn't do anything that "Yes.", "Exactly.", "I agree" couldn't already do, but at the same time it has this overly sweet smell of kool-aid that just makes you sick.

For me (I’m 46 so I think I’ve reached “get off my lawn” age), it’s short for “this [is the correct answer.]” So I’ve never had a problem with it and probably used it once or twice myself.

A couple summers ago at the pool I heard a teenage girl exclaim “poned!” after besting her friend at something they were playing. It took me a moment to realize she’d just said “pwned” since I’d never heard it said out loud before and in my mind I’ve always read it “owned.” Now that was a “get off my lawn moment!”

Re: Words for “yes” in Romance languages

#107

Post by jhbadger »

Slavic wrote: post #64

Stopped reading at "some slavic shit"

The point is it is really weird for Romanian to use "da" for yes, as that isn't Romance at all. But Romanian is interesting in that (much like English) it takes words from everything. The word for potato is "cartof", which is clearly from German "Kartoffel".

Re: Words for “yes” in Romance languages

#108

Post by henriquemaia »

jxub wrote: post #94
gpvos wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would the old Celtic root luto-/luteuo- (marsh, swamp) mentioned there be related to Latin lutum (mud, loam, sand, dust)?

In Spanish lodo is mud, it looks more similar to the Celtic word to me. Interesting.

Well, in tandem with Spanish, we also say it like that in Portuguese. But I always take it to mean sludge, not just any mud. For plain mud, we use the more common word lama.

Re: Words for “yes” in Romance languages

#109

Post by FreeFull »

hk__2 wrote: post #99
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 :)

In Slovakia the word for “yes” is “ano” but people shorten it to “’no”, which makes things very confusing when you get there :)

Polish has also borrowed "ano"/"no" from Czech/Slovakian, although the normal Polish word for "yes" is "tak"

Re: Words for “yes” in Romance languages

#110

Post by henriquemaia »

mrow84 wrote: post #82
gigogkggi wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It is only dismissive ironically - the author is not really belittling Slavic languages. Context and intent are important, and it is possible to be unduly sensitive. I think it is worth expecting readers to expend a small amount of effort to try and assess a writer's intent, so that we might live in a world where people can use colourful language. Teasing someone is not the same as insulting them.

The more I see these types of confusion in forums, the more I get a sense that many people online (the number of online people is too great to make broad assumptions with certainty) simply don’t have good [enough] reading skills.

Moreover, as with any complex subject, there are possibly other limitations working in paralell (but still connected to the level of reading): the emotional state one’s in when it stumbles something in writing. Again, if one lacks a sufficiently mature reading skill, one tends to take things at face value, without making the obvious leap of understanding them within the larger context both of the text itself and the subject matter at hand.

Post reply on HN