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The Daltaí Boards » Archive: 2005- » 2005 (July-August) » Archive through August 03, 2005 » Yes and No - Where have they gone? « Previous Next »

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Janet O'Brien
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Posted on Sunday, July 24, 2005 - 09:33 am:   Edit Post Print Post

Perhaps a fellow linguist can help me out on this one. Where did Irish's 'yes' and 'no' go? All the other indo-european languages have it, which suggests that Irish must have had a direct word for yes and no in the past and then lost it.

I know yes and no can be formed through verbs, but it has no stand alone words, does it?

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Focalist
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Username: Focalist

Post Number: 1
Registered: 07-2005
Posted on Sunday, July 24, 2005 - 10:41 am:   Edit Post Print Post

"All the other Indo-European languages have it".

Well, not all. That other Celtic, but equally Indo-European, language Welsh, for example, does not. And Latin did not have simple, one-word-fits-all expressions equivalent to "yes" and "no" either.

I'd say it's not so much a case of Irish having lost anything as never having acquired it.

Even "single words" like "oui" -- from "hoc ille" = this he (is/does/was/did, etc.) -- and "yes" -- from "gea sí" = so be (it) -- are really the frozen forms of eroded phrases.

And don't forget that it's English that's somewhat unusual in having only one word for "yes"! French, for example, has oui/si and German has ja/doch.

F

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Dennis
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Username: Dennis

Post Number: 90
Registered: 02-2005


Posted on Sunday, July 24, 2005 - 02:39 pm:   Edit Post Print Post

Old Irish did have a number of words more like "yes" and "no", which have not survived. The most common were respectively "tó / to" and "náthó / nathó". The origin of each is a bit obscure, although the latter may well be borrowed from Welsh "naddo".

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Lughaidh
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Username: Lughaidh

Post Number: 486
Registered: 01-2005
Posted on Sunday, July 24, 2005 - 05:03 pm:   Edit Post Print Post

>Perhaps a fellow linguist can help me out on this one. >Where did Irish's 'yes' and 'no' go? All the other indo->european languages have it, which suggests that Irish >must have had a direct word for yes and no in the past >and then lost it.

>I know yes and no can be formed through verbs, but it >has no stand alone words, does it?

Actually, in Donegal Gaeltacht, it has become quite common that people answer by sé and no for yes and no, or by sé and ní hé, even to questions without the copula.

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Antaine
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Username: Antaine

Post Number: 429
Registered: 10-2004


Posted on Sunday, July 24, 2005 - 07:59 pm:   Edit Post Print Post

i had heard something similar - 's é and ní hea were slipping into that niche by those with experience (tá and níl by those without much).

is 'ní hé' donegal for 'ní hea'? i haven't seen it in print that way, but it looks like they might be dialectical versions of the same thing.

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Janet O'Brien
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Posted on Monday, July 25, 2005 - 07:25 am:   Edit Post Print Post

Do you not think, though, that is ea and ne hea are only slipping in because the English language's presence in close proximity to the Irish one makes the lack of a yes and no obvious?

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Fear_na_mbróg
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Username: Fear_na_mbróg

Post Number: 641
Registered: 08-2004
Posted on Monday, July 25, 2005 - 07:56 am:   Edit Post Print Post

But there's no lack of "yes" and "no" in Irish.

"Yes" and "No" are answers to questions. A question has a verb, eg.:

Do you eat fish?

An n-itheann tú éisc?

The answer is: Itheann, which translates as "yes".

The only reason that people are complaining lately about a supposed lack of "yes" and "no" in Irish is that they aren't bright enough to think what verb they want.

For instance, with voting, in English you can vote "Yes" or "No". Well in Irish why don't we just have:

Glacaim / Ní ghlacaim
Aontaím / Ní aontaím

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Lughaidh
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Username: Lughaidh

Post Number: 490
Registered: 01-2005
Posted on Monday, July 25, 2005 - 08:42 am:   Edit Post Print Post

>is 'ní hé' donegal for 'ní hea'?

No. The people who use the traditional system (repeating the verb in the answer) say "ní hea(dh)" and "sea(dh)" when the question contains the copula and an indefinite predicate. With a definite predicate masculine, they use "sé" / "ní hé".

Those who don’t use the traditional system say "sé" / "ní hé" all the time.


>Do you not think, though, that is ea and ne hea are >only slipping in because the English language's >presence in close proximity to the Irish one makes the >lack of a yes and no obvious?

Nobody can be sure of that. In Old Irish, there was tó/nathó as answers for yes an no, and at that time, English could not have any influence on Irish. So, the development of a sé/ní hé system can be an independent thing, that could have happened even if English wasn't spoken in Ireland.


>Do you eat fish?

>An n-itheann tú éisc?

>The answer is: Itheann, which translates as "yes".

No, the answer is "ithim" / "ní ithim".

>The only reason that people are complaining lately >about a supposed lack of "yes" and "no" in Irish is >that they aren't bright enough to think what verb they >want.

That's right. You can't answer to the question if you haven't understood it...

>For instance, with voting, in English you can >vote "Yes" or "No". Well in Irish why don't we just >have:

>Glacaim / Ní ghlacaim

glacaim leis.

>Aontaím / Ní aontaím

aontaím leis.

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Janet O'Brien
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Posted on Monday, July 25, 2005 - 09:00 am:   Edit Post Print Post

Fear na mbrog - I am aware of how to say yes and no in Irish, thank you. What I am interested in, however, is why the celtic language branch, distinct from every other indoeuropean language, seems to have lost its stand-alone words of yes and no.

In english the question 'do you eat fish?' can be answered in the affirmative by both 'yes' and 'i do'. Irish has only one way of answering this question, and that is through a verb.

Dennis, Lughaigh, I was not previously aware of the existence of tó/nathó. Interesting. Do you have a rough date of when this was used until?

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Dennis
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Username: Dennis

Post Number: 92
Registered: 02-2005


Posted on Monday, July 25, 2005 - 11:56 am:   Edit Post Print Post

As I mentioned, "nathó, tó" are not the only negative / affirmative "adverbs" used in Old Irish. Others are "naicc, nacc" and "acc", "nate, ate", and even"ia" for "yes". There are syntactical and semantic constraints on their deployment, and for the most part they seem to function not so much as simple "no / yes", but rather like "no way!", "you bet!", "sure thing!", etc. As for time span, "nathó" is attested from the Wb. Glosses (ca. 750) up through the Middle Irish period, say through the 12th cent. It's hard to know whether later texts represent current usage or just literary transmission of an old-fashioned word. If you'd like to explore this in greater depth, you might want to join the Old-Irish-L list.

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Lughaidh
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Username: Lughaidh

Post Number: 492
Registered: 01-2005
Posted on Monday, July 25, 2005 - 01:10 pm:   Edit Post Print Post

>Fear na mbrog - I am aware of how to say yes and no in >Irish, thank you. What I am interested in, however, is >why the celtic language branch, distinct from every >other indoeuropean language, seems to have lost its >stand-alone words of yes and no.

Irish has, it doesn't mean that all 6 Celtic languages have lost words for yes and no. Welsh has different words according to the tense and the verb that is used. as it has been said, in the past you use do and naddo, that look like the Old irish answers Dennis talked about. With focused questions, Welsh has "ie" and "nage". Words like "ie" are to be found in many European languages (English yes, German ja...), although i can't be sure that they come from the same IE root.
Breton has real "yes" and "no" words:

Positive question > yes=ya; no: you repeat the verb in the negative form (in Vannes dialect you can answer "pas" as well)

Negative question > yes=geo; no=nann.

These "ya" and "nann" could be old words.

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Peadar_Ó_gríofa
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Username: Peadar_Ó_gríofa

Post Number: 237
Registered: 01-2005
Posted on Monday, July 25, 2005 - 05:40 pm:   Edit Post Print Post

The Old English expression as I've seen it is "gea sie."

As I understand it the "-dh" in the word "eadh" is still pronounced, but palatalized, in some Donegal dialects, such as that of Tory. "Is eadh" is thus pronounced ∫e:j "séidh" and "ní headh" is N′i: he:j "ní héidh."

Peadar Ó Gríofa

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Lughaidh
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Username: Lughaidh

Post Number: 497
Registered: 01-2005
Posted on Monday, July 25, 2005 - 07:23 pm:   Edit Post Print Post

Yeah, in some places of NW Donegal they say /s'ej/. Actually, what is written "eadh" would be pronounced /aw/ by older speakers: /s'aw/ /N'i: haw/. That's the old pronounciation: the pronounciation that is found in other dialects, /s'a/ /N'i: ha/ is more recent.

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Peadar_Ó_gríofa
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Username: Peadar_Ó_gríofa

Post Number: 238
Registered: 01-2005
Posted on Tuesday, July 26, 2005 - 02:43 am:   Edit Post Print Post

Yup, /∫ej/ "seidh," with a short /e/, not with a long one as I indicated above. /∫ej/ is how Wagner heard it in Tory. His transcription of the older pronunciation that you mention shows it with a central diphthong, represented by schwa and an inverted y. That's very close to the Scottish /∫эγ/.

Peadar Ó Gríofa

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Paul_h
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Username: Paul_h

Post Number: 37
Registered: 12-2004
Posted on Tuesday, July 26, 2005 - 07:51 am:   Edit Post Print Post

what about the absence of an actual verb which gives the meaning of possession, in other words the verb 'to have'?

I find this even stranger than the 'yes/no' issue.

Paul

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Lughaidh
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Username: Lughaidh

Post Number: 501
Registered: 01-2005
Posted on Tuesday, July 26, 2005 - 08:23 am:   Edit Post Print Post

About the verb "to have", that's not surprising at all: there wasn't any verb "to have" in Indo-European. All these verbs in modern languages are other verbs (that meant "to take", "to hold" in the first place), or forms of the verb to be (with an expression "this is at me", "this is mine"= "I have").

In Russian, you say "it is by me"= "i have".
In Breton, you say "it is to me"
I think Latin "habere" comes from a root meaning "to take" (but maybe some of you will confirm that)

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Dennis
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Username: Dennis

Post Number: 93
Registered: 02-2005


Posted on Tuesday, July 26, 2005 - 11:53 am:   Edit Post Print Post

Sanskrit:
Mama putro 'sti. = of me/my son is = I have a son.

Hindi:
Meraa beTaa hai. = my son is = I have a son.
Mere paas gaaRii hai. = to my nearness/beside me car is = I have a car.

Teangacha Ind-Eorpacha iad araon, ar ndóigh: seancheann agus ceann nua.

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Peter
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Posted on Tuesday, July 26, 2005 - 06:37 pm:   Edit Post Print Post

In Russian it is exactly as it is in Irish: ag vs. Russian U (I write in the Roman alphabet) in both “I have smth” and “I’m standing AT the door”. Though all the other Slavic languages use the verb with the meaning “to have”instead. Reason – contacts with the Ugro-finnish (not sure about the term) languages.

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Lughaidh
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Username: Lughaidh

Post Number: 508
Registered: 01-2005
Posted on Tuesday, July 26, 2005 - 08:12 pm:   Edit Post Print Post

Finno-Ugrian/ Finno-Ugric.

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Peter
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Posted on Wednesday, July 27, 2005 - 04:21 am:   Edit Post Print Post

Ta, Lughaidh!

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Max
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Username: Max

Post Number: 86
Registered: 05-2005
Posted on Monday, August 01, 2005 - 08:40 pm:   Edit Post Print Post

Funny,

In Chinese, the same evolution (as in Irish) can be seen:

"ni ren bu renshi ta?" = "you know not know him?" = "do you know him?"

yes : "renshi" ("know")
no : "bu renshi" ("not know")

but now, the tendency is to use simply "bu" for "no" and "shi" (which means "be" as in "wo shi faguoren" "I am French") for "yes"


"Yes" and "No" are not universal. They have everything to do with pragmatics, and pragmatics changes in accordances to multifarious factours....

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Dalta
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Posted on Tuesday, August 02, 2005 - 04:10 pm:   Edit Post Print Post

Sometimes when I talk Irish, I find it most natural to say 'Sea(is ea)' for yes and Ní for no. Also, on the Irish media(not exactly an exemplary example but,) Sea is often used as Yes for general questions, though I was taught that Sea was Béarlachas nonsense. What do the Gaeltachtóirí think?

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Lughaidh
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Username: Lughaidh

Post Number: 549
Registered: 01-2005
Posted on Tuesday, August 02, 2005 - 08:07 pm:   Edit Post Print Post

Cf what i wrote before about Donegal:

The people who use the traditional system (repeating the verb in the answer) say "ní hea(dh)" and "sea(dh)" when the question contains the copula and an indefinite predicate. With a definite predicate masculine, they use "sé" / "ní hé".

Those who don’t use the traditional system say "sé" / "ní hé" all the time.



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