Post #2904741

2026-03-25 04:09 UTC

@lexiconista@mastodon.ie Yes and no in Indo-European languages are actually a bit counter intuitive: Aren't you going to the store? No. This means "I'm not going," but most languages would give an answer of correct or incorrect to the statement, not a "no" to a negative question. This is incredibly confusing to non-native speakers

Replies (2)

@lexiconista@mastodon.ie 2026-03-25 08:16

@xocolatli@lingo.lol Yes. In fairness, some Indo-Euro languages have a third option, a word which means "it is not the case that not". German: "doch", French: "si". This is used to answer negatively worded questions positively.

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@etchedpixels@mastodon.social 2026-03-25 11:20

@xocolatli@lingo.lol @lexiconista@mastodon.ie Celtic ones generally use verb based responses "Are you going out" "I am", "Will you be angry" "I will not". There is an emphatic yes (ie) and an emphatic no (actually a not-yes) (nage). Modern Welsh speakers use Ie/Nage a lot more than older ones. Cornish is similar but even historically it seems to have been common to use ea/na rather than matching verb forms. na also works more like !(expression) in C than a no.

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