Ancestors

Written by Yoïn van Spijk on 2025-01-15 at 17:55

The English words 'no' and 'no' don't share a common ancestor. 'No', the opposite of 'yes', comes from Proto-West-Germanic *naiw (never), while 'no' as in 'no pain, no gain' comes from *nain (not any): it arose as a variant of 'none'.

'No' as opposed to 'yes' isn't related to German 'nein' and Dutch 'nee' either. Their only common part is 'n-', which comes from the Germanic negation particle *ne, also found in words such as 'not', 'neither' and 'never'.

Click the graphic to learn more:

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Toot

Written by Yoïn van Spijk on 2025-01-15 at 17:55

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A short article on my Patreon (440 words) tells you more about words related to the ones depicted on the left side, such as 'either', 'naught', and German 'immer' (always):

https://www.patreon.com/posts/120053621

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Descendants

Written by Yoïn van Spijk on 2025-01-16 at 19:53

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Interestingly, 'no' (vs. 'yes') isn't related to Spanish 'no'.

English 'no' stems from *naiwan ("never"), as shown in my graphic above.

Spanish 'no' comes from Latin 'nōn', from Old Latin 'noinom' ("not one thing").

This means Spanish 'no' is related to German 'nein', from Proto-Germanic *nainan ("not one thing"), a distant cousin of 'noinom'!

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Written by Uilliam Mac ᚒᚔᚂᚂᚔᚐᚋ on 2025-01-16 at 20:07

@yvanspijk Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Manx Gaelic have no words for 'yes' or 'no' in response to a question.

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