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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Written by Steinar Bang on 2025-01-16 at 11:21

@yvanspijk (I wondered were the English "Nay" was in this... and found it unexpectedly under Old West Norse...?)

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Written by Yoïn van Spijk on 2025-01-16 at 11:38

@steinarb Yes, it was borrowed from the Vikings. :)

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Toot

Written by Peter Brown on 2025-01-17 at 02:52

@yvanspijk @steinarb since the original Brythonic had no words for yes or no it is logical they would borrow these useful shorthand words from Norse or Germanic roots

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Descendants

Written by Yoïn van Spijk on 2025-01-17 at 08:18

@peterbrown @steinarb Actually, the people who borrowed it were speakers of Old English, who already had a word for "yes". In that period, the Celtic speaking peoples had already been driven back to the north and west of the isle, areas not under the Danelaw.

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Written by Peter Brown on 2025-01-17 at 08:47

@yvanspijk @steinarb the people didn’t move - they stayed where they were. And they carried on speaking their own language, absorbing words into it like skat (tax or penalty) . The word survives, changed slightly, as scot-free. 

We know they carried on speaking the same language because the grammar of English is still Brythonic. If they had changed language, there would be no present continuous tense in English but as we know, it is the most common tense.

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Written by Yoïn van Spijk on 2025-01-17 at 09:13

@peterbrown @steinarb I'm sorry, but the graphic you shared wasn't made by a linguist specialised in this matter. The do-periphrasis, like the progressive tense, arose very late. The grammar of English evolved from Proto-Germanic, as I said. Any scholar with knowledge of the history of English grammar agrees on that, and the information can be found in all books on the topic written by professional linguists. Let's stick to the facts here.

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Written by Peter Brown on 2025-01-17 at 09:40

@yvanspijk @steinarb ooooh, wasn’t made by a trained linguist. So it must be wrong.

Well, I’ve got news for you. Picasso wasn’t a trained artist.

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Written by Yoïn van Spijk on 2025-01-17 at 09:44

@peterbrown @steinarb

• I told you why it is wrong.

• Art is very different from science - you know, the actual study of the world around us. You need knowledge of things before you can make claims about them.

• I'm not here for childish replies from someone who argues based on hearsay and personal convictions.

If you're not interested in linguistic insights, please do keep believing in what you believe, but don't bother people who do know what they're talking about.

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