Falsehoods programmers believe about languages

https://piefed.social/post/517822

Falsehoods programmers believe about languages

> I can’t believe nobody has done this list yet. I mean, there is one about names, one about time and many others on other topics, but not one abou…

Most of these just seem like basic educational issues except this one imo:

Every language has words for yes and no.

I want to see more than like 1 or 2 counterexamples. I’m pretty interested in linguistics on an amateur level. Don’t believe I’ve heard of that one before now.

Arabic doesn’t have a word for “yes”. I don’t think most semitic languages do either [Classical Hebrew does not, but Modern Hebrew does, however, the word they use in modern Hebrew is the word for “Thusly”, that is now a particle]. In fact you can see that proto-indo European didn’t have a word for yes: Greek is ναι, but the romance languages are si (I am pretty sure French oui is actually derived from the same root as Spanish and Italian. Could be wrong) and if my memories is correct (and it may not be) classical Latin didn’t have a word for yes. And the Germanic words yes/ja have a similar origin. I can’t speak to the other IE languages unfortunately.

I know there are also language families that don’t have a single word for no, but use a negation mood on the verb. I unfortunately can’t give you an example of this. But it should be fun to look up!

Arabic doesn’t have a word for “yes”.

(Yes) in Arabic is نعم pronounced as (Na’am) or ( Na ع m) & this is the word which most people use in all Arab countries . The Arabic dialect word for (Yes) is ايوة or ايوا pronounced as (Aywa)and also used by all Arabs.

Do you know the etymology of these words? My understanding is that they aren’t exactly “Yes” but more “As you say” or something similar. But I am no arabicist.