How to say YES & NO in Latin

How do you say YES and NO in Latin? Is there more than one way? In this video we'll learn how to affirm or deny things in the ancient language of the Romans, and compare Latin to Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Romanian, French, German, and other languages. Enjoy the views of Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome, Italy! 🇮🇹

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Intro and outro music: Overture of Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute) by Mozart

#Rome #Italy #castelsantangelo

[keizan]

"Romanian, are you sure that you're a romance language?"
Romanian: "Da!"
Great and informative video, as always.

[daanwilmer]

Duolingo was trying to teach me the French "si" already, but now I finally understand it. Thanks!

[giuseppeagresta]

I found really interesting the explanation of the French "sì"
As an Italian, when I was young I tended to get confused *a lot* on that kind of negative questions, now that I'm learning other languages I'm discovering tons of features I didn't know I needed lol

[brendanward]

In Ireland we often carry the echo of our native Irish into English: "Did you see John?" - "I did" (or "I did not").

[rookmaster]

Many years ago, I remember wondering about this while I was studying Latin in school. A simple "yes" and "no" seemed to be mysteriously absent from the Latin vocabulary. Until now, I never understood why this was so!

[briandragoo]

This reminds me of the quotation from Dante (De vulgari eloquentia, which he wrote in Latin): "nam alii oc, alii si, alii vero dicunt oil" ("for some say òc, others sì, yet others say oïl"). Here Dante is pointing out that three of the principal literary languages that come from Latin can be distinguished by their words for "yes": Occitan (òc), Itialian (sì), and French (oïl). Even the name "Occitan" comes from the term "lenga d'òc", or "the language of "òc", and the region in southern France where Occitan is spoken is called Languedoc. And "òc" comes from Latin "hoc", "sì" comes from "sic" (as Luke pointed out in this video), and oïl (and the modern French "oui") come from Latin "illud" (as in the phrase "hoc illud", "this is it").

[LucasCS]

Actually Portuguese (or at least Brazilian Portuguese) works quite similarly even though we do have the words "sim" and "não". We almost never use the word "sim", we usually do exactly what you said: we answer the question by using the same verb. And we also have other words that end up working like "yes" (I'd say especially for tag questions), like "é" (literally "it is") or "isso" (literally "this"). Great video!

[dacius]

As a half romanian with a passion for germanic and celtic languages, who's in a bilingual class with French, learns latin and plans to study classics+english, i feel like there's been 100% of me in this video. Your videos are undoubtedly the best linguistic content on youtube, cheers mate!

[RedOctober_]

In mandarin we have a word that kind of means yes, the word 对 means “correct” or “right” but it can also be used to mean yes

[sebastiangoud]

Although the word “sim” exists in Portuguese, the most usual way of responding affirmatively to a yes or no question is to echo the verb:

- Você mora em Roma? (Do you live in Rome?)
- Moro.

- Ontem choveu? (Did it rain yesterday?)
- Choveu.

[tarquinius]

I was so happy when you mentioned our little Latvian language. ^^

[sameash]

If anybody's curious, the yea form, gea (note that g here is pronounced y, the ea vowel pronounced somewhat identically to Modern "yeah", something like "yeah-uh"), is cognate with Latin iam, with the meaning "thus". The yes form, is a combination of yea, and a remnant of the subjunctive of wesan (to be), sie, like German sei. So giese in Old English, as an answer to a counterfactual question is something like "thus let it be". Though, obviously, this phrase would have been grammaricalized as a single word early on before the OE period, the Anglo Saxons may not have been consciously aware of, say, that the "se" was from the subjunctive, and were simply using it as an interjection.

Nay is also a clipping of "nese", with a similar story to that of above.

[Mr.Rocklight]

Love it. I took Latin for two years. But I love your interpretation of all languages ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤

[fezmancomments]

A six minute video about how to say “yes” and “no”! You’d think it would take 5 seconds, but NO!! Actually these were an interesting and engaging well spent six minutes 👍🏻

[DavidSdeLis]

Apparently Latin also used "hoc" to convey an affirmative answer in the Prouintia, which developed in the modern "oc" in Occitanian... Galician still keeps the echoing from medieval times (like Portuguese)... And waving a flag for our ancient way of speaking (where uiuere est bibere) we say 'se vou nun bou, vou, se non vou nun bou, non vou' (if I go in an ox, I go, if I don't go in an ox, I don't go) which is really fun, especially when said aloud and fast... :-) great video! Valete!

[FeliceChiapperini]

Made me think of ways to say "yes" without saying "yes"- Sure, of course, I do, certainly, indeed, I am. Fun stuff!

[ArkhBaegor]

I never even thought about French being a three form system, despite being a native speaker, very interesting to learn what Yea and Nay meant, and that Yes was closer to French Si!

[shellyharry]

excellent as always! as a parent may I add, for the English speakers out there, "we'll see..." which typically means no! 😉

[andreirau]

Thank you for the time spent in the email exchange, Luke :-) Glad to see Romanian back in your videos. ”Ba da” and ”Ba nu” ar very confusing especially when you dont hear the question well and you answer improperly making the person asking very confused, like: Are you well? Ba da... or Are you hungry? Ba da...(when the typical answer would be da/nu and ”ba da” or ”ba nu” implies they stating the otherwise from the beginning like Isnt it true that you are hungey? Ba da...) 🙂

[J.o.s.h.u.a.]

03:53 "Etiam" actually survived. It evolved into "eja" in Sardinian, meaning "yes".