When "yes" and "no" become complex

"Yes" and "no" seem like fairly clear-cut words that refer distinctly to affirmative and negative responses, respectively, but the concepts of "yes" and "no," at least as modern English speakers understand them, are far from universal even within a mostly related European context

While Modern English has the two-form "yes" and "no" system, English, as recently as Early Modern English, had a four-form system with "yes' and "yea" corresponding to the modern "yes," with the modern "no" being covered by "no" and "nay." Wikipedia states that "The answers to positively framed questions ("Will he go?") were yea and nay, whilst the answers to negatively framed questions ("Will he not go?") were yes and no. (see Wikipedia entry) Interestingly, "yes" is derived from the Old English adverbs for "surely" and "so," while "no" stems from an Old English adverb that means "never."

Some languages, such as Romanian, continue to use four-form systems. Three-form systems also exist, such as in French, which as"oui" (an affirmative answer to a positive question), "non" (no), and "si" (an affirmative answer to a negative question). Other languages that currently use three-form systems are the Scandinavian languages (Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, and Icelandic) and German.

In addition, there are languages that use "echo responses" to answer affirmatively or negatively. With an "echo response," the verb mentioned in the question is repeated with or without a subject and without the use of "yes" or "no." For instance, in English, you would be using an echo response if you answered "Is he happy?" with "He is." Latin, Finnish and Welsh, as well as Manx, are languages that primarily use echo responses instead of "yes" and "no." I remember that during my brief study of Manx, being particularly mystified by answering questions almost entirely this way, with "yes" being replaced by such answers as "she will be," "she is," or "she was," and I used to joke "how odd that Manx has past and future tenses of yes."

Incidentally, Latin, unlike modern Romance languages, has no distinct words for "yes" and "no." Modern Romance have developed these words, especially "yes," in interesting ways. At least one of the words for "yes" in Romanian ("da") is borrowed from the Slavic languages in the region. In Western Romance languages, there are generally "si"-type languages (e.g. Spanish and Italian, as well as the Portuguese "sim"), "oïl" (or "oui")- type languages (such as Modern French), and "òc"-type languages (Occitan, spoken in southern France). Wikipedia gives this explanation:

"The name Occitan comes from lenga d'òc (i.e. òc language), which comes from òc, the Occitan word for yes. The Italian medieval poet Dante was the first to have recorded the term lingua d'oc. In his De vulgari eloquentia he wrote in Latin: "nam alii oc, alii si, alii vero dicunt oil" ("some say òc, others say sì, others say oïl"), thereby highlighting three major Romance literary languages which were well known in Italy, based on each language's word for "yes", the òc language (Occitan), the oïl language (French), and the sì language (Italian). This was not, of course, the only defining character of each group.

The word òc came from Vulgar Latin hoc ("this"), while oïl originated from Latin hoc illud ("this [is] it"). In old Catalan and nowadays in Catalan of Northern Catalonia (France, Catalunya Nord) is hoc (òc) too. Other Romance languages derive their word for yes from the Latin sic, "thus [it is], [it was done], etc.", such as Spanish sí, Modern Catalan sí, Western Lombard sé, Italian sì, or Portuguese sim." (see Wikipedia entry)

(Posted by language fan and friend Silas McCracken.)