3 ms·

I can understand lack of "yes", but lack of "no" seems pretty strange. What do babies in these cultures shout when they don't want something? The idea of "do no

I can understand lack of "yes", but lack of "no" seems pretty strange. What do babies in these cultures shout when they don't want something? The idea of "do not want" seems to be one of the most basic things a human will want to express, starting from a very early age.

mahmud 16y ago
Classic Arabic has few words for "no", each expressing refusal/denial/rejection of a different sort: la, kalaa, balaa, lam, laysa, lan, etc. la no kalaa definitely not balaa but not lam did not laysa is not lan will not However, colloquial arabic just uses the ma- prefix and collapses all those different words into one: maa/mish/mush/makoo, depending on the dialect. E.g. "I will not try": mish hagarrab (Egyptian) maa `amjarab (Levantian) makoo nijarib (Iraqi/Kuwaiti) maabaa nijarib/nigarib (Yemeni, North/South)