> "Je n'ai jamais" in French could literally be translated "I not have never"; but in French it's not a double negative, it's just "agreement". In that particu

> "Je n'ai jamais" in French could literally be translated "I not have never"; but in French it's not a double negative, it's just "agreement". In that particular spot, I'd say a more correct literal translation is "I not have ever." Jamais in the absence of ne tends to be more equivalent to "ever", and I would guess that the etymology of "never" is that it's a contraction of "not ever". You could also argue that the French grammar isn't a double negative. Ne functions like a linguistic particle that introduces a negative phrase, and then the kind of negation is indicated by the subsequent pas, rien, jamais, etc. Why I'm bothering to dig into this is, that same "prestige dialect" sort of debate functions differently in French. The ne is disappearing from informal spoken French. The French Academy isn't too happy about this; their official position on the subject (which I'll paraphrase - I'm feeling too lazy to hunt it down and translate it) is that words like pas, rien, and jamais have no negative character of their own, so omitting the ne renders the sentence nonsensical. (To which I suspect any practicing linguist would respond, "Huh? If it's nonsensical, then how come people who speak this way can understand each other perfectly?" But that kind of distressingly pragmatic attitude is exactly why practicing linguists don't get elected to the Academy. I imagine they'd sooner admit une écrivaine.)