Many modern languages have single words for "yes" and "no" (e.g. English), and some have more than a simple pair (e.g. French), while others have no word for "yes" or "no" (e.g. Latin and Irish).
Both "yes" and "no" have at least two meanings:
- yes, you are correct
- yes, the positive of what you said
- no, you are incorrect
- no, the negative of what you said
E.g.
That's not your dog, is it?
Yes, it is. (Oui in French)
No, it is. (Si in French)
No, it isn't. (Non in French)
Other languages also have a word for "You are correct, the negative of what you said", i.e. "Yes, it isn't".
The simplest form in Irish is to repeat the verb in either the positive or negative:
That's not your dog, is it?
It is.
It isn't.
I'm interested that all languages I know of have at least an opposite pair of "yes/no" or none at all. Are there any languages with a word for "yes" but not "no" or vice versa?