The Linguistics of Double Negatives | Jespersen's Cycle

[@EllieK_814]

Alternate history where French-speakers say "Je ne sais goutte".

[@deithlan]

Well actually some regional variants in the middle of France used to have "goutte" as the normal negative!

[@wilhelmseleorningcniht9410]

Jerriais tends to use 'pon' I don't know if that's a different word, sound change, or different part of speech from the Latin original though

[@noahdubuis7897]

​@@deithlanIn literary French too, rarely, but it exists. And apparently, it's most commonly used when dealing with the verb "to see".

[@deithlan]

@@noahdubuis7897 indeed! And that likely originated from a mishearing: «goutte» means "drop" (as in a water drop) and so accordingly originally was used mostly with the verb "to drink" «boire». But since the pronunciations were so similar, especially back then, it got confused with the verb «voir» "to see", and got used with it instead hahaha

[@sortingoutmyclothes8131]

I prefer "mie," it's shorter (no final consonant), it starts with a nasal, it gives mad negative vibes.

[@QuanticBlob]

My favorite one in French is 'plus' meaning more or plus in English. If you use it in a negative sentence it obviously means no more. Je ne veux plus de chocolat. = I don't want more chocolate. However with the dropping of 'ne', sentences with 'plus' have become ambiguous Je veux plus de chocolat. = I want more chocolate. or I don't want more chocolate. So when speaking, we'll pronounce the final s when meaning more and not pronounce it when saying no more.

[@oumdead9542]

That's fascinating

[@clarawoodman9331]

Yessss that's my favourite thing about french, it's like we woke up one day and thought about how we can confuse non native speakers more XDD

[@EdwardLindon]

It's not ambiguous at all. Who could possibly not want more chocolate? 🤔

[@KumeSumigawa]

I’m pretty sure that when they want plus to mean more, they pronounce the s, if they mean no more, they don’t pronounce it.

[@quentind1924]

The thing english people tends to forget when they talk about it is that while it’s true when written, "plus" for more is said with the s sound, while "plus" for no more is said with the silent s. And as you said, there’s almost always a sign of negation in the sentence to say no more

[@CarlottaStudios]

Being a french-speaker, this video was such a fascinating and fun watch, I’d never actually processed that “pas” is both a negative marker and the word for step and never bothered to wonder why that was until this video! Thank you for this unexpected but enjoyable lesson into my fathertongue!

[@freonflex]

French speaker too here. I had always wondered where the negative ‘pas’ was coming from. I understood it was added and the original negative was ‘ne’, but I didn’t even made the connection with the ‘pas’ as ‘step’, as the meaning seemed totally unrelated. Very interesting

[@TheBunzinator]

As a native english speaker, and struggling student of french, I was confused by the expression "pas de deux." I couldn't imagine what "not of two" meant in the context. Lol.

[@clarawoodman9331]

French person here too and i didn't think of it before this video but dang that was such an interesting video and it make sense now djjdk

[@ChryslerPTCruiser]

It's funny because as a french learner, I learned pas as a negative first. You can imagine my surprise when I realized that the song called "pas de cheval" didnt mean "not of horse"... which I had always thought was weird 😅

[@ogunsiron2]

​@@freonflexnative french speaker here. since i was a teen i had been wondering why the negative in french was so different from the negative in the other indo european languages. i had also wondered7 why "rien" meant "an absence of things" even though it came from "res" which means "something". i was able to understand the reasons by myself. later confirmed by linguist videos :)

[@rumengol529]

I didn't expect to learn so much on my own language. And indeed I never really questioned why "pas" step and the negative "pas" were the same word, enlightening!

[@abarette_]

honestly just assumed they had different etymologies ^^"

[@clarawoodman9331]

Yup same here djdjj

[@sachacendra3187]

Interestingly "rien" still means "something" in some locution like "un petit rien" means "a little something" and there are these "fossilized" positive meanings in locutions like "à jamais" means "for ever" or "Ça ne servira jamais à rien" means "It'll never be useful at something."

[@Mercure250]

I would say the last one is a negative concord, actually. We say "Ça (ne) servira à rien", in which nobody can argue "rien" is a positive, and adding "jamais" just feels to me (as a native French speaker) like an intensifier that indicates how permanent this state is.

[@PASTRAMIKick]

like "de res" in catala, but "res" famously means thing or matter in latin

[@abarette_]

​​@@Mercure250 in "ça ne servira à rien", 'ne' forms the negative by itself, grammatically anyway. "ça servira pas à qqchose" would be an equivalent in colloquial french. "ça ne servira pas à rien" should amount to the same thing, grammatically, but as native speakers we both know that's a "double négation" in modern French, because of 'rien' now being considered inherently negative. ... Except in the example given by OP, "ça ne servira jamais à rien" which is indeed the same thing as saying "ça ne servira jamais à qqchose"

[@bobloblaw9679]

i always saw 'un petit rien' as the speaker being modest about what they were presenting.

[@copernic7511]

@@Mercure250 We also have "jamais" in expressions like "à jamais" = "forever", or "c'est la meilleure chose que j'aie jamais faite" = "it's the best thing I have ever done" - where it has that primary meaning of "ever".

[@alangknowles]

"But a double positive never means a negative." From back of room, a languid "Yeah, yeah."

[@speedwagon1824]

That's not really the same thing tho

When I was a child (I am French speaking native) I had a real problem with the fact that we said "Une personne" for "A person", and "personne" for "nobody". It twisted my mind and made me think about it way too much that I needed to.

[@Omouja]

And if I want to say "a nobody" in french?

@@Omouja You may use an other word, like "Un anonyme", meaning, in English, as you have guessed : "An anonymous". If you wish to avoid any confusion : "Une personne anonyme", meaning: "An anonymous person".

[@carthkaras6449]

@ "Une personne" et "Il n'y a personne" (literally : there is no body) You do not say the word personne alone... Like you say "Il n'y a pas âme qui vive"... There is no soul alive. Après il y a tellement de manières imaginatives d'exprimer l'absence de personnes dans un lieu comme "c'est désert"

@@carthkaras6449 Qui est d'accord avec ça ? Personne. Oh, oups. :p

[@carthkaras6449]

@ the "il n'y a" is implied. Ce sont des abus de langage devenus courants. Comme certains ne se rendent pas compte que "plus" signifie toujours "plus". " il y en a plus" signifie en fait "il n'y en a pas plus"

[@Jimatalog]

French here and etymology-lover. That's amazing work ! I learned many things although I studied dead languages, and I can't believe those things weren't taught to us in school. I think giving depth to languages, especially when it's that twisty and fun, would make students so much more involved ! Thanks a lot !

[@theskeletonposse6432]

I normally find online linguistics videos too dry to follow closely, but this one was pretty fascinating. The evolution of natural languages is wild-each generation working with imperfect information about how their own language operated in the past, making changes here and there for convenience or clarity, and gradually making a linguistic Ship of Theseus that is mutually unintelligible from how it was spoken hundreds of years before.

[@widmo206]

Tom Scott has a few interestig videos about linguistics that aren't, as you said, dry

[@Xezlec]

I kind of hate it, but it is an interesting process.

[@wholesome2399]

NEW VIDEO DROPPED OH YEAH edit: my first thought was "oh yeah so like in polish sometimes", was glad to see polish mentioned haha There is even a joke/story in polish (will try to translate): "In polish language negation can be done by negation, double negation and affirmation. But not double affirmation." "Alright, alright..." ps. loved the Concord pun

[@NakariSpeardane]

OOOH I love that! There's a similar joke in English with the double affirmation being "yeah right!"

[@wholesome2399]

@@NakariSpeardane haha very similar indeed!

[@Exilum]

To note, while "rien" completely switched, "personne" became context-dependent. It can be a person (noun), or it can be no one (complement), depending on how it's used.

[@notwithouttext]

iirc "personne" for nobody vs "une personne" for a person?

[@Exilum]

@@notwithouttext depends, but most of the time, yeah. The rule of thumbs is when it's a noun, as I said. So "une", "des", "de ta", any number, adjective, etc.

[@PrenonNon0]

Idem avec le "plus", qui signifie "more" ou "no more" selon le contexte (et dont la prononciation a été modifiée pour désambigüiser)

[@Exilum]

@@PrenonNon0 Ça c'est plus jne histoire de négation. Il n'y avait pas de double négation à la base, donc quand elle est devenue standard, la simple négation ne fonctionnait plus. Mais le "ne" est la négation d'origine.

[@PrenonNon0]

@@Exilum J'ai rien compris à ta réponse donc je suppose que mon commentaire était de base incompréhensible. Je m'explique: "Plus" est dans le même cas de figure que "personne". À l'origine, il avait un sens essentiellement positif ("Il n'y en a plus" = "Il n'y en a pas davantage"). Avec la chute progressive du "ne", le sens négatif ("Y en a plu") s'est grammaticalisé aux côtés du sens positif ("Y en a pluss"), et la remotivation du -s audible est là pour résoudre l'ambigüité qu'il en découle.

[@azarias5666]

As a french native speaker, I knew about this cycle with ne -> ne pas -> pas (and surprisingly, it's the inverse of what happened at 5:36 bc it's formal to say ne pas but informal (and vulgar for some) to say pas even though everyone use it) but I didn't even considered the fact that rien came from rem and personne was... personne !! (damn how foolish was I to think that it was weird how in German we say Ich habe niemandem etwas gefragt (I have asked nothing to anyone) using etwas (une chose / a thing) instead of nichts (rien / nothing) !!! You earned a sub ! P.S. : reading a lot of old french and medieval texts, I came across "mie" and "goutte" for negative structures and I find so poetic to be able to write sentence like : "Ma mie, Je n'aime mie la memoire de mes amis" (so much m !)

[@lagomoof]

And then there are words that flip in meaning due to sarcasm. "Lovely" could end up going that way. "Nice" has already flipped (it originally meant "simple-minded" or "ignorant") and, occasionally walking the line, could flip back again. "Aw(e)ful" had to be replaced by "awesome" because while more neutral than negative, it shifted completely negative. Except in "awfully good" for some reason. How egregious. Outstanding.

[@speedwagon1824]

Is awfully good not using a negative word to stress?

[@allanrichardson1468]

A professor was lecturing on this very topic, that in some languages a double negative is an affirmative, while in other languages a double negative is a more intense negative. But, he added, there is no language in which a double affirmative is a negative. Then someone yelled from the back of the room, “Yeah, right!”

[@emmanuelbuu7068]

Excellent!

[@veniankween130]

Fucken knew it. Of course. This joke is EVERYWHERE when someone talks about negation. Oh this isn’t hate or annoyance. This is me fucking calling it. The creator made this joke (it was a reply). It’s also pretty uh niche. I don’t think my friends would say this is a default response to a video about negation. And they wouldn’t know what that meant either.. Keep telling it

[@rizzwan-42069]

​@@veniankween130ye ye

[@Pocketfarmer1]

Old Calvin and Hobbes cartoon

[@neithere]

This joke exists in many languages too

[@zangoloid]

i loved the bit where he said "never gonna give you up"

[@livedandletdie]

have you heard that he isn't going to hand out that Disney Pixar movie about that Old Man in that flying house to you.

[@veniankween130]

@@livedandletdieb-but, that would let me down! He wouldn’t do THAT

[@mahi-fish]

​@@veniankween130Isn't is Meatloaf who won't do THAT?

[@aborigine3716]

A proffessor of linguistics explains to the studens: - There are languages where a single negation negates the whole sentence, there are languages where double negations affirm the meaning, but there are no languages where a double confirmation negates the information. A voice from the back row: - Yeah, sure...🌚

[@remibaele2169]

You video has probably been recommanded to many bilingual native french speakers, as me. It's an excellent work of pedagogy. Thank you very much, and your English pronunciation is cristal clear.

[@marsl8603]

Babe, wake up, Nakari uploaded another video!

[@alexbeldam]

Great video!! I wanted to share that in Brazilian Portuguese all 3 are still used "Não sei", "Não sei não" and "Sei não", but are used in slightly different contexts. For example: the first two are ok to use in formal conversations, but the last one isn't.

[@geheimemartha]

One of the best videos i've seen in a while ! I'm a french speaker and this absolutely blew my mind !!

[@aresusadeghgol1357]

the balance between your voice audio and the background music is great, there are so many interesting videos with messy audio that i can't bare to listen too, even tho it seems like they would otherwise be so good, cuz of my own issues with sounds, thank you so much for the work you put in your audio

[@UmSteven]

I just love how you explain things, and with the gentle music in the back AH i just love your videos

[@landonhudson448]

Your videos are always so much fun to watch. I've noticed you've made quite a few in the last couple of months. I hope you keep making them this frequently, because they're honestly such a joy. Keep up the good work, regardless!

[@2tbk]

Love the recent "linguistic" videos!

[@NakariSpeardane]

Thank you :D they've been fun, and things I've been thinking about for a while so I'm glad they're enjoyed!

[@modalmixture]

This was super interesting! It’s crazy how the original negation marker is some form of N- across so many varied Indo-European languages.

[@Pandemonis]

Non.

[@ourpetsarecute3110]

Love’n these linguistics videos you’ve been putting out

[@CasualLifeExperiencer]

As an Italian who casually uses mica, I would have never suspected that it meant a concrete thing (crumb) if it wasn't for your video.

[@gljames24]

Mica is used as a natural glitter and is a rock found in literal concrete.

[@gabriele7921]

Note that mica used to mean breadcrumb but it is unheard with that meaning in modern Italian, where breadcrumb is briciola.

[@raffallves5203]

So casual 😂

[@chrisamies2141]

mica in Catalan means 'a bit,' 'a small amount.' Clearly related.

[@JonahLoeb]

@@chrisamies2141 It's the same as the Latin for "crumb," which is likely related to the Greek "micros," meaning "small."

[@theskull1030]

6:07 Something similar actually happened in Spanish with the word "jamás", which literally means "ever", and thus, it's used in phrases such as "nunca jamás", which means "never ever". However, by that logic it should also be possible to say "siempre jamás", meaning "forever and ever", and it used to be used like that long ago. However, that has faded away, and since you only ever hear the former now, people now use the word "jamás" as meaning "never" even without putting "nunca" before it. So now, if you say "siempre jamás", it's going to sound weird to everyone.

[@alcibiadem1118]

Thank you for this video. I learned a lot about double negative and where "pas", "rien" and "personne" comes from. You also perfectly pointed out the difficulties with "personne" and its ambiguity.

[@aurelfarkasovsky]

All the linguistic niche stuff I love all packed into a singe video? Let's gooo!

[@marpheus1]

Just discovered your channel. It went straight to the "all notifications" pile. You sound very chill but your content still has a lot a personality and your visuals are very charming. Also, it's always nice to have brazilian portuguese be mentioned. Very well done!

[@felipemontero9839]

I think "point" was also used for negation. That's what Descartes uses in the Discourse on Method.

[@starsandsuch7778]

Yep! It’s like a stronger negation.

[@Bos_roseus]

Do we have to count the number of mistakes in this video ?

[@Satan-lb8pu]

Yeah you can still use point as a negative, you'll just sound like a 17th century aristocrat

[@ogunsiron2]

i think the pattern was "not even a small part of a whole"

[@your-mom-irl]

It's also how the prince of Montecristo is written, I think. It's considered too formal

[@andreaolivo523]

That was incredible, I've never felt more satisfied after connected so many dots in the span of an 8 minutes video! Though almost completely in disuse, there is still some trace of "mica" as something bread-related in some parts of Italy (there is a sandwich place where I live called Mr michetta). I would not in a million years have guessed that it's the same "mica" we use to reinforce the negative form

[@ThorirPP]

This is actually an interesting thing when comparing north germanic languages (f.ex. scandinavian languages, or icelandic) with west germanic (f.ex. english, german) In old english they had negative concord (i.e. double negative) so they said "I don't see nothing" (ic ne seo nawiht), so after the "ne" disappeared the new negative "not" was still historically a negative word In old norse however, there originally wasn't a negative concord, and so after the old "ne" disappeared, the words that became negative where historically originally positive (as is happening in french). Such as "hvergi" for "nowhere", which is the same word as old english "hwergen" meaning "somewhere" So yeah, that is the reason why west germanic have negatives with n- (not, never, nicht) while north germanic languages have one without n- (ikke, ei, aldri, ingen) edit: also there is a really interesting example in icelandic where the flip seems to been opposite coz of this. Icelandic "neinn" is etymologically the same word as english "none", i.e. ne (not) + einn (one). But in usage it isn't really used to mean none, rather it is used to mean anyone in a negative sentence. You can only use "neinn" when you also have a negative such as "ekki", e.g. "ég sá ekki neinn" (I didn't see anyone). Icelandic doesn't have negative concord, so this cannot be an example of that, instead it seems that when "ekki" got the negation, the old negative "neinn" paired with it lost the negation. i.e. when sentences like "I didn't see ever" changed into "I saw not" (ek sá eigi), an older construction like "I saw no-one ever" got reanalyzed as "I saw not anyone" (ek sá eigi neinn) interesting stuff

[@tottoriteal9661]

I just discovered this channel and this video (and the entire channel) is amazing! Both the linguistic and world building videos are so interesting. Keep up the good work!

[@MrBoooooring]

For some added context, the same happened to "point" and "oncques" which are outdated versions of "pas". The former means "point", the latter "once / one day".

[@Teodzero]

4:07 Great pun, but a missed opportunity to use a negative version of that image.

[@rennan1173]

Brazilian portuguese speaker here. "Não sei não" and "sei não" are veeery informal, we didn't drop completely the first stage. And we have a fourth option relating to the verb "saber" (to know): "sei lá" which literally translates to "I know there", but it really means "I don't know". But we don't use this "lá" as a negation with other verbs.

[@danielzak4405]

I think "informal" language is another way of saying "the natural way the language would be evolving, if people didn't force language to stay the same so that you have to be rich enough to afford a good education just to speak correctly."

[@PhilosoShysGameChannel]

Glad to see more content! Keep up the great work!

[@kaitlynethylia]

Just found this channel today, huge fan already :D

[@Pingwn]

When you were talking about how the French word of "thing" started to mean "nothing" because of its use in negation I immediately thought of the Hebrew כלום, which went through the same process and than you just mentioned it yourself.

[@cashnelson2306]

As a student of Japanese, which is a nightmare of double negative usage, this is a very fun watch! Can’t wait to check out the rest of your channel.

[@Overlearner]

I love the background music like I'm in a computer game perusing a variety of potions and powerups. Very interesting content too!

[@MI24CL3]

Thank you for explaining "personne" at the end ! I've been pointing out to my friends for more than a decade that I don't understand why personne both means "a person" and "no one".

[@mthestrangepersonontheinte8781]

This is so interesting, great video!! I remember being so confused about how double negatives worked as a kid, glad to hear that other languages have it better lol

[@fhdcbdfkdjnisdnoi]

here's an alternate explanation: In old french the negative «ne» became more of a restrictive particle. «Ne» is often use alongside «que» and substantives like «rien» so you define the value of the verb restriction. Because the extension of «pas» is total and negative you don't need «ne» to express restriction since it is in itself restrictive. I would say «ne» and «pas» have different fonction they aren't just redundant negations.

[@feanorofsunspear2320]

In proto indo-european the "in life" negative intensifier was pretty popular and became the standard negative for example in Greek

[@Lilas.Duveteux]

As a French speaker, the "ne" without the "pas" is used in litterary french, "ne pas" is used in neutral, formal speach and the "ne" is dropped in informal speach. My Drow language would simply have a "ir" for negation.

[@abarette_]

My Kovasc language simply has negative inside the verb conjugation. Yet nouns, unlike verbs, agree in number (Null, Singular, Plural) but that's another can of words.

[@Inconito___]

Example : Je ne bois ni mange (I don't drink nor eat)

[@abarette_]

@@Inconito___ 'ni' is another can of worms to be fair, what a crazy word

[@Bos_roseus]

​@@Inconito___je ne bois ni ne mange*

[@Inconito___]

@@Bos_roseus pour le coup je ne suis pas convaincu (même si c'est sûrement l'usage officiel), après c'est sûrement par calque de l'anglais mais les deux ne signifie pas tout à fait la même chose pour moi. Mon but ce n'était pas de lancer une débat de grammaire 😂. "Je ne bois ni mange aucune sucreries" c'est pour moi une position de principe alors que "Je ne bois ni ne mange aucune sucreries" c'est plus descriptif (après c'est sûrement dans ma tête 😅)

[@deithlan]

This is an incredible video, truly amazing job

[@dltn42]

Im Brazilian and for me, it's hard to avoid reinforcement of negatives... Its very commum in Portuguese. It's the same as the mistake of reinforce the negative in the past of verb, example: "I didn't run there"... I always use to mistake, and write: "I didn't ran there" for years learning english. 😂 Because in Portuguese, I think in all Latin Languages, you always need to transform the verb to past or future 😂 In english is totally different. I always asked myself why 🥲 (is so much better and clear to understand when we transform the verb 😂)... But you explained now, thanks 🙂

[@JimMonsanto]

This happens in Japanese as well. The word, "daremo", technically means "anyone/everyone OR no one", depending on whether the sentence is positive or negative (just how like "itsumo" means"any/every time OR never" and "dokomo" means "anywhere/everywhere" OR nowhere). However, in practice, daremo is only used to mean "no one". If you want to mean "everyone", you have to say, "minna".

[@syro33]

yeah! Also when realizing that those words I'd been using like daremo and itsumo were just the question words + mo, that was really cool! dare = who, daremo = anyone/no one itsu = when, itsumo = never/always nani = what nanimo = anything/nothing

[@nickpatella1525]

"is only used to mean no one" Search "誰もが". It's fairly common. You just don't hear it in conversation because it sounds literary.

[@TheGoldenFluzzleBuff]

“Nothing. I said Nothing” -Dr Pavel, TDKR. Bravo Nolan. Stage III negative usage, and we never saw it coming

[@laithtwair]

In Libyan Arabic, the word for nothing is شي (shayy) which is related to the word شيء (shay') meaning "thing" in standard Arabic (the glottal stop at the end was lost). Instead, حاجة (haaja(t)) is mostly used to mean "thing" or "something" and شي only survives in negative statements like I didn't see a thing - ماشفتش شي. Interestingly enough, the Arabic two part negative you talked about in the video also occurs here and also comes from شيء, so literally it's "I didnt see a thing a thing". After the شيء was reanalysed as just a part of the verb making it negative, it had to be added again to specify you really didn't see a thing instead of just not seeing.

[@WannzKaswan]

I theorise the same thing happened to Minang, which is a variety of Malay. Negatives in Minang are formed with the words indak X do, for example: Inyo indak makan sate do = he doesn't eat sate I theorise this ‘do’ comes from Standard Malay benda ’thing’, which would've became bando in Minang. While Indak literally means no. So it's like didn't X a thing

[@BasilLevski]

negative concorde repairs the sound barrier underrated channel

[@MartaRzehorz]

haha, I am not surprised czech got used as an example. Czech has interesting relationship with negatives. For example there are no hmm transparent answers to negative yes/no questions (that are commonly used). "You didn't go to the party?" (Tys na tu oslavu nešla?) well saying "Ano." sounds like agreeing with the negative, as if saying "Ano, nešla." (Yes, I didn't go.), and saying "Ne." sounds like negative concord stuff as if saying "Ne, nešla." (No, I didn't go.) also there are nouns and adjectives that have no non-negative form (fossilized negative?) that used to be there bc of hmm semantic negative? (I made that up on the spot, dunno what it called) that is the concept it describes is a negative thing. "Neurvalec" meaning "rude person", but there is no "urvalec", yet historically there was "urvalec" but it meant the same thing as modern neurvalec, the negative only intensified the semantically negative meaning. you know, it's "negative" to be a rude person. it's not used like this anymore ofc, but apparently at least sometimes it was used like this? few times? i just find it interesting. i think some sign languages do something similar like the facial components you do when using "negative" verbs such as "die" are the same one uses when forming grammatical negatives in some other contexts otherwise, and i been told not implementing these may be understood as if nobody "actually" died?

[@JonahHW]

English has the same issue with answers to negative questions, even in dialects without negative concord - I often answer those questions with whole sentences to just sidestep the issue.

[@furTron]

I think it’s a perfect opportunity to introduce German „doch“ ;)

[@MooImABunny]

Veeery interesting, it's really cool. One note about Hebrew, from what I can find, klum כלום was always used in negative sentences, and while some believe it's related to arabic's kalam meaning thing, making it plausible that it indeed meant 'thing' and got reanalyzed into 'nothing', there's no clear consensus, as positive uses were not found. I still didn't know about any of that, and the fact this might be the origin blows my mind

[@adrianblake8876]

Also, It's mishnaic hebrew, definitely NOT biblical hebrew...

[@adrianblake8876]

It is also found as the interrogative, but the word "not" is used there as well (in hebrew "haló")

[@karlhans8304]

really good video, aint nobody making videos like you!

[@EdwardLindon]

This was clear and fascinating, and your conclusions are hilarious.

[@TheZetaKai]

I absolutely adore watching videos that take a deep dive into the evolution of specific linguistic phenomena. There is just nothing else like it to inspire a new conlang, and I wish that there was more content like this. This is very much like Biblaridion's conlanging content, when he isn't consumed by his penchant for speculative biology. I hope to see more videos like this in the future.

[@Matojeje]

This is super interesting! As a native Czech speaker, it's nice to finally know the theory behind these negatives so I can explain it better

[@annas3059]

Finally, an explanation for why some English speakers frown on double negatives while other speakers use them! And like so many other grammatical peeves, it turns out to be the upper classes trying not to be sound poor. It all makes sense now. The next time someone tells me not to use a double negative, I'll tell them they are just being snobbish and prejudiced against non-prestigious dialects. Thank you!

[@Currywurst-zo8oo]

But they have a point. Once strict logic became more widespread, we realised that double negatives aren't correct.

[@psychiatrefou89]

Beautiful video and well researched

[@rateeightx]

As a speaker of Welsh, I'd like to mention some more things about how the negative construction works. The Negative Particle "Dim" originally meant just "a thing", and now actually needs to be combined with another word to make "Nothing", being the phrase "Dim Byd", For example "Welais i ddim byd" would mean "I saw nothing", but the original/more literal translation would be "I didn't see a thing of the world". The language can be considered to actually be in either step 2 or step 3, Depending on the sentence (And who's saying it), as noted in the video, in the simple past usually the only negation is from "Dim" and the verb undergoing a mutation, however sometimes in the present tense it still remains in an actual unique form of the verb, for example "You eat" is "Rwyt ti'n bwyta", but "You don't eat" is "Dwyt ti ddim yn bwyta". Both verbs there are actually contracted, with "Rwyt" originally being "Yr wyt", ("Yr" being a positive particle), and "Dwyt" originally being "Nid wyt" ("Nid" being the original negative article), however in many situations this is dropped, for example "I don't eat" would properly be "Dydw i ddim yn bwyta", but would more commonly be just "Dw i ddim yn bwyta", with "Dw i'n bwyta" being (one of) the positive form(s). Because the Negative Particle originally meant just "A thing", when it directly proceeds a definite noun phrase, it has a unique form, "Mo", a contraction of "Dim o", literally "A thing of", so instead of saying "I didn't see a thing John" the original form would've been "I didn't see a thing of John". (I'm not actually sure why this wasn't used with indefinite noun phrases too, Perhaps it's related to how two nouns in a row is interpreted as "The x of y", and that's also how possessives are formed, so "Dim Siôn" would mean "John's thing" rather than "A thing of John"?) This is especially interesting, because in Welsh, prepositions conjugate when followed by a pronoun, so "I didn't see the sign" would be "Welais i mo'r arwydd", but "I didn't see you" would be "Welais i mohonot ti" (Or in the formal/plural "Welais i mohonoch chi"), using "Mohonot" instead of just "Mo", to fit with the conjugated form of "o", "Ohonot". In some parts of the south, They actually use a completely different negative, "Sa", which is used _without_ the particle "Dim", for example "I don't eat" would be "Sa i'n bwyta", in a way skipping a whole new cycle as none of the intermediate forms appear, although I'm not sure how old this form is, or even where this word "Sa" derives from.

[@chaosPneumatic]

MA in Linguistics here. To be honest, I am not aware of any natural dialect of English without negative concord. I have always been under the suspicion that its absence is found ONLY in educated standard varieties where it's stigmatized and unnaturally suppressed. So I wouldn't say only "some" dialects have it; rather I'd say "most, if not all, have it." If someone can provide an example of non-educated speech without negative concord (maybe from their own dialect region), I'd be very interested to learn about it.

[@pageturner2958]

Honestly, I don't think I know of a dialect that doesn't use double negatives.

[@somebodyelse9130]

I mean, plenty of people naturally speak the standard, educated dialect, like me. I'm not suppressing my natural speech, I really just don't use double negatives.

[@chaosPneumatic]

@@somebodyelse9130 But are you speaking the common vernacular of your region or were you raised by your parents and school system to speak the prescribed standard? A constructed language can be learned natively and feel natural to the speaker, but that doesn't make it any less artificial than the organically developed vernaculars of traditional communities.

[@syro33]

I mean, my dialect doesn't, and while its similar in some ways to General American English its not from it. (I'm from Utah)

[@chaosPneumatic]

@@syro33 I'll admit I am not familiar with Utahn English but I have lived next door in Nevada and I do believe it is typical of working class speech there. Do you never hear double negatives among working class/rural Utahns? If it's not too personal to ask, what would you say is your own socioeconomic status and level of education?

[@carsarthu]

This was a great video! Nice to see Brazilian Portuguese being mentioned. In some dialects, like my own, the third stage has already been reached, “sei não” is totally something I say on the daily 😅

[@lubo7699]

As a french, love it. Thx for this piece of work

[@guydht1]

Finally someone covers this subject! In hebrew we have the double negative everywhere in the language - "i didn't do nothing", "no one was not here", "nothing didn't happen" and occasionally you think about it and say "huh, that doesn't make any sense".

[@jeremyquentin42]

My mind was blown way too many times for such a short time.

[@stucky101]

Wow. It seems English used to have all kinds of grammatical forms that other languages have, but has shed most of them. No clue that it had double negative at some point. I've always been interested in this. Thank you !

[@brussoni]

Wow I was thinking this myself, this was the video I needed!

[@kaspar.mp3]

I have found a new youtube channel to binge watch.

[@edvardskalva]

what a nice video

[@yuiuyxvhvx5980]

As french very good video, I'm subscribing and I do hope you will continue your work :)

[@krisinsaigon]

I'm a native speaker of english and I still use verb plus 'nowt' for negation

[@milyrouge]

That was really well done. Negation is terribly cool, linguistically and psychologically!

[@eugenetswong]

Thank you for this. I've always wondered.

[@jordankay4754]

Another interesting fact: this is the same process through which Americans came to say “I could care less” (which means “I don’t care at all”).

[@stevecarter8810]

What a fascinating and bamboozling story. I had _idea step_ that it was so complex.

[@Omouja]

In Brazilian Portuguese it can have a TRIPLE negation, like in the sentence: "Eu não sei de nada não" (I know nothing), "nada" means nothing, and "não" means no, so its like "I don't know nothing no".

[@zig5712]

One thing that can be overlooked is the actual value of doubling down on references, one thing that was orally troubling (wasn't that big of an issue in writing oddly enough) when i first learnt German was that in some circumstances the verb, thus the action of the sometimes very long sentence was at the very end of a sentence, which kinda emphasized some kind of suspense as to what the sentence was even about until the end.

[@s0n0fm4n3]

really instructional video, great channel

[@Maelanrah]

This is the most cute (cutest?) video about linguistics I've ever seen (and I would never have imagined saying that of such a topic)

[@diemme568]

very good video. I might add, most northwestern italian dialects use "no" (milanese) or "né(i)n" (piedmontese) as an *N2 negative marker* , to the point that "mi mangi no" means "I don't eat" is only one effect, but there are others: for example a particle like "pü" (= "more") now means "not any more", while "more" must be accompanied by "assé" (="enough") like in "püssé" (more of that). Therefore: "mi mangi pü" - literally: "I eat more" means "I don't eat any more" whereas in order to say "I eat more" you must say: "mi mangi püssé"

[@WillySalami]

Interesting, in my native language, Catalan, the EXACT same happens, while in my dialect we don't say "pas", in Central (Barcelona) Catalan they do use the "pas" in a very similar manner to the French. And if you're wondering, yes, "pas" is also "step" (along other things) in Catalan.

[@Valentina-o4q7k]

True, and in Catalan we can also say things like "no m'agrada gens ni MICA (= crumb)" to say that there is something we don't like at all.

[@WillySalami]

@@Valentina-o4q7k Acabes de parlarme en anglés després de dir (indirectament) que eres catalanòfon XD?

[@Valentina-o4q7k]

Siii, he contestat en anglès perquè el vídeo està en anglès i la meva intenció era compartir aquest fet lingüístic sobre el català en anglès perquè la resta d’oients també ho pugui entendre i saber més sobre el català. :D

[@WillySalami]

@@Valentina-o4q7k També tens raó, ho he pensat mentres escrivia el missatge XD

[@Satan-lb8pu]

Did you also drop the first negative?

[@н.джед.т]

Really neat succinct lesson... Ain't nothing better.

[@GazilionPT]

2:55 In European Portuguese we may also say "Não sei, não" as a reinforcement. In Brazilian Portuguese, stage 3 ("Sei não") has already occurred in casual speech and is widespread since at least a few decades ago, judging from what I remember hearing in Brazilian "telenovelas" during the 1980s.

[@velvety3459]

This is such a neat channel!!

[@tux_duh]

As someone from somewhere with the double negative English Accent, its actually pretty usefull, its mostly a way to exaggerate.

[@JonahHW]

I have a question about dialects that use double negatives to exaggerate - is there a way to get across the meaning of two negatives that contradict each other? Since in my "double negatives cancelling" dialect, "I saw something" and "I didn't see nothing" have similar but subtly different meanings. (The latter suggests that while you didn't see nothing, what you saw might not quite be worth being called "something" - or, if you emphasize "not" in "I did not see nothing" it implies that you saw something really big). In my dialect at least, the intonation on the word "nothing" can affect the way it's interpreted - a falling, definitive sounding intonation can shift it towards the "double negatives amplifying" meaning while a more unsure, almost inquisitive intonation on "nothing" makes it cancel (the exact sort of intonation I'm thinking of is starting on a middle pitch for the first syllable, then starting on a lower pitch for the second but bringing it up closer to the initial pitch, if that makes sense).

[@jamesarthurkimbell]

@@JonahHWProbably the best way to make that emphasis is by changing the verb, e.g. “you can’t not see it” becoming “you can’t miss it.” Taking one layer of negativeness from the grammar and transplanting it into the meaning.

[@tux_duh]

@@JonahHW You're thinking about it in the wrong way. "I didn't see nothing" means "i saw nothing" the double negatives reinforce eachother, it doesnt literally mean "i did not see nothing" it's just a way people talk and understand eachother It makes more sense hearing it than when reading it, I'm from the Appalachias Example: Jane doe: John! Come quick I think i saw someone out back go check. John doe: * coming back in with a sigh * I didn't see nothing out there, lets keep the door locked in case

[@Currywurst-zo8oo]

@@tux_duh I think the question is how you would translate "I did not see nothing" from standard english into your dialect. What kind of construction would you use to achieve that meaning?

[@SirAU]

I've been thinking of why cultures didn't write on cloth. Like say, Indians. They had access to a lot of cloth during pretty much the entirety of the Vedic civilization. Yet, for most of history, they wrote on leaves, which degrade way quickly. In fact, the documents had to be re-copied every few decades. The Chinese didn't write on cloth either. So did other civilizations, even if they had plenty of cloth. And I'm unable to figure out a reason as to why. What are your thoughts on this?

[@NakariSpeardane]

I think it might just be that most fabric is hard to write on, and fabric good enough for writing is high effort? You need it to be stiff enough to not warp when you're trying to write on it, and you need dense enough fibers that ink isn't going to spread and make it illegible, and you need it to be smooth so that your writing implement doesn't catch too much on the fibres - and that needs small fibers, which will be hard to weave, so you'll want to mat them to reduce labor costs - and then you've just got paper or papyrus :P

[@SirAU]

@@NakariSpeardane That is a very good explanation! But... I just can't keep the questions out of my head. Arabs wrote on leather, and leather isn't exactly that fit for writing. Cloth might not be good, but at least it was better than leather. But leather got used, and cloth didn't. Thanks for replying :)

[@LordFrantsurIV]

@@SirAU Arabs didn't have much access to cloth, and what they did was used for coverage.

[@Emilien-hy3sy]

Very Interesting, and your voice is 😊😊

[@rateeightx]

One thing I find fascinating about negative concord, or rather the lack thereof, is that because of it we can phrase things in English in a way that you can't really do in other languages, Because for example "I'm not not saying that" _doesn't_ mean the same thing as "I am saying that", or at least, The implications are different. Plus you can sorta combine "not" with an adjective, to make an adjective phrase, Which has a distinct meaning, "He was not tall" isn't the same as "He was short", Which can also be used to make sentences with a seeming double negative, for example a while ago I was trying to say the phrase "I'm not usually not tired when I get up", And I was trying to say it in Italian, but as far as I could tell there's no way to properly translate that, Best I could get was simply removing the negative altogether, but I feel "I'm usually tired" has at least a slightly different meaning from "I'm not usually not tired".

[@flaviospadavecchia5126]

Brilliant video, keep up the good work :)

[@leonfredriksen1425]

Great video!

[@jamesarthurkimbell]

3:53 The do-support could be a different story, but it feels like pretty much the same idea: the words carry enough meaning, but they don’t catch people’s ears with enough emphasis or redundancy, so a new word is added. Other ways into that same pattern are probably common, like “where are you at?” instead of “where are you?”

[@rianantony]

The example you showed of what stage three might look like in brazilian portuguese is literally present in colloquial conversation. It's not even a stretch, "Sei não" is verbatim a sentence I have used who knows how many times in my life. /as a brazilian portuguese speaker ☝️ It's not something I ever would've noticed but it just clicked now, fascinating. Come to think of it, sometimes we add "nada" (nothing) after a verb to indicate a negative, generally in shorter sentences though, i think.

[@alpenjon]

Exellent explanations

[@hodayahsm2332]

Thank you, that was fun

[@Ledonail]

what's interesting about the Jesperson's cycle is that even tho french mostly got out of using double negation orally, the stubbornedness with which we learn that the double negation exists and that we keep it in our written language means we're not out of stage II and probably won't.

[@helloiamenergyman]

Stage 3 is in the midst of happening in brazil, sometimes, especially in text messages or more informal contexts, we cut out the first 'Não' :)

[@singingcat02]

That’s also why in more formal/old fashioned french, you don’t say "pas" but "point". "Je ne sais point." Point means dot. And it was originally used with verbs expressing the sense of sight. "Je ne vois point" = "I don’t see a dot". Now you can use it with any verb (Je n’entends point = I don’t hear). Pas and point are the two main negative adverbs that ended up being used in modern french, but they’re not the only ones. For sight only, you can say "Je n’y vois goutte" (I don’t see a drop). And obviously there is "rien", which you can frequently use as a replacement for "pas" or "point. "Je n’y vois rien" : "I see nothing".