Re: Breton (WAS: first try at conlanging)

On 9 Jan, Steg Belsky wrote:

> On Tue, 8 Jan 2002 20:26:29 EST Elliott Lash <AL260@...> writes:
> > But..surely 'yes' is a basic vocabulary member?
> -
>
> Not necessarily - Biblical Hebrew, as well as one of the languages
> mentioned in this thread, lack "yes", and just respond in the affirmative
> by repeating the relevant part of the question.
> For example, in the Scroll of Ruth, there's a conversation between Bo`az
> and the Elders that goes something like:
>
> B: `eidim?
> ([are you] witnesses?)
> tE: `eidim.
> ([we are] witnesses.)
>
> The word _kein_ for "yes" is a later development - i think it may come
> from the word for "such" or "like that" but i always mix up _kein_ and
> _kakh_, they look very similar.

    I don't know when it developed, but there is also the word /hen/
(heh-nun sofit). In Genesis, for example (chap 30, verse 34),
where Jacob makes Laban an offer to take, in payment for
his services, the animals with spotted coats (whose fleece was
considered less valuable), Laban answers Jacob: "hen lu yehi
kidvarexa" ( = "hen" [yes], may it be acording to your words").
    Another example of "hen", from the Babylonian Talmud, ( masechet
Shabat, page 31), where a Roman-era pagan comes to Rabbi Hillel
to try and get him mad by asking stupid questions (Hillel was famous for his
even temper). At one point the pagan asks him: are you Hillel, whom they
call the "president" of Israel? Next it is written: "amar lo hen".
(= he said to him "hen"). In other words, "yes".
    In everyday Israeli Hebrew, "hen" isn't used. People usually use,
as Steg wrote,  "_kein_ and _kakh_"
   ( BTW Steg: "kein" is "yes"; "kakh" is "such; like that" .)


Dan Sulani
-----------------------
likehsna rtem zuv tikuhnuh auag inuvuz vaka'a.

A word is an awesome thing.