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According to Wiktionary, the Greek word ναι comes from Ancient Greek ναί, which is a variation of νή, which comes from Proto-Indo-European ne, which means no.

Why can a word have the opposite meaning to its origin? Or was Wiktionary wrong here, and this word actually comes from another language?

Huy Ngo
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    If the etymology is true, perhaps, from something like, "isn't it"? In Slavic languages, you can add "ne?" for a confirmation of a statement you think is probably true. – Constantine Geist Apr 12 '17 at 14:23
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    Hoffman's etymological dictionary of Greek does derive it from *nē, and linkes to Latin nē "truly". – Constantine Geist Apr 12 '17 at 14:45
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    Wiktionary doesn't say all of that. The entry for νή says “From the same source as Latin nē, enim.” – J. Siebeneichler Apr 16 '17 at 23:03
  • @J.Siebeneichler Yes, that's right. But in the page of Latin nē, it is said that the word is from PIE *ne, so I reduce it for the sake of the briefness. – Huy Ngo Apr 17 '17 at 13:34
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    @huy-ngo There are two etymology sections in the Latin page; you are quoting the first one, but it is the second one that is related to Greek ναί. – J. Siebeneichler Apr 17 '17 at 16:26
  • There is an interesting parallel in Brazilian Portuguese: “Pois não” means “definitely yes” and not “but no” as one would assume.....! – Jurgen Buschek Jan 03 '18 at 02:30
  • @JurgenBuschek - And "pois sim" is a negative, in kind of a "you must be kidding" way, instead of "so yes". But both are mainly used in answering a request, not a question. – Luís Henrique Jan 10 '18 at 23:28

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Lat. nē 'really, true' and Tocharian B nai 'indeed, surely' seem to be the IE-parallels. The IE demonstrative *(h1e-)no- 'he there, that one' seems to be the root according to Beekes (with a questionmark though) and Babiniotis.

Midas
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  • Actually, Beekes peppers it all with "?" and "could be". A hypothesis rather than a matter of agreement. – fdb Apr 12 '17 at 22:59
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    Several Slavic langues have ano "yes" < = contraction from a ono "and that", where demonstrative ono "that" is probably related to h1e-no? the construction looks like a Slavic innovation and has nothing to do with the Latin/Greek nē; what are their arguments for (h1e-)no-, do they maybe cite Slavic constructions such ano? – Constantine Geist Apr 13 '17 at 02:06
  • Oh, and also, ano is further reduced to no, so nai could be a shortening from a longer form, too – Constantine Geist Apr 13 '17 at 02:20
  • @fdb: You're right. I made a note in the parenthesis. – Midas Apr 13 '17 at 06:05
  • @ConstantineGeist: Interesting. Babiniotis mentions the Slavic demonstrative na and Sanskrit na-na. – Midas Apr 13 '17 at 06:06
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    In Russian, na means "here, take it" (when addressing several people, it takes the form nate as if mimicking a verb). ona means "she", which is most likely unrelated, but in Old Russian, ona also meant "those" (plural neutrum). So na is a contraction from ona? I'm not sure about the grammatical role of the ending (same for the Greek forms). – Constantine Geist Apr 13 '17 at 15:39
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    German has a discourse marker "na"--concessive or ironic: "na klar, na sicher doch, natürlich" (bien sur, naturally); likewise but more diverse depending on intonation, "naja" (well …, comme ci comme ca, sure, not really), apellative: "Na?" (and? 'sup?); overlapping with nu "now": na dann mal los (so let's go; up and away?); Gothic ne-u-, n-u- is a preverbal "question marker", isn't it? cp also Lat nanciscor "3. (by extension) I possess by birth, have by nature" < *h₂neḱ- "to reach, attain" (cp enough, Ger genug vs genau "exact[ly]"), necro < *neḱ-, En dead certain – vectory Oct 17 '19 at 18:24
  • *(h1e-)no- linked to ἐκεῖνος in Beekes. – Cosmas Zachos Jul 03 '21 at 22:01
  • One might think that words for "yes" and "no" would be fundamental features of languages, but actually they don't seem to be: many languages manage without them, and others which survived for long periods without seemed to evolve them at some point from whatever words came to hand. – Stuart F Apr 14 '22 at 12:54