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Mark J. Reed scripsit: > It seems as if most languages have innovated a yes-word over time; do > you know of any modern natively-spoken language which lacks one? The modern Celtic languages utterly lack any words for "yes" or "no"; repeating the verb with or without a negation particle is used instead. Lojban has a similar strategy, but also has a repeat-the-last-sentence particle that is commonly used, with or without negation. Note also that languages have different strategies when the question contains a negation element: 1) English-style: ignore the negation element 2) Russian-style: accept the negation element ("Yes, I didn't" and "no, I did") 3) German-style: use the ordinary no-word, but a special yes-word. -- He made the Legislature meet at one-horse John Cowan tank-towns out in the alfalfa belt, so that jcowan@hidden.email hardly nobody could get there and most of http://www.reutershealth.com the leaders would stay home and let him go http://www.ccil.org/~cowan to work and do things as he pleased. --Mencken, Declaration of Independence