Our second to last word: yes.
Yes comes from the Old English gise/gese, which meant “so be it”. The first syllable, whether ge
or gi, comes from the Old English word ge,
which means so or yes and comes
from the Proto Germanic ja/jai (another way of saying yes) and
the Proto Indo European yam. The -se part of the word is from si, the third person form of to be that’s
used in commands. So we just shortened a way of saying “so be it” and now it’s
the most common way for agreeing to something.
And for the record, a lot of
words beginning with Y began with G in Old English. It must have something to
do with the pronunciation of G back then.
Sources
Tony Jebson’s page on the
Origins of Old English
University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center
Interesting.. I had no idea that g was pronounced as y in old English. I shall have to revisit some of those books I studied for A-Levels and see if they make more sense if I apply that.
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ReplyDeleteSo be it sounds like it's said begrudgingly.
ReplyDeleteMaybe I should toss my hands in the air when I say yes now. :)
ReplyDeleteI agree with Alex- so be it sounds quite begrudging.
ReplyDeleteI didn't know that g was used in place of y. That's interesting.
ReplyDeleteI thought you meant "YES! The end is nigh," as in, "Time to celebrate!"
ReplyDeleteMaybe that's why I'll say "sure" instead of yes. Although it sounds sarcastic when I use it.
ReplyDeleteThe end is nigh - all i can really say is YES! ;)
ReplyDeleteThe end is nigh - all i can really say is YES! ;)
ReplyDeleteThe informal yeah reminds me of the older yes.
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