There’s a common phrase in South African mixed English/Afrikaans: “Ja, nê, but fine” which is an almost exact translation of that phrase.
You will find earlier hits if you look for “yeah nah”.
You’re mixing up two expressions there.
Ja, nee is the pure Afrikaans direct “Yeah, no” equivalent. The “nê” spelling you’ve used is an interrogative (similar to the Japanese ne ね,) so more like “yeah, don’t you think?”.
Ja well no fine is the mixed Afrikaans/English expression I think you’re thinking of. It has a known provenance
Both can carry a range of situational meanings, from agreement to ambivalence to disagreement to merely interjective. More so for ja-nee, and it’s the one I (a mother-tongue Afrikaans speaker) would use for “yeah, no, that’s exactly right”.
I don’t doubt that the particular expression you’re using there gets said, but it’s not “a common phrase” in that form.
I take “yeah, no” to mean something different from “well”.
I usually take it to mean something like “yeah I know this question, and the answer is no”.
“Well” on the other hand is short for “that is all well”. It sounds wrong to my ear to hear “well” without “and” or “but” or similar words right after it. I think it’s somewhat interchangeable with “that’s fine”, and begins a response. I might answer “well, and we can certainly do that” or “well, but we won’t be able to do that”.
The definitions here are weird:
They aren’t really definitions; they are more like coaching instructions on how you can use it. There’s actually a meaning behind it, you know!
Haha… well, I dont really speak Afrikaans. Even my colloquial Afrikaans is Kaapse Taal, mostly insults learnt from travelling on public transport from the gaatjies, so not ideal.
I bow to your better knowledge.
I had some issues decidiing if I should use “nee” or “nê” and I got the wrong one. The pronunciation is slightly different but not enought to my untrained ears.
Interestingly, and completely off topic, I find the pure Stellenbosh Afrikaans much easier to understand. I dont speak or read it but I can follow conversations.
It’s neither, it’s just nee, no diacritical marks. I don’t think neè is a word in Afrikaans at all, and nê is, like I said, just an interrogative.
It is better articulated, so probably easier to hear what’s being said.
The “yeah” is sarcasm, the real answer is “no.” “Yeah” as in sarcastically said, “Suuure, riiight–that’s not gonna happen” or “Suuure, riiight–that’s a hell no.”
I don’t think you all are hearing the same "Yeah, no"s I am.
It’s a mindless starting phrase, totally without meaning. No significance, no agreement, no negation at all. It’s just a placeholder, while the speaker prepares whatever remarks he has to say in response.
It’s definitely soaked in either sarcasm or irony to my ear. It’s not a delay word like well, or so, or um.
I remember this being pointed out to me at work, as a peculiarity of a colleague’s manner of speaking - using the words exactly as you describe…
…and because this occurred at work, I can put a date on it. I had that job from 2001 - 2004, which is a pretty good match for the Urban Dictionary cite.
London, BTW.
j
ETA: the fact that it was pointed out as a peculiarity may indicate that it was a fairly novel thing at that time.
Interesting. The first is from 2003 and the others are all later and Australian. I couldn’t tell if the first was Australian as well, but it didn’t sound American.
Thinking about variants made me wonder whether the sound might have evolved from the older ubiquitous “you know” though “ya know” and “yanno”. Here’s an example of a very similar usage.
ya know
Used as an immediate response right after someone says something that is inappropriate, offensive, or inopportune. When used in this context, the word “know” is usually dragged out followed by an immediate sigh.
Example:
Jack: Yo man, I was the supermarket the other day … and let me tell you, those middle aged mothers are HOT!
Steve: Ya know! sigh …
Jack: Oh come on, I’m serious!
by SharkFangFist April 9, 2007
The primary exposure I have to it is not sarcastic, and doesn’t come across as “yeah, right, yo’ mama” or equivalent at all.
There’s not a lot of sense behind it, but it seems to amount to “yeah sort of but let me clarify”:
“So you’ll get here before three, right?”
“Yeah, we’ll have plenty of time to eat before the show”
“Yeah, no. I was thinking I could either make something at home or we could go out to that Thai place you like”
I’ve got this model dialogue in my head of an agreement “Yeah, no”
“Wow, that class was boring. I thought I saw you falling asleep.”
“Yeah, no. I was asleep, dreaming it was summer.”
In this case it’s “Yeah that class was boring. No, I wasn’t falling asleep - I was already dreaming” - perfectly logical, just terse.
All the different interpretations is probably a good argument for banishing it from all verbal intercourse.
“Yeah nah” is very much self identified as being from New Zealand but I don’t know how long Kiwi’s think they’ve been saying it.
Placeholder for sure. Akin to the one I hear even more frequently: "Yeah, so . . . " Especially during the contestant interview section of Jeopardy. Host says, “I understand you enjoy collecting spores, molds and fungus.” Contestant replies, "Yeah, so it started when I was blah, blah, blah . . . "
My husband pointed it out to me and once I began listening for it, I heard it almost every day.
I watch a lot of MSNBC, and now that I’ve noticed it, I find that almost every guest responding to a host’s queries begins in this fashion, almost all the time.
So it’s a useful place-holder, composed of actual words, rather than “um.”
Yeah, no.
Vicky Pollard. I loved her.
But her phrase was “Yeah, but. No, but yeah but” ad fininitum.