I don’t know if it’s strictly European (maybe I’ll ask my African co-workers if they use it; I’ve never noticed). What I do know is that at least in Quebec, it’s almost never used. I suppose the same is true with Acadian French, but I couldn’t guarantee it. (I have an Acadian friend, maybe I’ll ask her.)
Classical Latin also usually just repeats the verb. This leads to the amusing situation that, if you were to ask Michael Phelps in Latin whether he swims, the answer would be “no” (that being the Latin word for “I swim”).
You can also use “maxime” or “minime” for an emphatic “yes” or “no” (approximately, “absolutely” or “not at all”).
Yeah, “no” has several uses in Polish. One is as the above, just conversational feedback that you’re paying attention. It can also be used in the same way we use the word “well” in English, as in “No, co chcesz?” (“Well, what do you want?”). With the right inflection, it can also mean “come on” or “go on” in the sense of “tell me what happened next.” Once again, the same as in English if you inflect “Well…?” with a rising tone at the end.
Re: Polish —
I’m confused. Are you saying the word which means the opposite of yes? Or are you saying a word which is a homonym of English no, but has a different meaning in Polish, like Russian ну (nu) or Yiddish nu?
I’m pretty sure it’s the latter - I read through the post substituting ну for the Polish word and it still made sense. The Russians use the particle in much the same way (except, IIRC, the discourse feedback function).
Basque, AFAIK, only has one word for yes - bai - but I don’t have my grammar books here with me to identify the structures used for the examples we’re talking about.
How about, “DUH?” 
I always advise Chinese people to always answer with a complete sentence because otherwise they are just confusing.
In English and in Spanish it would be:
- You haven’t had breakfast yet?
- No (I have not had breakfast)
In Chinese it would be “Yes” (your statement is correct, I have not had breakfast).
So when I am speaking to Chinese people I never know if they are speaking correct English or “Chinglish” and I have to ask for clarification.
Other languages use the same construction and that is the origin of the famous song “Yes, we have no bananas”.
We’re talking about the Polish word spelled no and pronounced very similarly to the English word spelled the same way.
Sorry for the confusion. The opposite of yes in Polish is nie. No is a homonym (sort of) of the English no. I say sort of, because the Polish “o” sound is a little bit different than at least the American and British English long “o” sound, which is a diphthong. Your Russian and Yiddish examples are analagous.
OK, so my understanding is that in Chinese and Welsh, a positive response to an ordinary question (“Is it raining?”) uses the verb (“Rains.” meaning, ‘yes it is raining’).
So what about a negative response?
Right, because for Japanese (and Korean AFAIK), a yes or no reply depends not on the grammar of the asked question but on the asker’s expectation. So, the same question asked in Japanese can be answered with either yes or no, and the yes or no can sometimes have the same meaning depending. I didn’t make that clear at all, so here’s an example.
Did you eat my bacon? (expects that you did)
- No, I did not.
- Yes, I did
That is pretty much like English, but with negative expectations, things get kinda weird.
Did you eat my bacon? (expects that you didn’t)
-No, I did
-Yes, I did not.
Welsh:
Ydy hi’n bwrw glaw? [is it raining? lit. is it (f.) throwing rain?]
Ydy. [yes, lit. is]
Nac ydy. [no, lit. not + is]
Oedd hi’n bwrw glaw? [was it raining? lit. was it (f.) throwing rain?]
Oedd. [yes, lit. was]
Nac oedd. [No, lit. not + was]
Bwriodd hi’r gath hefyd? [did she throw the cat as well?]
Do. [Yes.]
Naddo. [No.]
Fy nghath i a fwriodd hi allan o’r ffenestr? [Was it my cat that she threw out the window?]
Ie. [Yes.]
Nage. [No.]
I will add that in some telegraphic codes the word “YES” in English is abbreviated to “C” (Si).
This does happen, but I think a more common answer would be:
–(Yes), actually I did. (I’m sorry. I didn’t think your bacon was so important to you.)
or
–No, of course not. (Why would you ever expect that?)
Ph’nglui mglw’nafh cthulhu r’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn?
I’m not a native speaker of Welsh, and I won’t claim any righteous indignation or anything, but I’d like to point out that Welsh speakers have genuinely suffered at the hands of English speakers for many hundreds of years. While this is largely political, some of the cultural oppression has been justified by the fact that Welsh looks and sounds odd to the English. The Lovecraft reference is cute, and I don’t want to hijack the thread or fight other people’s battles for them. I’ll just say that the spelling is a result of learning to write from the Romans and experiencing some sound changes over the centuries, exactly as happened with English.
It seems to me that we usually say “mais oui” for this. “Tu n’étais pas à la manif hier.” “Mais oui!” (You weren’t at the protest yesterday. Sure I was!)
Yes, that’s possible, but I think I remember some confusion caused by trying to answer a negative question.
A few already mentioned Japanese and Korean’s peculiarities WRT yes/no questions. On top of that, I should add that Japanese has a few different words for “yes” depending on formality, familiarity, and politeness. The generic “hai” tends to be used more often in the indirect/formal style. “Ha” and “Ee” are more polite/reverent forms. “Un” is a very casual/direct form.
But, of course, most languages make a distinction along these lines… “Yes” vs “Yup” or “Mhm” “Certainly” vs “You betcha”
Oh, and the OP was more concerned with Romance languages anyway…
I appreciate that languages aren’t designed, but my question was more aimed at the development of “si” in French. Is it possible to determine where it came from?
These two posts suggest it has its origins in Latin, via the regionalism in medieval French dialects:
So it’s possible to hypothesize that the evolution was something like “sic” => “si” as a regionalism for yes => “si” having a restricted use as a positive reply to a negative question.
It’s interesting that Spanish, which uses “si” as “yes”, apparently doesn’t have a specific affirmative for a negative question. Perhaps Spanish didn’t have the initial variety of dialectical differences that medieval French did, and so settled on “si” as a general purpose affirmative?
Does anyone know if Italian has a specific affirmation to a negative question? Italian uses “si” as the affirmative, doesn’t it?