Welsh
In spoken Welsh, the word ddim (not) often occurs with a prefixed or mutated verb form that is negative in meaning: Dydy hi ddim yma (word-for-word, "Not-is she not here") expresses "She is not here" and Chaiff Aled ddim mynd (word-for-word, "Not-will-get Aled not go") expresses "Aled is not allowed to go".
Negative correlatives can also occur with already negative verb forms. In literary Welsh, the mutated verb form is caused by an initial negative particle, ni or nid. The particle is usually omitted in speech but the mutation remains: wyddai neb (word-for-word, " not-knew nobody") means "Nobody knew" and chaiff Aled fawr o bres (word-for-word, " not-will-get Aled lots of money") means "Aled will not get much money". This is not usually regarded as three negative markers, however, because the negative mutation is really just an effect of the initial particle on the following word.
Read more about this topic: Double Negative
Famous quotes containing the word welsh:
“For every nineteenth-century middle-class family that protected its wife and child within the family circle, there was an Irish or a German girl scrubbing floors in that home, a Welsh boy mining coal to keep the home-baked goodies warm, a black girl doing the family laundry, a black mother and child picking cotton to be made into clothes for the family, and a Jewish or an Italian daughter in a sweatshop making “ladies” dresses or artificial flowers for the family to purchase.”
—Stephanie Coontz (20th century)
“The populations of Pwllheli, Criccieth,
Portmadoc, Borth, Tremadoc, Penrhyndeudraeth,
Were all assembled. Criccieth’s mayor addressed them
First in good Welsh and then in fluent English,”
—Robert Graves (1895–1985)
“Thy tongue
Makes Welsh as sweet as ditties highly penned,
Sung by a fair queen in a summer’s bower,
With ravishing division, to her lute.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)