Latin has this really cool feature.

[conuly]

If you want to make a question, you tack -ne to the important question word. So "Annane Mariam occidit" is me asking if it was Anna who killed Mary, while "Mariamne Anna occidit" is me asking if it was Mary whom Anna killed.

You can also make rhetorical questions in a way that makes them stunningly obvious. Nonne (not ne) expects a yes, num expects a no. (And of course, we all remember that after si, nisi, num and ne, all the alis drop away. I swear I will go desecrate the grave of the person who first thought that jingle up.)

I'm going to start using these in English. They're too good to leave to the dead.

Edit: Now I know what yuki was saying. This'll teach me to type Latin in the dead of the morning. *fixes second sentence*

Comments

[yuki-onna.livejournal.com]

...well, no, not really. It's simply tacked onto the first word in Latin, whatever that word is. As in the example, Anna need not be the first word, but the sentence would have the same meaning. The ne refers to the whole sentence, subject and object are identified by their respective cases. It could as easily be "Occiditne Anna Mariam." As has been said, word order in Latin is fairly free.

In fact, I should have said that in all my years of Latin, I do not ever recall seeing ne attached to the second word in a sentence. It is almost always the first--though of course, it may be an obscure or medieval usage I'm not familiar with. I'm classical Latin.

So, basically, it is the same usage--ne refers to the sentence as a whole.

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

But afaik the 'ne' also has stress function.
Occiditne Anna Mariam would sort of be 'Anna killed Maria, didn't she?; Annane Mariam occidit would be 'Anna killed Maria, didn't she?; and Mariamne Anna occidit would be "Anna killed Maria, didn't she". So it refers more to the relevant word of the sentence than the sentence as such. But I may not remember this correctly, my last Latin classes were three years ago...

Anyway, that wouldn't work in Japanese;
Anna wa Maria (w)o koroshita, ne? is definitely 'Anna killed Maria', and there is no way to put the stress elsewhere with that sentence structure (although you could try this with a passive structure: Maria wa Anna ni korosaremashita, ne? = 'Maria was killed by Anna, wasn't she';
Maria wa Anna ni wa korosaremashita, ne? = 'Maria was killed by Anna, wasn't she'. But in all these cases, the ne is only the 'isn't it', the wa does the stress. So the Japanese 'ne' only has one of the functions of the Latin 'ne'.

Oops. This turned out rather longer than intended.

[yuki-onna.livejournal.com]

That's ok. I don't speak Japanese, only Latin.

And I may not remember correctly either, but it was always my impression that it was simply the first word of the sentence--as I said, I don't recall ever seeing it attached to the second.

I just pointed it out because I find two languages with no common root who share a phonetic interrogative to be intensely interesting--perhaps especially considering early ideas about Asiatic languages detailed in Umberto Eco's Serendipities.

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

As I said, it is interesting; but there are limits to the similarities, which I find equally interesting.
(Incidentally, the German 'ne' doesn't have the qualities of the Latin 'ne' either. Nor does it come from Latin: It is a condensed 'nicht'(=no), which makes it comparable to 'isn't it' or French 'n'est-ce pas' - or Japanese 'ne'.)

Now you mention it, I can't recall having seen the 'ne' attached to any but the first word in a Latin sentence; but of course, since you can switch the words around pretty much as you want, there's actually no need for a 'second word' rule - after all, you can just put the word you want to stress (and tack the 'ne' to) at the beginning of the sentence...

[conuly]

Exactly. English doesn't have free word order, and I like being able to stress certain words, so I'll just tack -ne on wherever I like.

[conuly]

Yup, it is the first word, but I was taught that you can make the first word the cool important word because Latin's got that free word order.