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

[eofs.livejournal.com]

Aaah, so that's how ne is used. I have absolutely no first hand exposure to Japanese culture, so I've only experieced ne being used by Japanese students (or fangirls) and from the way it was just stuck onto the end of question type sentences I presumed it was like saying "no?" at the end of a sentence. Of course, this is partly because I'm sort of used to people tacking nej onto the end of sentences, which is (to the best of my knowledge) exactly that. Except in Swedish not in English.

Interesting, thank you.