Latin
Latin, which has no single words for "yes" and "no", also employs echo answers. For example:
- Nōnne Doofus molestus discipulus est?
- "Doofus is an annoying student, isn't he?"
- Est.
- "He is."
- Num Doofus litterās memoriā tenēre potest?
- "Doofus cannot remember the alphabet, can he?"
- Nōn potest.
- "He cannot."
Read more about this topic: Echo Answer
Famous quotes containing the word latin:
“It is a monstrous thing to force a child to learn Latin or Greek or mathematics on the ground that they are an indispensable gymnastic for the mental powers. It would be monstrous even if it were true.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“I am not of the opinion generally entertained in this country [England], that man lives by Greek and Latin alone; that is, by knowing a great many words of two dead languages, which nobody living knows perfectly, and which are of no use in the common intercourse of life. Useful knowledge, in my opinion, consists of modern languages, history, and geography; some Latin may be thrown into the bargain, in compliance with custom, and for closet amusement.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“You send your child to the schoolmaster, but ‘tis the schoolboys who educate him. You send him to the Latin class, but much of his tuition comes, on his way to school, from the shop- windows.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)