Xref: utzoo sci.misc:2886 sci.psychology:1183 comp.ai:2800 comp.ai.neural-nets:360 Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!uflorida!gatech!hubcap!panoff From: panoff@hubcap.UUCP (Robert M. Panoff) Newsgroups: sci.misc,sci.psychology,comp.ai,comp.ai.neural-nets Subject: Re: Learned Behavior vs. Hard-Wired Behavior Summary: Yes is no and no is yes Message-ID: <3768@hubcap.UUCP> Date: 6 Dec 88 17:44:06 GMT References: <1824@cadre.dsl.PITTSBURGH.EDU> <208@logicon.arpa> Organization: Clemson University, Clemson, SC Lines: 17 In article <208@logicon.arpa>, Makey@LOGICON.ARPA (Jeff Makey) writes: > A behavior that I once thought existed in all human cultures was > nodding ones head up and down to mean "yes" and shaking from side to > side to mean "no." According to my girlfriend, who works for a > company that does international trading, there is at least one place > where this is not true. I don't remember exactly where it is (Asian > continent, I think) but they nod for "no" and shake for "yes." Their > word for "yes" even sounds like "nih", which would be taken for a "no" > in many languages. Try Finland. "Ei" (which sounded to me very much like "Aye" when I was there) means no, and most of the people seem to nod when saying it, so it sure looks and sounds like yes, but it's no. And the word for yes? "Niin" (pronounced "neen" or just slurred to "nee") which sounds very much like the "obvious" negative. Not a whole lot of cognates in Finnish.... rmp, for the Bob's of the World