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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