ni

See also: Appendix:Variations of "ni"

English

Pronunciation

  • Audio (US)(file)

Noun

ni

  1. (linguistics) Initialism of noun inanimate.

See also

Anagrams

Albanian

Etymology

From Proto-Albanian *nū, from Proto-Indo-European *nū (“now”). Cognate to Sanskrit नू (nū, “now”). Often occurs in coordination with other particles, compare tani, nani, nime.

Adverb

ni

  1. now

Alternative forms

Asturian

Noun

ni f (uncountable)

  1. nu (name for the letter of the Greek alphabet: Ν and ν)

Basque

Pronunciation

  • Audio(file)

Pronoun

ni

  1. I (first-person singular personal pronoun)
    • 1989, Gorka Aulestia, Basque-English Dictionary, William A. Douglas, page 53
      Ni errege izan nintzen.
      I was king.
    • 2013, Patricio Urquizu Sarasua, Gramática de la lengua vasca, Universidad Nacional de Educación de Distancia, page 154
      Ni etorri naiz.
      I have come.

Biloxi

Noun

ni

  1. Synonym of ani (“water”)

References

Breton

Etymology 1

From Proto-Brythonic *ni, from Proto-Celtic *snīs.

Pronoun

ni

  1. we (first-person plural personal pronoun)

Etymology 2

From Proto-Brythonic *nei, from Proto-Celtic *neɸūss, from Proto-Indo-European *népōts.

Noun

ni m (plural nied)

  1. nephew

Catalan

Pronunciation

Etymology 1

Conjunction

ni

  1. neither, nor

Etymology 2

Noun

ni f (plural nis)

  1. Nu; the Greek letter Ν (lowercase ν).

Danish

Etymology

From Old Norse níu, from Proto-Germanic *newun, from Proto-Indo-European *h₁néwn̥ (“nine”).

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /niː/, [niːˀ]

Numeral

ni

  1. (cardinal) nine

Dumbea

Pronunciation

Pronoun

ni

  1. they

References

Esperanto

Etymology

From Italian noi, French nous, Spanish nos, Latin nos, plus the i of personal pronouns.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ni/

Pronoun

ni (first-person plural, accusative nin, possessive nia)

  1. we (first-person plural personal pronoun)
    Ni batis lin.
    We hit him.
  2. ourselves
    Ni diris al ni.
    We said to ourselves.

French

Etymology

From Middle French ny, from Old French ne, from Latin nec.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ni/
  • audio(file)

Conjunction

ni

  1. neither; nor

Usage notes

  • Chiefly used at least twice in the same sentence the same way neither and nor would be used in an English sentence, such as ni riche, ni pauvre (“neither rich nor poor”).

See also

Further reading

Gothic

Romanization

ni

  1. Romanization of 𐌽𐌹

Hausa

Pronoun

nī

  1. I (1st person singular pronoun)

Hungarian

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): [ˈni]
  • Audio(file)
  • Hyphenation: ni

Interjection

ni

  1. lo!, look!
    itt van ni - look! here it is!

Idi

Noun

ni

  1. water

References

Ido

Pronoun

ni

  1. (personal) we (first-person plural personal pronoun)

Ingrian

Pronoun

ni

  1. so

Interlingua

Alternative forms

Etymology

From French and Spanish ni, from Latin nec (“and not”).

Adverb

ni

  1. and not.
    Io non sape, ni vole saper ― I don’t know, and I don’t want to know
  2. Neither, nor.
    Illo ni me place ni displace ― It neither pleases me nor displeases me
  3. And, or (following a "with no" or "without").
    Nos debe resister sin aqua ni alimento ― We must resist with no water or food

Italian

Pronunciation

  • Rhymes: -i

Adverb

ni

  1. (informal) Neither yes nor no (a play on no and sì).

Noun

ni m, f (invariable)

  1. nu (Greek letter)

Anagrams

Japanese

Romanization

ni

  1. Rōmaji transcription of に
  2. Rōmaji transcription of ニ

Kamano

Alternative forms

Noun

ni

  1. water

References

  • The Papuan Languages of New Guinea (1986, →ISBN

Kansa

Noun

ni

  1. water
  2. any liquid
  3. river

References

Kedah Malay

Pronunciation

Pronoun

ni

  1. you (singular)

Klao

Noun

ni

  1. water

References

  • World Lexicon of Grammaticalization (2002, →ISBN

Latin

Alternative forms

  • nei (in old orthography)

Etymology

From Old Latin nei, from Proto-Indo-European *néy (“not”), from *ne. Cognates include Gothic 𐌽𐌴𐌹 (nei), Lithuanian nei, Old Church Slavonic ни (ni) and Old Irish ní. See also nē.

Pronunciation

Adverb

nī

  1. not, if...not, unless- an absolutely negative particle like ne so only in combinations

Derived terms

Conjunction

nī

  1. not, that not, unless; like ne in imperative and intentional clauses
    Ni quid tibi hinc in spem referas.
    Vinum aliudve quid ni laudato.
    Numa constituit, ut pisces, qui squamosi non essent, ni pollucerent ... ni qui ad polluctum emerent.

Ligurian

Etymology

From Latin nec.

Pronunciation

Conjunction

ni

  1. nor
  2. neither...nor
  3. either...or

Livonian

Etymology

Akin to Finnish nyt.

Adverb

ni

  1. now

Luxembourgish

Etymology

From Middle High German nie, from Old High German nio. Cognate with German nie.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /niː/

Adverb

ni

  1. never

Synonyms

  • (never): nimools, keemol, keemools

Malay

Alternative forms

Etymology

Shortened form of ini, from Proto-Malayic *(i)ni(ʔ), from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *(i-)ni, from Proto-Austronesian *(i-)ni.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ni/
  • Rhymes: -ni, -i

Determiner

ni

  1. this (the (thing) here)
  2. this (known (thing) just mentioned)
  3. this (known (thing) about to be mentioned)
  4. this (known (thing) that the speaker does not think is known to the audience)

Pronoun

ni

  1. this (The thing, item, etc. being indicated)

Mandarin

Romanization

ni (Zhuyin ˙ㄋㄧ)

  1. Nonstandard spelling of nī.
  2. Nonstandard spelling of ní.
  3. Nonstandard spelling of nǐ.
  4. Nonstandard spelling of nì.

Usage notes

  • English transcriptions of Mandarin speech often fail to distinguish between the critical tonal differences employed in the Mandarin language, using words such as this one without the appropriate indication of tone.

Marshallese

Noun

ni

  1. coconut

Pronoun

ni

  1. second person singular pronoun you
    • Shí dóó ni ayóo ałk’is niidlį́.
      You and I are really good friends.
  2. second person singular possessive pronoun yours
    • Díí naaltsoos éí ni.
      This book is yours.

Usage notes

The verb in Navajo incorporates information about person, and many sentences may thus not have explicit independent pronouns. For instance:

  • Hooghandi naniná.
  • Ni éí hooghandi naniná.

Both sentences are grammatically complete, and mean essentially the same thing: you are at home. The verb naniná is in the second-person form, so the pronoun can be safely omitted, as in the first sentence. This is similar to pronoun dropping in other languages where the verb specifies person, such as Spanish. Meanwhile, the explicit use of ni in the second sentence emphasizes that the speaker is talking about you. This can be thought of as roughly equivalent to the use of emphasis in English: while the first sentence comes across as you're at home, the second one is more like you, you're at home.

See also

Ningil

Noun

ni

  1. water

References

  • transnewguinea.org, citing D. C. Laycock, Languages of the Lumi Subdistrict (West Sepik District), New Guinea (1968), Oceanic Linguistics, 7 (1): 36-66 : /niː/
  • Margaret Manning, Naomi Saggers, A Tentative Phonemic Analysis of Ningil (SIL), in Phonologies of five Austronesian languages (Richard Loving, John M. Clifton; 1975) : /ni/

Norwegian Bokmål

Norwegian cardinal numbers
 <  8 9 10  > 
    Cardinal : ni
    Ordinal : niende

Etymology

From Old Norse níu (whence also Danish ni, Icelandic níu, Faroese níggju and Swedish nio) from Proto-Germanic *newun, from Proto-Indo-European *h₁néwn̥. Cognate with Gothic 𐌽𐌹𐌿𐌽 (niun); Old English niġon (English nine); Old Frisian nigun (West Frisian njoggen); Old High German niun (German neun).

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ni/

Numeral

ni

  1. (cardinal) nine

References

Norwegian Nynorsk

Etymology

From Old Norse níu

Numeral

ni

  1. (cardinal) nine

References

Novial

Conjunction

nek ... ni

  1. neither ... nor

Nutabe

Noun

ni

  1. water

References

Old High German

Alternative forms

Pronunciation

Particle

ni

  1. not

Descendants

  • Middle High German: ne
    • German: ne (dialectal)

Omaha-Ponca

Noun

ni

  1. water

References

  • Alice Cunningham Fletcher, ‎Francis La Flesche, The Omaha Tribe (1970), page 166

Portuguese

Etymology

Borrowed from Ancient Greek νῦ (nû).

Noun

ni f (plural nis)

  1. nu (the thirteenth letter of the Greek alphabet).

Romanian

Pronoun

ni

  1. Alternative form of ne: to us

Usage notes

This form is used when ne (which is dative) is combined with the following accusatives:

  • îl (the accusative of el, contracted as ni-l)
  • îi (the accusative of ei, contracted as ni-i)
  • le (the accusative of ele)
  • se (the reflexive accusative of all third-person pronouns)

See also

Samoan

Article

ni

  1. some (plural indefinite article)

Serbo-Croatian

Etymology

From Proto-Slavic *ni (“nor, not”), from Proto-Balto-Slavic *nej, from Proto-Indo-European *ney. Compare ni-, ne.

Particle

ni (Cyrillic spelling ни)

  1. (emphasizes negation) even, either
    ni ja to ne znam — even I don't know that; I don't know that either
    nisam hteo/htio ni da čujem za pr(ij)edlog — I didn't even want to listen about the proposal

Conjunction

ni (Cyrillic spelling ни)

  1. (shortening of niti) neither, nor
    ona nije ni pametna ni(ti) marljiva — she is neither smart nor industrious
    ni traga ni glasa o .. — not a trace about ..
    ni kriv ni dužan — completely innocent (lit. neither guilty nor indebted)

Sicilian

Alternative forms

  • nni

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): [ni]
  • (unstressed) IPA(key): [nɪ]

Pronoun

ni

  1. us, accusative of nuàutri
  2. us, dative of nuàutri
  3. us, reflexive of nuàutri

Inflection

nominative nuàutri
prepositional nuàutri
accusative ni
dative ni
reflexive ni
possessive nostru

See also

Spanish

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ni/
  • Rhymes: -i

Etymology 1

From Latin nec.

Conjunction

ni

  1. (coordinating) neither... nor
    Ni Juan, ni Pedro ni Felipe te darán la razón.
    Neither John, nor Peter, nor Phillip will give you the reason.
  2. nor, or
    No descansa de día ni de noche.
    He doesn't rest at day or at night.

Adverb

ni

  1. not even, even
    No descansaba ni por un minuto
    I didn't rest even for a minute.
Antonyms

Derived terms

Etymology 2

Noun

ni f (plural níes)

  1. nu; the Greek letter Ν, ν
Synonyms

Swahili

Verb

ni

  1. is

Prefix

ni

  1. Marks a verb's object as 1st person singular.
    wananipenda
    They like me

Swedish

Etymology

Since 1661, through contraction of the Old Swedish verb suffix -(e)n and the older pronoun I, e.g. vissten I > visste ni (“did you know”). Compare Icelandic þér and þið which developed similarly. The Old Swedish ī, ir derive from Old Norse ír, variant of ér, þér, from Proto-Germanic *jūz, from Proto-Indo-European *yū́.

Pronunciation

  • audio(file)
  • IPA(key): /niː/
  • Rhymes: -iː

Pronoun

ni

  1. you (plural nominative)
  2. you (second-person singular nominative formal) (capitalized Ni, rare in modern use)

Usage notes

Both ni and er are second person plural forms, but can also be used as formal second person singular, as in the German Sie or French vous. It may sometimes also be capitalized (Ni, Er) The courteous "ni" was introduced in Swedish around the year 1900 as an alternative to the more complicated pattern of addressing others in the third person singular by their appropriate titles. This required knowledge of social status, occupation, educations, etc. with terms like fru (“Mrs.”) or fröken (“Ms.”), greve (“count”), kamrer (“accountant”), kandidat (“bachelor's degree holder”), etc. This was phased out gradually during the 1960s and 1970s in the so-called du-reformen, (“the you-reform”). In contemporary Swedish, du is universal and may be used to address anyone, regardless of differences in social status or age.

Ni is used occasionally by younger speakers to address customers, though this is often seen as being overly formal and too contrived, especially by older speakers. Formality and politeness in Swedish is not conveyed through specific grammatical forms, is primarily done through indirectness, manners of speaking or various other behavior.

Declension

Tagalog

Pronunciation

  • (file)
  • IPA(key): /niː/

Preposition

ni

  1. Of; possessive particle. Used only with personal names.
    Bisikleta ni Juan
    Juan's bicycle
  2. Objective marker for personal names—objective form of si; functional equivalent of ng.

Unami

Pronunciation

Pronoun

ni

  1. I

Ura (Vanuatu)

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ni/, [ni]

Noun

ni

  1. tree

Further reading

  • Terry Crowley, Ura: A Disappearing Language of Southern Vanuatu (1999)

Uzbek

Particle

ni (Cyrillic ни)

  1. accusative case marker. It is placed after the direct object of a transitive verb.
    Men O'zbek tilini o'rganyapman.
    I am studying Uzbek.

Veps

Etymology

Borrowed from Russian ни (ni).

Determiner

ni

  1. not, not a, no

Inflection

Not inflected.

Conjunction

ni ... ni

  1. neither ... nor

References

  • Zajceva, N. G.; Mullonen, M. I. (2007), “ни”, in Uz’ venä-vepsläine vajehnik / Novyj russko-vepsskij slovarʹ [New Russian–Veps Dictionary], Petrozavodsk: Periodika

Vietnamese

Etymology

See này. This is one of many cases in which monophthongs were not diphthongized in Central Vietnamese, compare mày vs. mi, chấy vs. chí, nước vs. nác.

Pronunciation

Determiner

ni

  1. (dialectal, Central Vietnam) this

Adverb

ni

  1. (dialectal, Central Vietnam) here

Welsh

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /niː/

Etymology 1

From Proto-Brythonic *ni, from Proto-Celtic *snīs.

Pronoun

ni

  1. us; we
Usage notes

In South Wales, the pronoun ni can be used by itself colloquially where the affirmative first-person plural present tense of the verb ‘to be’ (ŷn) would be expected, e.g. Ni’n mynd i edrych o gwmpas yr amgueddfa. (“We’re going to look around the museum.”) instead of Ŷn ni’n mynd....

Etymology 2

From Proto-Celtic *nīs, from Proto-Indo-European *ne h₁ésti (“is not”).

Adverb

ni

  1. not

Yil

Noun

ni

  1. water

References

  • transnewguinea.org, citing D. C. Laycock, Languages of the Lumi Subdistrict (West Sepik District), New Guinea (1968), Oceanic Linguistics, 7 (1): 36-66 : /niː/
  • A Tentative Phonemic Statement in Yil in West Sepik Province, in Phonologies of five Austronesian languages (Richard Loving, John M. Clifton; 1975) : /ni/

Zulu

Etymology 1

Adjective

-ni?

  1. what (kind of)
Inflection
Enumerative concord, tone class H
Modifier
Class 1 muni
Class 2 bani
Class 3 muni
Class 4 mini
Class 5 lini
Class 6 mani
Class 7 sini
Class 8 zini
Class 9 yini
Class 10 zini
Class 11 luni
Class 14 buni
Class 15 kuni
Class 17 kuni

Etymology 2

See etymology on the main entry.

Pronoun

-ni

  1. Combining stem of nina.

References

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