Negation in Esperanto: ne, the neni- Words and nek

Esperanto negates with one word, ne, placed directly in front of what you deny. Usually that is the verb:

• Mi ne komprenas. - I do not understand.
• Ŝi ne venos. - She will not come.
• Ili ne estas tie. - They are not there.

No do (I do not understand), no two-part negative like French ne...pas, no special negative verb form. The same ne is also no:

• Ĉu vi venos? Ne. - Will you come? No.

Where ne goes changes what you deny

Move ne and you move the denial. The same four words make three different claims:

English does this with stress (I didn't say THAT), which works aloud and vanishes on the page. Esperanto parks the denial in the word order, where nobody can miss it. Sed (but) often follows to say what is true instead:

• Ne ŝi venis, sed li. - It was not her who came, but him.
• Mi vidis ne lin, sed ŝin. - I saw not him but her.

Nine times out of ten you are denying the action, and ne sits before the verb. Before writing it, ask what exactly you are denying, and put ne in front of that.

One negative per clause: the neni- words

The correlatives table has a whole negative series, and each word carries its negation on board:

No ne in any of them. Adding one is the most predictable error on this page. Spanish and French double their negatives as grammar (no dije nada, je n'ai rien dit), and Polish and Russian pile them up, so speakers of all four produce:

Ne with an i- word says much the same thing:

• Mi ne vidis iun. - I did not see anyone.
• Mi vidis neniun. - I saw nobody.

Both are correct; the neni- version is the more usual. Note the accusative -n: neniun and nenion are objects like any other.

nek...nek: neither...nor

Nek is nor, and doubled it is neither...nor:

• Mi havas nek tempon nek monon. - I have neither time nor money.
• Ŝi parolas nek rapide nek malrapide. - She speaks neither quickly nor slowly.

The nek pair is the clause's negation, so there is no ne: Ni ne havas nek tempon nek monon spends the budget twice. A single nek continues a negation already in play, like English nor:

• Mi ne manĝis, nek trinkis. - I did not eat, nor drink.
• Li ne venis, nek ŝi. - He did not come, nor did she.

Answering negative questions

To a negative question, jes normally answers the fact, not the wording:

That is the convention Zamenhof mostly used and PMEG recommends, but PMEG also records the opposite one in use, so a bare jes can misfire. Answer with a clause: two extra words, no doubt. The full treatment is in questions.

malfeliĉa vs ne feliĉa: opposite is stronger than not

Mal- builds the opposite; ne only rules something out:

• Li estas malfeliĉa. - He is unhappy. (misery has arrived)
• Li ne estas feliĉa. - He is not happy. (nothing asserted in its place)
• Mi ne estas malfeliĉa. - I am not unhappy.

The last one breaks no rule: the budget counts clause negatives, and mal- is word-building, not a clause negative. It denies misery without claiming joy. Use mal- when the opposite is what you mean (malbona, malgranda), and ne when you want to deny and stop.

Mistakes English speakers make

What to do next

1. Say Mi ne diris tion three ways, moving ne each time, and say what each denies.
2. Turn three sentences with ne...iu into neniu sentences.
3. Then read questions for ĉu ne?.

See also

• Correlatives - the neni- column in its full table.
• Questions - asking with ĉu, and answering a negative question.
• Affixes: size and people - mal- among the affixes that build vocabulary.
• Word order and style - what moving other words around does.