I've always wondered where the Spanish "si" for 'yes' comes from, and then the other day I came across the name of Peter Abelard's major work, the Sic et Non ("The Yes and No"), a list of propositions from different respected authorities that he set out for students to harmonize.
As I understand it, while in classical latin you used to repeat the main verb of the sentence to say 'yes' -- i.e., if someone asks you 'are you going?', you say 'i am going' -- in Medieval Latin the word "sic" ('In that way'/'thus') took over the function of 'Yes', and from it we get Spanish 'si'.
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Yes, with one addendum: the Spanish affirmative adverb "sí" (and its counterparts in Italian, Portuguese, Catalan and Occitan) seems to emerge from an ellyptic usage of "sí" with the primary meaning "thus" of the Latin "sic." "Sí" was the archaic form of the adverb of manner "así" (var. "ansí" - cp. French "ainsi"). "Sí" as a synonym of "thus" is documented in the 10th century "glosas silenses"; "sí" as "yes" has some rare appearances in the late 12th / early 13th but only seems to have spread from the 14th century onwards. Abrazos. Luis
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