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by awongh 2516 days ago
In english, as mentioned re. australia below (and also america), the negation of a negative is: 'no, yea'

https://pics.me.me/california-english-no-yeah-yes-yeah-no-ye...

3 comments

'Yeah nah' - has variations across the English speaking world: https://english.stackexchange.com/a/253960/15280
Hmm, not sure about that. Sydney here. I can't think offhand of a context where 'No, yeah' would have much meaning, if any. I never hear it. Does sound like bush talk, maybe, but not sure. e.g. "You don’t like me, do you?" "No, yeah" (or "yeah, no") would just be a meaningless, confusing response. You'd say "Yes! of course I do" or something.

There's that old joke where a lecturer is telling the audience about how two affirmatives never make a negative in English, and a voice is heard "Yeah yeah". I guess you could try "You don't like me, do you?" "No no, I do!". But whatever's said, the meaning would be determined mostly by the tone of voice, facial expression, body language etc

Perth here. "nah yeah" is common.

the "nah" indicates disagreement with the statement, and the "yeah" affirms the positive. Often with a restatement of the statement attached.

e.g: "nah, yeah I like you mate"

‘Yeah na’ in New Zealand.