Taissumani, March 22

“Yes We Have No Bananas” was the title of a popular song in the 1920s. Sung by Eddie Cantor in the 1922 Broadway revue “Make It Snappy,” the song became a hit the following year. There is no consensus as to the song’s origin, but it is meant to be sung with the accent of a southern European immigrant to New York – the grocer in the song is a Greek.

The chorus goes like this:

“Yes, we have no bananas,
We have no bananas today.
We’ve string beans, and onions,
Cabbages and scallions,
And all sorts of fruit and, say,
We have an old-fashioned tomato,
A Long Island potato,
But yes, we have no bananas,
We have no bananas today.”

This song is a wonderful aid in teaching one of the finer points of Inuktitut language. One of the earliest difficulties that new students encounter in learning Inuktitut is how to answer a negative question.

Let’s look at how questions are asked and answered in Inuktitut. And, for the sake of having a noun to ask about, let’s use the banana. There is no translation of banana into Inuktitut. It’s simply banana, a loan word from English. A purist might point out that Inuktitut words don’t start with “b” and that the middle “a” would be lengthened, and so the word should really be “panaana.” But for purposes of this discussion I’m going to ignore that and simply use “banana.”

So a customer might ask our Greek grocer this question:

“Do you have any bananas?”

This question is phrased in the positive. And if the grocer has bananas, the answer is simple:

“Yes, we have bananas.”

If the grocer doesn’t have any bananas, the answer is also simple:

“No, we have no bananas.” Or: “No we don’t have any bananas.”

In Inuktitut, this is straightforward, just as in English (and I will use the plural “you” since the answer uses “we” rather than “I”):

The question: “Bananaqaqpisii?”
The answer: “Ii, bananaqaqtugut.” (“Yes, we have bananas.”) or “Aakka, bananaqanngittugut.” (“No, we don’t have any bananas.”)

But the matter gets tricky when the question is asked in the negative. Imagine that the customer comes into the shop, looks around for bananas, but doesn’t see any. He turns to the humble grocer, and asks, in English:

“Don’t you have any bananas?”

Now in English, if the grocer actually has bananas (the customer just hasn’t been able to find them), the grocer might answer:

“Yes, we have bananas.”

But if he, in fact, does not have any bananas in stock, he would answer in English:

No, we don’t have any bananas.

But here is the difficulty in Inuktitut. The answers to these negatively-phrased questions are just the opposite of what they are in English.

The question: “Bananaqanngilasii?” (“Don’t you have any bananas?”)
The answer, if the grocer does have bananas in stock: “Aakka, bananaqaqtugut.” (“No, we have bananas.”)
The answer, if the grocer in fact, does not have any bananas in stock: “Ii, bananaqanngitugut.” (“Yes, we don’t have any bananas,” or alternatively, in the words of the song, “Yes, we have no bananas.”)

The Inuktitut answer and the answer given by our Greek grocer, in fact make perfect sense, and employ a very different logic than the standard English answer:

Let’s analyze them in English.

Again, the question: “Don’t you have any bananas?” (The customer is assuming that the grocer has no bananas.)

The answer, if the grocer has bananas: “No, we have bananas.” This really means: “No [you are wrong in your assumption that we don’t have bananas, because] we have bananas.”

The answer, if the grocer is out of bananas: “Yes, we have no bananas.” This really means: “Yes [you are correct in your assumption that] we have no bananas.”

In Inuktitut, the logic is exactly the same. This quaint song from the 1920s can be an unusual and effective way of teaching students of Inuktitut one of the finer points of the language, one which they will encounter early on in their efforts.

Taissumani recounts a specific event of historic interest. Kenn Harper is a historian, writer and linguist who lives in Iqaluit. Feedback? Send your comments and questions to kennharper@hotmail.com.