何も言うでない ! meaning and origin


I have found this sentence in Odin Sphere. I guess it's kind of old fashion
for a strong interdiction. I first thought it came from the negative form of
である but it doesn't seem to be replaceable by ではない.

Does anyone know the origin of this form?




Yes, ～するでない is an old-fashioned and pompous way of saying "Don't do ～!".

In modern Japanese, this is a kind of 役割語 (stereotyped role words) which is
typically used by nobles and/or old people in manga and samurai dramas. This
seems to have been used a lot more 100 years ago or so, because I can find
many similar expressions (eg. 泣くでない, 穢すでない, 淋しがるでない) in 青空文庫.

As for the etymology, unfortunately I could not find a good article which
explains this. One answer in [this chiebukuro
question](http://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q14142846289)
says:

> 原型となったのは江戸時代の上方語です。

So it seems to have originated from somewhere in the Kansai region in the Edo
period.

In this question (note 1) two people say it's 江戸時代の武士の言葉, but I don't know
whether real samurai in the Edo period actually spoke in this way.

Note 1: expired link removed, 02/02/2022




Yes, ～するでない is an old-fashioned and pompous way of saying "Don't do ～!".

In modern Japanese, this is a kind of 役割語 (stereotyped role words) which is
typically used by nobles and/or old people in manga and samurai dramas. This
seems to have been used a lot more 100 years ago or so, because I can find
many similar expressions (eg. 泣くでない, 穢すでない, 淋しがるでない) in 青空文庫.

As for the etymology, unfortunately I could not find a good article which
explains this. One answer in [this chiebukuro
question](http://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q14142846289)
says:

> 原型となったのは江戸時代の上方語です。

So it seems to have originated from somewhere in the Kansai region in the Edo
period.

In this question (note 1) two people say it's 江戸時代の武士の言葉, but I don't know
whether real samurai in the Edo period actually spoke in this way.

Note 1: expired link removed, 02/02/2022

