Portuguese origin of particle -ね


The particle -ね matches somehow the Portuguese 'né' in form and use (as a
request for agreement).

Since there is proven historical contact between Portugal and Japan and proven
influx of Portuguese words into Japanese, I wonder whether this is also the
case.

The evidence that I find is split and not from very reliable sources. Is there
any authoritative source about the etymology of -ね? Since the Portuguese
influence was from 16th century on, this could be debunked by finding an older
Japanese source using the particle.




To dig into whether Japanese clause-final particle ね and Portuguese term _né_
might be related, we have to lay out where these terms individually came from,
and figure out if, historically, there is any evidence of borrowing.

### Portuguese _né_

This word basically means "isn't it?" It is used in a fashion similar to some
uses of Japanese ね, added at the end of a sentence to seek confirmation or
agreement from the listener.

Various sources online explain clearly that Portuguese _né_ is a contraction
of _não é_ , literally _não_ ("not", deriving from Latin _non_ ) + _é_ ("is",
third-person singular, deriving from Latin _est_ ). Compare French _n'est-ce
pas_ (literally "isn't it").

What I cannot find, however, is when this contraction first arises. Despite
the [plethora of
sites](https://www.google.com/search?q=etimologia+do+palavra+n%C3%A9)
explaining the derivation of _né_ , none that I've yet read gives any dates
for first appearance.

### Japanese ね

This word has a lot of meanings attested throughout history, as we can see
from the _Kokugo Daijiten_ (KDJ) entry [here at
Kotobank](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E3%81%AD-594445) (in Japanese). Some of
these are probably not related to the clause-final particle, such as the ～ね
imperative conjugation of completion auxiliary ～ぬ, or the ～ね realis
conjugation of negation auxiliary ～ぬ (from older ～ず). So let's just focus on
the clause-final particle (technically, the 終助詞【しゅうじょし】). On the KDJ page,
this is the section under the headword **ね［終助・間助］**.

The supplementary notes for this portion of the entry (the [補説] section
towards the bottom) explains that most of these senses appear from the late
Edo Period, roughly 1600–1868. This is late enough that a Portuguese
derivation is not ruled out, considering [first contact in 1543 and active
trade up until around 1614](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanban_trade).

_However_ , one of the senses for ね, a kind of exhortative use like _"
shouldn't you [do what came before]"_, is illustrated with quotes from the
[_Man'yōshū_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man%27y%C5%8Dsh%C5%AB), a
collection of poetry written from around 600 up through 759 — well before any
Portuguese ↔ Japanese interaction. The supplementary notes for ね also mention
that this has overlap with clause-final particle な, and [the KDJ entry for
な](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E3%81%AA-586863) includes usage examples from the
early to mid-700s.

Looking at the senses for clause-final ね and な, it does appear to me that the
modern use of both of these particles, as a kind of "[tag
question](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tag_question)" seeking confirmation or
agreement from the listener, has been a natural outgrowth of the oldest
exhortative senses.

### The history

  * The Portuguese first reached Japan in about 1543, and were mostly kicked out in 1614.
  * The clause-final particle ね is already in evidence in the 700s.

⇒ **Conclusion:** The Japanese particle ね and the Portuguese term _né_ are
only accidentally similar.

It's actually surprisingly easy to find words in any two languages that kinda
sorta sound similar and kinda sorta have similar meanings. If you're
interested in word origins and comparative linguistics, I highly recommend you
read ["How likely are chance resemblances between
languages?"](https://www.zompist.com/chance.htm) The author even lays out a
well-backed-up mathematical model for determining the likelihood of such non-
cognate similarities.

