# or



## ger4

Finnish seems to have at least three different words corresponding to 'or':
- vai (in questions where there is a choice between alternatives excluding each other, I take it)
- tai (in statements between several alternatives excluding each other)
- eli (in statements between, let's say, 'exchangeable' alternatives; possibly corresponding to i. e. in English)

Latvian distinguishes between "vai" and "jeb".

Polish has "czy", "lub", "albo" and "czyli".

Mandarin Chinese seems to have at least two different words as well. And I wouldn't be surprised if Japanese had at least two options here as well...

Can someone explain the differences and provide some examples?


----------



## apmoy70

Greek has two: 

(1) *«Ή», «ή»* /i/ (conj.); both upper and lowercase characters are furnished with accent («΄») in Modern Greek, to distinguish from the feminine definite article *«Η», «η»* /i/.
*«Ή», «ή»* /i/ (conj.) --> _or_ < Classical disjunctive and comparative particle *«ἤ» ḗ* --> _or, as_, contracted form of *«ἠέ» ēé* and *«ἧε» hêĕ* (PIE *h₁ē-ue- cf Skt. वा (vā), _or_; Lat. -vē, (enclitic) _or_).

(2) Correlative conjunction *«είτε/είτε»* ['ite] --> _either/or, sīve/sīve_ < Classical correlative conj. *«εἴτε/εἴτε» eítĕ* --> _either/or, whether/or_ (PIE *h₁(e)i-, dem. pron.) < compound; particle introducing a (i) wish, (ii) condition, (iii) question, *«εἰ» ei* --> _if_ (with obscure etymology) + enclitic _and_ *«τε» tĕ* (PIE *-kʷe) cf Skt. च (-ca), _enclitic and_; Lat. -que, _enclitic and_).


----------



## ger4

So, _ is disjunctive and ['ite] is correlative, is that correct? I'll try to apply the disjunctiv/correlative distinction to Finnish and Latvian:

Finnish: - disjunctive: vai (in questions) / tai (in statements) - correlative: eli

Latvian: - disjunctive: vai (both in questions and statements) - correlative: jeb

I hope this makes sense.

As for Polish, I have just been given a very comprehensive answer in the Polish language forum on the same topic with regards to all of those at least four (!) equivalents they have in the Polish language, with a summary in English! Might be interesting for non-Polish speakers as well._


----------



## Gavril

Holger2014 said:


> Finnish seems to have at least three different words corresponding to 'or':
> - vai (in questions where there is a choice between alternatives excluding each other, I take it)



Correct, _vai _is only used in questions with mutually exclusive alternatives. This includes indirect questions, which correspond to English sentences like _I don't know whether I will stay *or* leave_.



> - tai (in statements between several alternatives excluding each other)



And also in questions or statements where the alternatives don't exclude each other: e.g., _Would you like some food, or a cup of coffee?_



> - eli (in statements between, let's say, 'exchangeable' alternatives; possibly corresponding to i. e. in English)



_eli_ = "i.e." / "in other words"


----------



## ThomasK

Dutch only has *'of' *;-), maybe *ofwel ofwel *(which is disjunctive, as it is said, I think): either... or...


----------



## animelover

Holger2014 said:


> And I wouldn't be surprised if Japanese had at least two options here as well..



I assume every student of Japanese would be happy if there were only 2 words. As it stands, Japanese grammar and syntax works quite differently, and so there are many words for 'or' in different contexts.

Null
It can be expressed without a special word.
Ex: コーヒーにしますか？紅茶にしますか？ (Would you like coffe or tea?)
Literally, "Will you choose coffee? Will you choose tea?)



か (ka)
Decision between two nouns. This is also the generic question marker.
Ex: 賛成か反対か、はっきりしなさい。
Make up your mind whether you agree or disagree.
Note that か is used twice. You could interpret this as "Agreement? Disagreement? Make up your mind!"



や (ya)
Non-exhaustive "or". The nouns listed are only an example, there may be more. Could be translated with "and"  in some contexts as well. Also marks questions in Classical Japanese/dialects.
Ex: 年ごろの娘に男友だちが 1 人や2 人いたって不思議はない。
For a girl coming of age, there's nothing strange about having a boyfriend or two.



とか (toka)
Similar to the word above, but putting more emphasing in the fact the noun(s) given is only an example.
Ex: 僕が君の家へ行く—、君の方がうちへ来る—、その時になって決めればいい。
Well, I could like come over to your place, or we could also meet at my home or so, at any rate we can always decide that later.



または (又は, mata wa)
もしくは (若しくは, moshiku wa)
Formal, written language. Also often used for translations from English. 
Ex: 1 もしくは 2 以上の関係国または安全保障理事会に対して勧告する
make recommendations [to (the state or states) concerned] or [to the Security Council].

Note that the above is of the pattern:
(A or B) or C
Especially in legal texts, もしくは is used for the first and または for the latter "or".



ないしは (乃至は, naishi wa)
Similar to the above, usually in the sense of "ranging from A to B."
Ex: 修士号取得ないしはこれと同等の学識を有する者を求む.
We are looking for somebody [a candidate, a person] with a master's degree or equivalent (qualification).
Ex: 南ないし南東の風
a south to southeasterly wind, wind ranging [varying] from south to southeast



それとも (sore tomo)
Puts emphasis on the fact that there exists an alternative.
Ex: 新しい靴は黒がいい, それとも茶色?　
Do you want your new shoes to be black, or brown?



あるいは (或は, arui wa)
Mostly formal, written language. One or the other.
Ex: 足場は梯子の内側、或は外側に設けることができる。
The scaffold can be placed at the inner side or the outer side of the ladders.



つまり (詰まり, tsumari)
すなわち (即ち, sunawachi)
In the sense of "that is". すなわち is old-fashioned.
Ex: 割烹術、つまり料理法。
The culinary art or the art of cookery.
Ex: ハワイ即ちサンドイッチ諸島
the Hawaiian, or Sandwich, Islands



でないと (で無いと, denaito)
さもないと(然も無いと, samonaito)
The latter is old fashioned. Both literally mean "and if that is not so". Used to connect two ideas (sentences or phrases). 
Ex: すぐ出かけないと遅れますよ。
Go at once, or (else) you will be late.
Ex: 早く行け。然も無いと汽車に乗りおくれるぞ。 
Go now, quickly. Or you will end up too late for the [steam] train.



やら (yara)
Informal or spoken language.
Ex: 嬉しいのやら嬉しくないのやら, 彼の表情からは分からない.
From his expression you can't tell whether he's happy or not.



でも (demo)
A list of non-exhaustive suggestions. Non-formal language.
Ex: STEP1　飲み物を用意します。コップの水でも、ペットボトルでも何でも構いません。 
Step 1. Prepare/Get something to drink. Perhaps a glass of water, or a pet bottle, it does not matter which.
Ex: いやでもおうでもしなければならない。
I must do it whether I like it or not.



っていうか/ってゆか/てゆか (tte yuu ka)
Informal, spoken language or slang. Connects two thoughts or sentences. Literally, "...or should I say...?"
Ex: 夏休み！！！ってゆか、秋休み？w
Summer holidays!!! Or wait, autumn holidays? lol



金色 (kin'iro)
"gold or yellow, as a heraldic tincture. from French, from Latin aurum" - OED
Ex: 金色のライオン
a lion or

Half-kidding. Not counting this



If you've lost count, that's 16 different words. There may be more I forgot.

If "or" is used as part of a collocation you can find more possible translations. For example:

"about 5 or so": だいたい, ぐらい, ...
"..., or what?":  ね, じゃないか, ...
"or rather...": 寧ろ, というより, ...
"or e'er": より前に, に先立って, ...


----------



## ger4

@ animelover:
Arigatou gozaimasu (that's my early beginners lesson Japanese, anyway). I can't imagine there are other languages that can compete with Japanese with respect to the variety of expressions even for (simple?) words like 'or'... Apart from the different functions you mentioned, Japanese seems to distinguish between politeness levels even here (as you said). I have heard 'mata wa' a couple of times on the NHK news, and at least now I know it is mainly used in formal language.

Mandarin Chinese seems to have two main expressions here and a couple of other constructions corresponding to 'or' in yes/no-questions. These are just three examples in simple Pinyin without tone marks - Mandarin speakers will probably find many more...

Yi dian zhong haishi liang dian zhong? At one o'clock or at two o' clock? (haishi = only one of the two alternatives possible, 'disjunctive')
Wo xiang mai cha huozhe shui. I would like to order (=to buy) tea or water (i.e. just something to drink) (huozhe = no decision has to be made between the two options)
Shi bu shi zai zher huan qian? Is it possible to change money here? (shi bu shi = is or is not)


----------



## animelover

Holger2014 said:


> even for (simple?) words like 'or'...



For many lanuages, common, native, and often short words are usually anthing but simple. They are vague and they have got a long history, and thus possess  multitude of meanings. Even the OED, imo doing a great job at merging slightly different shades of meanings, lists 5 different meanings for "or" as a conjunction:

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/or

And that pales in comparison to another simple word such as "by": 11 main senses (and 19 total) as a preposition, 2 as an adverb, 2 as an adjective, 1 as a noun and 1 as an interjection.

http://www.merriam-webster.com

For little children still lacking the capacity for abstract thinking, these words are easier indeed. But in a sense, a precise, specialized word such as 陽電子放射断層撮影【ようでんしほうしゃだんそうさつえい】 is actually easier - it means PET and only PET - nothing else. [=Positron Emission Tomography].

Even in the case of English and German -  two languages closely related to on another - we find many different translations for "simple" words. And even for "or", which corresponds to the German "oder", we find the following possible translations: (1) oder, (2) sonst, (3) andernfalls [you'd better go or (else) you'll be late] (4) noch [he could not read or write], (5) bis [in one or two weeks], (6) beziehungsweise [Rhodesia, or rather, Zimbabwe].

The difference to Japanese is just that the German "oder" is so similar to "or" (and possibly cognate?) that we usually don't take notice of these other possibilities - the literal translation "oder" is not completely wrong in any of the above phrases, just not always the best option.

Finally, the same holds true for Japanese -> English. There may be many possible translations for one simple Japanese words:

The Japanese-English dictionary 新和英大辞典 "Green Goddess" lists 8 different senses for the simple Japanese word もらう and many sentences with even more possible translations I can't even be bothered to count.

Or take a look at the freely available Edict, it lists the following translations for なる ("become"):

1: (Usually written using kana alone) to become; to get; to grow; to be; to reach; to attain;
2: to result in; to prove to be;
3: to consist of; to be composed of;
4: to succeed; to be complete;
5: to change into; to be exchanged for;
6: to play a role;
7: to be promoted (shogi); 
8: To do ....Honorific or respectful (sonkeigo), as お+masu-stem+になる, ご+noun+になる, etc.

http://beta.jisho.org/search/成る

Conclusion: "or", isolated and on its own only means one thing. However, a phrase or sentence that happens to contain "or" may possess an idiomatic  meaning so that - sometimes - it even stops being meaningful to ask which part of the translation it is to which "or" corresponds. The parts don't always sum up to form the whole - at times they multiply.


----------



## bibax

Czech:

*nebo*:

Chceš kávu nebo čaj? = Do you want coffee or tea?
Dvě nebo tři kostky? = Two or three [sugar] cubes?

*anebo*:

Chceš kávu? Anebo čaj? = Do you want coffee? (little pause) Or tea?

*či* is a less common variant of nebo;

*buď/buďto* (be/be it) *- (a)nebo* = either - or;

*aneb, čili* expresses identity (usually used before a subtitle) = or, a.k.a., alias:

Limonádový Joe aneb Koňská opera (movie) = Lemonade Joe, or the Horse Opera.
Karel Čapek: Dášenka čili Život štěněte. = Dashenka, or the Life of a Puppy.


----------



## Peterdg

ThomasK said:


> Dutch only has *'of' *;-), maybe *ofwel ofwel *(which is disjunctive, as it is said, I think): either... or...


Also "*hetzij*", also disjunctive.


----------



## ger4

Thank you / ευχαριστώ / kiitos/ dank u wel / danke / děkuji !


----------



## SuperXW

I agree with others. "or" is never "simple". In Mandarin Chinese:
1. Is it A *or* B? (Question) 是A*还是*B？
2. You can choose A *or* B. (Statement) 你可以选A*或/或者*B.
3. The fact is *either* A *or* B (You cannot choose). *不是*A*就是*B。
4. Stop, *or* I will call the police. ("If not") 停下，*不然/否则*我就报警。
...
When expressing the above meanings, it's not that all the languages use one same conjunction. Sometimes we have different sentence structures to express them.


----------



## ThomasK

Do I see one ideogram and one variation in 1. ?


----------



## franknagy

Hungarian:
The natural language is not so strict as computer languages and mathematical logics,  but:
"A *vagy* B" means *inclusive* or: "A *or* B", 
"*vagy* A, *vagy* B" and
"*akár* A, *akár* B" mean *exclusive* or "A *xor* B".


----------



## Anja.Ann

In Italian, we have *"o"* and *"oppure"* and they are interchangeable in 1. (a./b.):  

*1. o/oppure* 
*a. *[disjunctive, to connect two or more elements in oder to express reciprocal exclusion, comparison, contrast or an alternative]: "Hai studiato _o/oppure _no?" (Literally: "Have you studied _or _not?");

*b. *[to connect an imperative clause to a declarative clause (meaning "otherwise")]: "Smettila o/altrimenti me ne vado!" (Literally: "Stop it, or/otherwise I'll go away!");

*2.* [explicative function, to introduce a second element explaining the first one (meaning "i.e/alias/that is to say]: "Inverter o convertitore" (Literally: "Inverter, i.e. converter).


----------



## Evgeniy

Russian: _или_, _либо_ (disjunctive only), _али_ (colloquial/literary only),_ то ли_, most likely I have missed something; I am not sure whether this is at all a closed class. (Does _может_, "maybe", belong to it? Impossible to answer).

I guess the reason why you're asking the question is that you find that people should have criteria for choosing one word among many, and it is unexplainable when don't seem to see any, right? But well, those criteria don't have to lie in logical behaviour of the notion that the word means. For example, you don't choose between _или_ and _либо_ on this basis, because _или_ can well be disjunctive, and the actual line of separation is drawn somewhere else. Plus, _либо_ expresses a disjunctive sense, but does not exclude the 'conjunctive' one, so in the 'conjunctive' sense this choice is again there.


----------



## ger4

SuperXW said:


> I agree with others. "or" is never "simple".[...]





franknagy said:


> [...]The natural language is not so strict as computer languages and mathematical logics, [...]





Evgeniy said:


> [...]I guess the reason why you're asking the question is that you find that people should have criteria for choosing one word among many, and it is unexplainable when don't seem to see any, right? But well, those criteria don't have to lie in logical behaviour of the notion that the word means. [...]



Thank you very much for all the new answers, explanations and thoughts - quite a surprise that anyone still reads this thread! The question I asked may have sounded overly simplistic and, of course, "or" isn't a "simple word" but, just like any other "vocabulary item", it is an expression describing a concept; while the concept itself is difficult to be seperated from other, similar concepts... 

In dictionaries, grammars and textbooks you can find "definitions" and "translations". According to many textbooks there are "correct" and "incorrect" uses of the language. By contrast, most people writing on this forum seem to look at their native language (and other languages) from another ("broader", more open-minded) angle, accepting the fact that language can never be an absolutely perfect system to describe thoughts and concepts. Perhaps this is the difference between a "prescriptive" approach on the one hand and a "descriptive" approach on the other hand... 

A reminder to everybody reading this thread: scrolling down quickly you might have missed...
post 2 Greek 
post 4 Finnish
post 5 Dutch
post 6 Japanese
post 9 Czech
post 10 Dutch (addition to 5)
post 12 Mandarin
post 14 Hungarian
post 15 Italian
post 16 Russian

Once again, thanks to apmoy70, Gavril, ThomasK, animelover, bibax, Peterdg, SuperXW, franknagy, Anja.Ann and Evgeniy


----------



## bo-marco

Anja.Ann said:


> In Italian, we have *"o"* and *"oppure"* and they are interchangeable in 1. (a./b.):
> 
> *1. o/oppure*
> *a. *[disjunctive, to connect two or more elements in oder to express reciprocal exclusion, comparison, contrast or an alternative]: "Hai studiato _o/oppure _no?" (Literally: "Have you studied _or _not?");
> 
> *b. *[to connect an imperative clause to a declarative clause (meaning "otherwise")]: "Smettila o/altrimenti me ne vado!" (Literally: "Stop it, or/otherwise I'll go away!");
> 
> *2.* [explicative function, to introduce a second element explaining the first one (meaning "i.e/alias/that is to say]: "Inverter o convertitore" (Literally: "Inverter, i.e. converter).



*3.* OVVERO in legal environment: http://www.scritturaprofessionale.it/articoli/abolire-ovvero.htm

*4.* deprecated expression  PIUTTOSTO CHE: http://www.accademiadellacrusca.it/...nde-risposte/uso-piuttosto-valore-disgiuntivo


----------



## franknagy

I have omitted the Hungarian word _*"avagy" *_because
A) It used as a conjunction between the short title of a book or a verse and its long baroque title as a synonym of "vagyis"="that is"
B) It bind opposite clauses in the modern language: _"Tejelsz nekünk avagy kinyírunk"_ = "If you do not milk [bribe] us or we lay you out.
In this case "avagy" stands for *"If ... not ... then ..."*.


----------



## spindlemoss

Literary Welsh has two words *neu *and *ynteu*. The latter is only used when it's a choice between either the one or the other:

_Ai gwenci *neu* garlwm *neu* rywbeth tebyg oedd ef? _"Was it a weasel, or a stoat, or something like that?"

_Ai gwenci *ynteu* carlwm oedd ef? "Was it a weasel or a stoat?"_

In colloquial Welsh, southerners use *neu *(often said *ne'*) for both whereas you hear *ynteu* preserved as *'ta* in the speech of some northerners.


----------



## jazyk

I can only think of _ou_ in Portuguese.


----------



## Ectab

Arabic:
او 'aw, in statements between 2 or more alternatives:
سأصل غداً او بعد غد
I will arrive tomorrow or on the day after tomorrow.

ام 'am, in questions always used with the question-particle 'a
أتحبني أم لا
do you love me or not?
it can also stand alone:
كل طعامك, ام انك لست جائعاً
Eat your meal, or are not angry

إما 'immaa means either or "or" but unlike English it is mostly used for both(or more) sides of the sentence
إما انه مريض وإما انه يتمارض
Either he is ill, or (lit: and either) he pretends to be ill.
and we can replace the second with او

In Iraqi Arabic:
aw, lo, yaa, ya-'immaa all are interchangeable.


----------

