# אי



## Isidore Demsky

What does אי mean?

(Is it some kind of adverb?)


----------



## origumi

Have you tried a dictionary?

http://www.morfix.co.il/אי


----------



## Isidore Demsky

origumi said:


> Have you tried a dictionary?
> 
> http://www.morfix.co.il/אי



Thanks for the link.

I don't have any dictionaries, and I was unfamiliar with that resource.

(I usually use Google translate, but I'm told it's unreliable?)


----------



## ystab

Any machine translation is unreliable, especially in languages whose grammar elements are different like English and Hebrew.

Morfix has one more advantage, that it gives you automatically the base form of a noun or a verb, even if you type a word in declension.


----------



## airelibre

ystab said:


> Any machine translation is unreliable, especially in languages whose grammar elements are different like English and Hebrew.
> 
> Morfix has one more advantage, that it gives you automatically the base form of a noun or a verb, even if you type a word in declension.



I second that. Google translate is atrocious in Hebrew translations.


----------



## Isidore Demsky

ystab said:


> Any machine translation is unreliable, especially  in languages whose grammar elements are different like English and  Hebrew.
> 
> Morfix has one more advantage, that it gives you automatically the base  form of a noun or a verb, even if you type a word in declension.



So Morfix says אי can mean "non-, un - (negation)," and Google gave something like this as one of the meanings.

But "non" and "un" aren't really stand alone words in English.

Is אי more of a prefix than a word?

Does it mean "non-, un - (negation)"?


----------



## airelibre

Can be, for example אי אפשר means impossible. But it has so many different meanings, it depends entirely on context.


----------



## ystab

*One *of the meanings of אי, when it comes *as a prefix *(it can also come as a stand alone word with different meanings), is negation or absence.

אי-רצון - absence of will, or unwillingness
אי-נוחות - inconvenience
אי-שקט - unrest
אי-הבנה - misunderstanding
אי-ידיעה אינה פוטרת מעונש - Not knowing does not exempt from punishment.
אי-שטיפת ידיים עלולה להפיץ מחלות - Not washing (one's) hands might spread disease.


----------



## arielipi

Why are you all stretching it so much?
אי = 
1. general negation to the following word, used for nouns/adjectives/verbs/adverbs. for this it is used as a prefix
2. island. for this it is used just as in english you use the word island


----------



## trigel

> 1. general negation to the following word, used for nouns/adjectives/verbs/adverbs. for this it is used as a prefix




But I've only seen nouns negated with אי (at least in Modern Hebrew) while בלתי negates adjectives (and verbs in Biblical Hebrew):
בלתי ודאי = uncertain
אי ודאות = uncertainty


----------



## arielipi

trigel said:


> But I've only seen nouns negated with אי (at least in Modern Hebrew) while בלתי negates adjectives (and verbs in Biblical Hebrew):
> בלתי ודאי = uncertain
> אי ודאות = uncertainty



That is in hebrew, however in english they dont have to be [nouns] and might be one of the things i mentioned.


----------



## sawyeric1

You can't really trust computer translation{s}
אי אפשר באמת לסמוך על תרגומי מחשב

I wouldn't say "It's impossible to really trust computer translation" because "impossible" is a strong word, and since computer translations are not always completely wrong, it would seem clumsy to make such a strong statement against them. So in Hebrew an expression like this can have the same meaning and effect as saying "can't"? Maybe "אי אפשר" doesn't always necessarily have a strong connotation like the English equivalent


----------



## sawyeric1

My tutor said y'all would say "impossible" and not "can't" because can't "puts the blame" on people rather than on the translations


----------

