nôm

See also: Nôm

Eastern Mnong edit

From Proto-Bahnaric *ʔnoːm (“urine; to urinate”), from Proto-Mon-Khmer *n₁uum ~ *kn₁uum (“urine; to urinate”). Cognate with Mon ဏမ် (nom, “urine”), Khmer នោម (noom, “urine; to urinate”) and Semai nòòm (“urine”).

nôm

Ultimately from Old Galician-Portuguese non; compare Galician nom, non. Alternative form nâm derives from Portuguese não. Sense 2 however is a calque of Cantonese 唔; quêro nôm-quêro, as in the collocation, can be directly translated from Cantonese 想唔想 (“do you want”, literally “want not want”); compare also Malaysian and Singaporean English or not.

nôm

not, do not, have not
Iou nôm têm sapeca ― I don't have cash

Iou nôm sabe úndi já rafundí iou-sua ôclo
I don't know where I put my glasses

Ilôtro nôm têm vegónha
They have no shame
(literally, “They don't have shame”)
or not (used between two of the same verb)
Vôs quêro nôm-quêro comprâ? ― Do you want to buy or not?

May or may not be written appended to the following verb using a hyphen, e.g. nôm-têm rather than nôm têm, but this is ultimately stylistic and depends on the writer. The specific usage with nôm-têm may be inspired by Cantonese 冇, considered by some to be a combination of 無／无 (“not; nothing”) and 有 (“have”).
Not used in Macanese as a negative response to a question. For questions pertaining to the past and present, nunca is used; for questions pertaining to the future, nádi is used.