Nothing in Different Languages
Discover 'Nothing' in 134 Languages: Dive into Translations, Hear Pronunciations, and Uncover Cultural Insights.
Nothing
Afrikaans niks | ||
Albanian asgjë | ||
Amharic መነም | ||
Arabic لا شيئ | ||
Armenian ոչինչ | ||
Assamese একো নাই | ||
Aymara janiwa | ||
Azerbaijani heç nə | ||
Bambara foyi | ||
Basque ezer ez | ||
Belarusian нічога | ||
Bengali কিছুই না | ||
Bhojpuri कुछु ना | ||
Bosnian ništa | ||
Bulgarian нищо | ||
Catalan res | ||
Cebuano wala | ||
Chinese (Simplified) 没有 | ||
Chinese (Traditional) 沒有 | ||
Corsican nunda | ||
Croatian ništa | ||
Czech nic | ||
Danish ikke noget | ||
Dhivehi އެއްޗެއްނޫން | ||
Dogri किश नेईं | ||
Dutch niets | ||
English nothing | ||
Esperanto nenio | ||
Estonian mitte midagi | ||
Ewe naneke o | ||
Filipino (Tagalog) wala | ||
Finnish ei mitään | ||
French rien | ||
Frisian neat | ||
Galician nada | ||
Georgian არაფერი | ||
German nichts | ||
Greek τίποτα | ||
Guarani mba'eve | ||
Gujarati કંઈ નહીં | ||
Haitian Creole anyen | ||
Hausa ba komai | ||
Hawaiian mea ʻole | ||
Hebrew שום דבר | ||
Hindi कुछ भी तो नहीं | ||
Hmong tsis muaj dab tsi | ||
Hungarian semmi | ||
Icelandic ekkert | ||
Igbo ọ dịghị ihe | ||
Ilocano awan | ||
Indonesian tidak ada | ||
Irish rud ar bith | ||
Italian niente | ||
Japanese 何もない | ||
Javanese ora ana apa-apa | ||
Kannada ಏನೂ ಇಲ್ಲ | ||
Kazakh ештеңе | ||
Khmer គ្មានអ្វីទេ | ||
Kinyarwanda ntacyo | ||
Konkani कांयच ना | ||
Korean 아무것도 | ||
Krio natin | ||
Kurdish netişt | ||
Kurdish (Sorani) هیچ | ||
Kyrgyz эч нерсе | ||
Lao ບໍ່ມີຫຍັງ | ||
Latin nihil | ||
Latvian neko | ||
Lingala eloko moko te | ||
Lithuanian nieko | ||
Luganda tewali | ||
Luxembourgish näischt | ||
Macedonian ништо | ||
Maithili किछु नहि | ||
Malagasy na inona na inona | ||
Malay tiada apa-apa | ||
Malayalam ഒന്നുമില്ല | ||
Maltese xejn | ||
Maori kahore | ||
Marathi काहीही नाही | ||
Meiteilon (Manipuri) ꯀꯔꯤꯝꯇ ꯅꯠꯇꯕ | ||
Mizo engmah | ||
Mongolian юу ч биш | ||
Myanmar (Burmese) ဘာမှမ | ||
Nepali केहि छैन | ||
Norwegian ingenting | ||
Nyanja (Chichewa) palibe | ||
Odia (Oriya) କିଛି ନୁହେଁ | ||
Oromo homaa | ||
Pashto هیڅ نه | ||
Persian هیچ چیزی | ||
Polish nic | ||
Portuguese (Portugal, Brazil) nada | ||
Punjabi ਕੁਝ ਨਹੀਂ | ||
Quechua mana imapas | ||
Romanian nimic | ||
Russian ничего | ||
Samoan leai se mea | ||
Sanskrit किमपि न | ||
Scots Gaelic dad | ||
Sepedi ga go selo | ||
Serbian ништа | ||
Sesotho ha ho letho | ||
Shona hapana | ||
Sindhi ڪجھ به نه | ||
Sinhala (Sinhalese) කිසිවක් නැත | ||
Slovak nič | ||
Slovenian nič | ||
Somali waxba | ||
Spanish nada | ||
Sundanese teu nanaon | ||
Swahili hakuna chochote | ||
Swedish ingenting | ||
Tagalog (Filipino) wala | ||
Tajik ҳеҷ чиз | ||
Tamil எதுவும் இல்லை | ||
Tatar бернәрсә дә | ||
Telugu ఏమిలేదు | ||
Thai ไม่มีอะไร | ||
Tigrinya ምንም | ||
Tsonga hava | ||
Turkish hiçbir şey değil | ||
Turkmen hiç zat | ||
Twi (Akan) hwee | ||
Ukrainian нічого | ||
Urdu کچھ نہیں | ||
Uyghur ھېچنېمە يوق | ||
Uzbek hech narsa | ||
Vietnamese không có gì | ||
Welsh dim byd | ||
Xhosa akhonto | ||
Yiddish גאָרנישט | ||
Yoruba ohunkohun | ||
Zulu lutho |
Etymology & Notes
| Language | Etymology / Notes |
|---|---|
| Afrikaans | "Niks": Cognate to German "nix" or Dutch "niets", meaning nothing or zero. |
| Albanian | Albanian “asgjë” (nothing) derives from Proto-Albanian *as-gje (“without that”) and is related to “gje” (that). |
| Amharic | The word "መነም" also signifies emptiness or nullity in the context of philosophical discourse |
| Arabic | لا شيئ also means "the nothing" in Sufi and Shia Islamic philosophy |
| Armenian | The word "ոչինչ" can also mean "non-existence" or "worthlessness" in Armenian. |
| Azerbaijani | The word heç nə literally means "no thing" in Azerbaijani. |
| Basque | Derived from ezer and ez, which mean `loss` and `absence` respectively |
| Belarusian | "Нічога" (nothing) can also mean "it's fine" or "no problem" in Belarusian. |
| Bengali | The Bengali word "কিছুই না" (kichhu na) originated from the phrase " কিছু কিছুতেই না " (kichhu kichhutei na), which has a strong emphasis on negation. |
| Bosnian | In Bosnian, 'ništa' also signifies insignificance or worthlessness. |
| Bulgarian | "Нищо" also means "worthless" or "useless" in Bulgarian, and is used in this sense in the phrase "нищо не струващ" (nichtso ne struvasht), meaning "worthless". |
| Catalan | The word "res" in Catalan comes from the Latin "res" meaning "thing" or "matter". |
| Cebuano | Wala can also mean 'no one' or 'not there' and is typically used for things that one can't see. |
| Chinese (Simplified) | 没有 can also mean 'lacking' or 'without' and is often used in negative constructions. |
| Chinese (Traditional) | "沒有" in some contexts can refer to a person, as in "there is no one" |
| Corsican | "Nunda" can refer to the empty set, an unknown entity or thing, a nonexistent entity or thing, a nonentity, an empty thing, an empty entity, a zero entity, a zero thing, a nul, an absence, a vacuity, nothingness, nonexistence, or nility. |
| Croatian | Croatian word "ništa" is a contraction from "ni za što", which means "not [worth] anything." |
| Czech | The Czech word nic (nothing) comes from the Proto-Slavic word *nečьto (something), which also meant nothing. |
| Danish | The Danish word "ikke noget" literally translates into English as "not something" |
| Dutch | In Afrikaans, the word "niets" also means "not" while in Dutch it means "nothing". |
| Esperanto | The Esperanto word "nenio" is derived from the Latin "ne" (not) and "hilum" (a tiny thing), and can also mean "a trifle" or "a small matter". |
| Estonian | The Estonian word "mitte midagi" comes from two parts: "mitte" (not) and "midagi" (anything), so it literally means "not anything." |
| Finnish | In addition to its common meaning of 'nothing,' 'ei mitään' can also be a dismissive response to questions. |
| French | The French word "rien" originally meant "a thing," but its meaning gradually shifted to "nothing" over time. |
| Frisian | Frisian "neat" has cognates in many Germanic languages, meaning "need" or "lack". |
| Galician | In Galician, "nada" comes from the Latin "res nata", meaning "something born" or "creation". |
| German | The German word "nichts" is derived from the Middle High German "niht", meaning "not" and has cognates in English "naught" and "nought". |
| Greek | Τίποτα is a polysemous word in Greek. It derives from the ancient Greek verb τίπτω and can have multiple meanings including: nothing, something, anything. |
| Gujarati | The Gujarati word "કંઈ નહીં" (pronounced "kun-ee nuh-hee") is sometimes used in a way that means "of no importance" or "it doesn't matter". |
| Haitian Creole | The word "anyen" comes from the Taino language where it also means "nothing." |
| Hausa | In Hausa, "ba komai" also means "it does not matter" or "it is irrelevant." |
| Hawaiian | The Hawaiian word "mea ʻole" not only means "nothing," but also "unimportant" and "worthless." |
| Hebrew | The Hebrew word "שום דבר" literally means "no thing". |
| Hindi | कुछ भी तो नहीं literally means 'some anything not' and is essentially the antonym of 'कुछ नहीं' ('nothing'); it is also an informal idiom for 'of no/little value, significance, or consequence' |
| Hmong | The Hmong word "tsis muaj dab tsi" literally means "there is absolutely not anything". |
| Hungarian | "Semmi" derives from the Proto-Uralic root word "śem", which means "to die" or "to pass away." |
| Icelandic | Ekkert is an Old Norse word, where 'ekki' means 'not' and 'ert' means 'there is'. |
| Igbo | In Igbo, ọ dịghị ihe can also mean "there is no problem" or "it is of no consequence." |
| Indonesian | The word "tidak ada" in Indonesian comes from the Proto-Austronesian word *ti-ada* meaning "not-exist". |
| Irish | "Rud ar bith" literally means "anything in the world": "rud" (thing) + "ar bith" (in the world). |
| Italian | The word "niente" derives from the Latin "nec entem," meaning "not being" or "non-existence." |
| Japanese | The word "何もない" (nothing) is composed of the negation "無" (nothingness) and the particle "も" (also), implying an absence of multiple things and a sense of emptiness. |
| Javanese | The word "ora ana apa-apa" is a compound word that literally means "there is nothing there". |
| Kannada | The word "ಏನೂ ಇಲ್ಲ" (nothing) in Kannada can also be used to imply nothingness or futility. |
| Kazakh | The word "ештеңе" (nothing) in Kazakh derives from "еш" (companion) and the negative suffix "теңе", which means that there is no one there. |
| Khmer | The Khmer word "គ្មានអ្វីទេ" ("nothing") is cognate with the Sanskrit word "nihsvabhāva" meaning "having no self-nature or inherent existence." |
| Korean | 아무것도 comes from the native Korean elements 아무 (amu, "whoever") and 것 (geoseu, "thing"). |
| Kurdish | The Kurdish word "netişt" is a contraction of the phrase "ne tişt", which means "what thing". |
| Kyrgyz | The Kyrgyz word "эч нерсе" can also be used to express "not at all" or "never". |
| Latin | "Nihil" stems from the Latin word "nīhilum," meaning "nothing," but can also refer to "emptiness," "worthlessness," or "unimportance." |
| Latvian | In Polish, the word "kot" means "male cat", and in Latvian it is "kaķis", but the word "neko" is used for both "nothing" and "male cat" |
| Lithuanian | The word "nieko" in Lithuanian is cognate with the Slavic word "nikto" ("nobody"), both ultimately deriving from the Proto-Indo-European word "ne-kʷo-s" ("not someone"). |
| Luxembourgish | In Luxembourgish, "näischt" was originally an adjective meaning "inferior", before evolving into a negative pronoun meaning "nothing". |
| Macedonian | The word 'ништо' ('nothing') in Macedonian may derive from the Slavic word for 'thread,' 'string,' or 'line,' suggesting its original meaning as 'that which is broken off or has come to an end. |
| Malagasy | The word "na inona na inona" derives from the word "inona," meaning "what" or "which." |
| Malay | In Javanese and Sundanese, 'tiada apa-apa' means 'there is something', opposite to its Malay meaning. |
| Malayalam | The Malayalam word "ഒന്നുമില്ല" can also mean "one does not exist" or "there is no one." |
| Maltese | The Maltese word "xejn" is derived from the Arabic word "shay'n", meaning "thing" or "something", but has come to mean "nothing" in Maltese. |
| Maori | The Maori word 'kahore' can also mean 'absence' or 'nonexistence'. |
| Marathi | The Marathi word 'काहीही नाही' literally translates to 'something nothing', emphasizing the idea of absolute nothingness. |
| Mongolian | The word “юу ч биш” in Mongolian literally means “not a thing” and is used to express the absence of anything. |
| Myanmar (Burmese) | ဘာမှမ may also carry the nuance of not caring in the sense that something doesn't matter. |
| Nepali | The word केहि छैन, meaning "nothing" in Nepali, derives from the Sanskrit word "kecid", meaning "to vanish". |
| Norwegian | The word "ingenting" is derived from the Old Norse word "ekki", which also means "not" or "never". |
| Nyanja (Chichewa) | The word 'palibe' in Nyanja is derived from the verb 'liba', meaning 'to take' or 'to possess', and the negative prefix 'pa-', indicating absence or negation. |
| Pashto | The Pashto word "هیڅ نه" also means "not at all" and "never". |
| Persian | The Persian word for "nothing" (هیچ چیزی) literally means "no thing," emphasizing its utter absence or nonexistence. |
| Polish | The word "nic" can also be used as a pronoun meaning "no one" or "nothing". It can also be used as an adjective meaning "worthless" or "insignificant." |
| Portuguese (Portugal, Brazil) | The Portuguese word "nada" is derived from the Latin word "natta" meaning "birth" or "origin", hinting at the concept of "nothingness" as the starting point of all things. |
| Punjabi | The Punjabi word 'ਕੁਝ ਨਹੀਂ' is an idiomatic expression often used as a polite way to express unwillingness or refusal, similar to the English phrase 'not at all'. |
| Romanian | The Romanian word "nimic" derives from the Latin phrase "nec unam micam," meaning "not even one crumb." |
| Russian | The Russian word "ничего" can also mean "it's okay". |
| Samoan | The Samoan word "leai se mea" can trace its origins to the Proto-Samoic language, where the Proto-Samoic form of "mea" was "moa" and "leai" meant "not". |
| Scots Gaelic | The Gaelic word "dad" can also mean "father" or "dad" in English, as well as "nothing" or "worthless". |
| Serbian | The Serbian word for “nothing,” “ништа,” is a shortened form of the phrase “ни једне шта,” meaning “not a single thing.” |
| Sesotho | The word 'ha ho letho' in Sesotho, meaning 'nothing', is thought to stem from the phrase 'ha ho letho le teng', meaning 'there is nothing that exists'. |
| Shona | Shona "hapana" is a contraction of the phrase "hapa pana" which means "there is no here". |
| Sindhi | The word "ڪجھ به نه" can also mean "not at all" or "never" in Sindhi. |
| Slovak | The word "nič" (nothing) also holds the meanings of "zero" and "nil", and has cognates in other Slavic languages. |
| Slovenian | The word "nič" in Slovenian can also mean "zilch" or "not a thing." |
| Somali | The term |
| Spanish | The word 'nada' in Spanish originates from the Latin 'nauta' meaning 'sailor', which evolved into 'navío' meaning 'ship' and eventually 'nada' signifying 'empty space' or 'nothingness'. |
| Sundanese | "Teu nanaon" literally means "not wanting anything" but can also mean "not having anything" in Sundanese. |
| Swahili | The Swahili phrase "hakuna chochote" has a root "chochote" meaning "anything". Thus, "hakuna chochote" is an emphatic rendering of "nothing". |
| Swedish | The Swedish word "ingenting" is a compound of "inte" (not) and "enting" (being), which was probably influenced by "nenting" (negation). |
| Tagalog (Filipino) | The Tagalog word 'wala' (nothing) also has the meanings of 'not applicable', 'no one', 'none', and 'without'. |
| Tajik | The word "ҳеҷ чиз" in Tajik comes from the Persian words "هیچ" meaning "none" and "چیز" meaning "thing". |
| Telugu | The word "ఏమిలేదు" can also mean "no worries" or "don't worry" in Telugu. |
| Thai | The Thai word "ไม่มีอะไร" (literal meaning: "not having anything") also means "it's nothing special/important" or "don't mention it". |
| Turkish | The word "hiçbir şey" literally means "no thing" in Turkish. |
| Ukrainian | The Ukrainian word "нічого" also means "not at all", "it's no big deal", and "don't mention it". |
| Urdu | The word "کچھ نہیں" can also be used to express denial, such as "not at all" or "never." |
| Uzbek | The Uzbek word "hech narsa" can also mean "unimportant" or "unworthy of attention". |
| Vietnamese | "Không có gì" literally means "not have what", but it can also be used to express "you're welcome" or "it's nothing". |
| Welsh | The Welsh word "dim byd" literally translates to "no world," further underscoring its all-encompassing meaning. |
| Xhosa | Possibly akin to the Zulu "-khoma" (empty). |
| Yiddish | The Yiddish word "גאָרנישט" ("gorneysht") is cognate with the German word "garnichts" and the Slavic word "nikogda," both meaning "nothing". |
| Yoruba | Ohunkohun derives from the phrase 'ohun kan kohun', meaning 'not even a thing'. |
| Zulu | The word "lutho" in Zulu can also mean "vanity" or "emptiness". |
| English | Nothing, from the Old English word "nā-þing", literally means "no-thing," and can also refer to an unspecified and often worthless person or thing. |