Unless in Different Languages
Discover 'Unless' in 134 Languages: Dive into Translations, Hear Pronunciations, and Uncover Cultural Insights.
Unless
Afrikaans tensy | ||
Albanian përveç nëse | ||
Amharic ካልሆነ በስተቀር | ||
Arabic ما لم | ||
Armenian բացառությամբ եթե | ||
Assamese নহ’লে | ||
Aymara juk'ampinsa | ||
Azerbaijani halda | ||
Bambara fɔ | ||
Basque ezean | ||
Belarusian хіба што | ||
Bengali না হলে | ||
Bhojpuri जब ले ना | ||
Bosnian osim ako | ||
Bulgarian освен ако | ||
Catalan tret que | ||
Cebuano gawas kon | ||
Chinese (Simplified) 除非 | ||
Chinese (Traditional) 除非 | ||
Corsican a menu chì | ||
Croatian osim ako | ||
Czech pokud | ||
Danish med mindre | ||
Dhivehi ނޫނީ | ||
Dogri जदूं तगर | ||
Dutch tenzij | ||
English unless | ||
Esperanto krom se | ||
Estonian kui ei | ||
Ewe negbe | ||
Filipino (Tagalog) maliban kung | ||
Finnish ellei | ||
French sauf si | ||
Frisian of it moast wêze dat | ||
Galician agás | ||
Georgian თუ არ არის | ||
German es sei denn | ||
Greek εκτός | ||
Guarani ndaupéichairamo | ||
Gujarati સિવાય | ||
Haitian Creole sof si | ||
Hausa sai dai in | ||
Hawaiian ke ʻole | ||
Hebrew אֶלָא אִם | ||
Hindi जब तक | ||
Hmong tshwj tsis yog | ||
Hungarian hacsak | ||
Icelandic nema | ||
Igbo belụsọ | ||
Ilocano malaksid | ||
Indonesian kecuali kalau | ||
Irish mura rud é | ||
Italian salvo che | ||
Japanese そうでなければ | ||
Javanese kajaba | ||
Kannada ಹೊರತು | ||
Kazakh егер болмаса | ||
Khmer លើកលែងតែ | ||
Kinyarwanda keretse | ||
Konkani बगर | ||
Korean 아니면 | ||
Krio nɔ gɛt wan valyu | ||
Kurdish heke nebe | ||
Kurdish (Sorani) مەگەر | ||
Kyrgyz эгер болбосо | ||
Lao ເວັ້ນເສຍແຕ່ | ||
Latin nisi | ||
Latvian ja vien | ||
Lingala longola kaka | ||
Lithuanian nebent | ||
Luganda mpozi nga | ||
Luxembourgish ausser wann | ||
Macedonian освен ако | ||
Maithili सिवाय | ||
Malagasy raha tsy | ||
Malay melainkan | ||
Malayalam അല്ലാതെ | ||
Maltese sakemm | ||
Maori ki te kore | ||
Marathi जोपर्यंत | ||
Meiteilon (Manipuri) ꯑꯣꯏꯗꯔꯤꯕ ꯐꯥꯎꯕ | ||
Mizo loh chuan | ||
Mongolian үгүй бол | ||
Myanmar (Burmese) မဟုတ်ရင် | ||
Nepali नभएसम्म | ||
Norwegian med mindre | ||
Nyanja (Chichewa) pokhapokha | ||
Odia (Oriya) ଯେପର୍ଯ୍ୟନ୍ତ | ||
Oromo yoo ta'een ala | ||
Pashto غیر لدې چې | ||
Persian مگر اینکه | ||
Polish chyba że | ||
Portuguese (Portugal, Brazil) a menos que | ||
Punjabi ਜਦ ਤੱਕ | ||
Quechua mana chayqa | ||
Romanian dacă nu | ||
Russian если только | ||
Samoan vagana | ||
Sanskrit न यावत् | ||
Scots Gaelic mura | ||
Sepedi ntle le | ||
Serbian осим ако | ||
Sesotho ntle le haeba | ||
Shona kunze kwekunge | ||
Sindhi جيستائين | ||
Sinhala (Sinhalese) හැර | ||
Slovak pokiaľ | ||
Slovenian razen | ||
Somali mooyee | ||
Spanish a no ser que | ||
Sundanese kacuali | ||
Swahili isipokuwa | ||
Swedish såvida inte | ||
Tagalog (Filipino) maliban kung | ||
Tajik агар | ||
Tamil தவிர | ||
Tatar булмаса | ||
Telugu తప్ప | ||
Thai เว้นแต่ | ||
Tigrinya እንተደኣ | ||
Tsonga handleka | ||
Turkish sürece | ||
Turkmen bolmasa | ||
Twi (Akan) gye sɛ | ||
Ukrainian хіба що | ||
Urdu جب تک | ||
Uyghur بولمىسا | ||
Uzbek agar bo'lmasa | ||
Vietnamese trừ khi | ||
Welsh oni bai | ||
Xhosa ngaphandle kokuba | ||
Yiddish סייַדן | ||
Yoruba ayafi | ||
Zulu ngaphandle kokuthi |
Etymology & Notes
| Language | Etymology / Notes |
|---|---|
| Afrikaans | 'Tensy' is another form used for both 'tensy nie', with the archaic plural, and the standard 'tensy nie dat'. "Tensy" originated from the Low German tensei as a conjunction for a negative conditional clause. |
| Arabic | The root of the Arabic word "ما لم" (unless) is "لم" (not), meaning that "ما لم" literally translates to "if not" or "in the absence of." |
| Azerbaijani | "Halda" also means "except" as "halda" derives from Old Turkic word "kalta" meaning "leaving something". |
| Basque | "Eze" in Basque means "no" and "an" is an emphatic particle |
| Belarusian | The phrase "хіба што" is used interrogatively to soften a refusal or rejection. |
| Bosnian | The word "osim ako" can also mean "apart from" or "except". |
| Bulgarian | The word "освен ако" is a compound of the words "освен" (except) and "ако" (if). |
| Catalan | The origin of the word "tret que" is obscure, but it could be related to the Latin word "tractare" (to handle, to negotiate) or to the Occitan word "trestar" (to stop). |
| Chinese (Simplified) | 除非 (chúfēi) 还可以作“除了”或“之外”解。 |
| Chinese (Traditional) | 「除非」的字面意思是「除了」、「以外」，表示條件或限制。 |
| Corsican | "A menu chì" is the Corsican equivalent of "unless", but it can also mean "without". |
| Croatian | The word "osim ako" is an idiomatic Croatian construction, and also has the meanings "except for" and "only if". |
| Czech | The word "pokud" (if) in Czech comes from the Proto-Slavic word, "*po-kъdъ", meaning "when". |
| Danish | The word "med mindre" can also mean "but", "however", or "otherwise" depending on the context. |
| Dutch | Tenzij is derived from the Middle Dutch word "ten" (to) and "si" (if), and originally meant "unless, if not". |
| Esperanto | The Esperanto word "krom se" ("unless") is derived from the Esperanto word "krom" ("except") and the conjunction "se" ("if"). |
| Estonian | The Estonian word "kui ei" is a compound word of "kui" meaning "if" and "ei" meaning "no". Therefore, its meaning is close to "if not". |
| Finnish | The word "ellei" is also used in the names of certain Finnish people and places, such as Ellinjärvi (Lake Elli) and Ellivuori (Elli Hill). |
| French | The word "sauf si" derives from the Latin "salvo si", meaning "safe if". |
| Galician | "Agás" comes from the old Galician-Portuguese "agaz" meaning “gate” and the Latin word “haec” meaning “this”. It originally meant “except the”. |
| German | German "es sei denn" derives from "es sei denn, dass" (should it be that) and is similar in meaning to English "supposing". |
| Greek | In Classical Greek the word "εκτός" also meant "outside" and had a spatial sense. |
| Gujarati | The Gujarati word "સિવાય" ("unless") shares its root with the Sanskrit word "विना" ("separated from"), which also means "except" or "without." |
| Haitian Creole | The Haitian Creole word "sof si" comes from the French "sauf si" and also means "except if" or "but if not" |
| Hausa | sai dai in |
| Hawaiian | The Hawaiian word "ke ʻole" can also mean "except" or "other than." |
| Hebrew | Literally translated from Arabic (إلا أن), it has an additional alternate meaning of "except". In modern Hebrew the two terms largely merged. |
| Hindi | जब तक means "until" or "so long as" in Hindi, depending on the context. |
| Hmong | In English, "unless" means "except if" or "if not". In Hmong, "tshwj tsis yog" is derived from the words "tshwj" (not) and "tsib yog" (to be). |
| Hungarian | Hungarian "hacsak" means "unless", but also "only if" when used in negative sentences. |
| Icelandic | In Icelandic, "nema" also means "to take" or "to receive." |
| Igbo | Belụsọ is a conjunction in Igbo often used in negative contexts, and can also mean "however" or "but". |
| Indonesian | The word 'kecuali kalau' is derived from Arabic 'khilāf 'illā' which means 'except if'. |
| Irish | "Mura rud é" is derived from the Old Irish "muna ruid é", meaning "if it is not a secret." |
| Italian | The Italian word "salvo che" ultimately derives from the Latin phrase "salvo quod," which means "except that". |
| Japanese | The word "そうでなければ" can also mean "if not" or "otherwise". |
| Javanese | The Javanese word "kajaba" can also mean "except", "if not for" or "other than". |
| Kannada | "ಹೊರತು" is derived from the words "ಹೊರ" (outside) and "ತು" (limit), meaning "outside the limit". |
| Korean | The word '아니면' can also mean 'if not' or 'otherwise'. |
| Latin | "Nisi" is a term derived from the root "ne...sī," meaning "if not...then". |
| Latvian | The word "ja vien" in Latvian is derived from the Proto-Baltic word "*jeigu vināds", meaning "if it is the same". |
| Lithuanian | The Lithuanian word "nebent" is similar to "niby" in Polish and "nibi" in Belorusian, all meaning "as if" or "seemingly" and possibly related to Proto-Indo-European "ne-bhi" meaning "not being, being without". |
| Luxembourgish | "Ausser wann" means "unless" and is a compound of "ausser" ("except") and "wann" ("when") |
| Macedonian | The word "освен ако" can also mean "except" or "other than" in Macedonian. |
| Malagasy | The Malagasy word "raha tsy" can also mean "if not" or "except" depending on the context. |
| Malay | In Malay, the word "melainkan" also means "except" or "but". |
| Maltese | "Sakemm" is a Maltese word meaning "unless" and is derived from the Arabic word "as-sakkim", which means "the one who restrains". |
| Maori | The Maori word "ki te kore" is derived from the phrase "ki te kaore," which means "in the absence of," and has the same meaning as the English word "unless." |
| Marathi | The Marathi word "जोपर्यंत" is derived from the Sanskrit word "यावत्" (yāvat), which means "until" or "as long as." |
| Mongolian | The word "үгүй бол" can also mean "otherwise" or "if not". |
| Nepali | The word "नभएसम्म" is derived from the Sanskrit word "नभसी" (sky) and the suffix "-सम" (until), implying "until the sky falls" or "never". |
| Norwegian | The Norwegian word "med mindre" has its origin in the phrase "med den mindre mulighet". |
| Pashto | In Pashto, the word "غیر لدې چې" (gar ladē che) literally means "other than this that" or "except for this that." |
| Polish | The Polish word "chyba że" ultimately originates from the German phrase "es sei denn dass" with the same meaning. |
| Portuguese (Portugal, Brazil) | In Portuguese, "a menos que" can also mean "except for" or "but for". |
| Romanian | The Romanian word "dacă nu" can also mean "but if" or "if not". |
| Russian | The Russian word "если только" can be literally translated as "if only" or "unless" in English, though its meaning can vary depending on the context of the sentence. |
| Samoan | The word "vagana" can also be used in Samoan to mean "or else". |
| Scots Gaelic | The Scots Gaelic "mura" is a contraction of "ma" and "ura," both meaning "if" and forming "unless". |
| Serbian | The word "осим ако" derives from the Proto-Slavic word "*osьmь" meaning "apart" and "*ako" meaning "if". |
| Shona | Kunze kwekunge's literal meaning is 'except if' which may also be used to mean 'unless'. |
| Sindhi | "جيستائين" is derived from the word "جيست" meaning "except" and is also sometimes used to mean "rather" or "but". |
| Sinhala (Sinhalese) | Sinhala 'හැර' also means 'excluding' in English. |
| Slovak | The etymology of "pokiaľ" goes back to the Slavic word "poki" or "poka", meaning "until", with the added suffix "-ľ" indicating "up to a certain point." |
| Slovenian | "Razen" is a conjunction used to indicate an exception to a statement. It is derived from the Old Church Slavonic word *razvě*, which means "apart from". |
| Somali | Alternate meanings include "until" and "until that time". |
| Spanish | "A no ser que" derives from "a menos que" ("except that"), which comes from a negation of the comparative "más que" ("more than") with the preposition "de" ("of"), creating "menos que" ("less than"), and then with the definite article "el" ("the"). |
| Sundanese | The word "kacuali" is derived from the Malay word "kecuali" which means "except" or "with the exception of". |
| Swahili | Isipokuwa can also mean "lest" in Swahili. |
| Swedish | In 17th-century Swedish, "såvida inte" originally meant "on the condition that not". |
| Tajik | In other meanings this word means "agar-agar" |
| Tamil | தவிர can also mean "except for" or "excluding" and is derived from the base word "தவிர்" (tavir), which means "to avoid" or "to escape from". |
| Telugu | "తప్ప" is derived from the Sanskrit word "tapa" meaning "heat" or "suffering". It can also mean "exception" or "apart from". |
| Thai | เว้นแต่ is derived from the verb เว้น (leave), meaning to keep something apart from something else, or to refrain from doing something. |
| Turkish | In Turkish, the word 'sürece' also means 'during' or 'while'. |
| Ukrainian | In Ukrainian, "хіба що" ("unless") was also used as "however," "in spite of everything" |
| Urdu | جب تک ('unless') is derived from the Persian phrases ‘gar tā’ ('if to') and ‘ki tā’ ('until'). |
| Uzbek | The word "agar bo'lmasa" (unless) is the combination of "agar" (if) and "bo'lmasa" (it is not). |
| Vietnamese | The word "trừ khi" is derived from the Vietnamese word "trừ" (to subtract) and the word "khi" (time). It literally means "to subtract time" and implies that something will not happen unless a certain condition is met. |
| Welsh | In some contexts, "oni bai" can translate to "only if" or "in order to" instead of "unless." |
| Yiddish | The Yiddish word "סייַדן" ("unless") also means "except" or "unless it is" in some contexts. |
| Yoruba | "Ayafi" also means "except" and is often used in place of "ti o si" and "ti o ba si." |
| Zulu | The Zulu word "ngaphandle kokuthi" can also mean "except for" or "with the exception of". |
| English | "Unless" comes from Old English "onles(s)," meaning "without" or "not." |