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Many IE and non-IE languages use some kind of "double negation", i.e. their speakers repeat the negative particle before or after another negative word (a pronoun, an adverb, an adjective etc.). "Double negation" languages in Europe include:

1) All Balto-Slavonic languages

2) All Romance languages, but only Rumanian has developed a full system of double negation; in other Romance languages double negation depends on which word one starts a statement with, namely, if one starts with a negative adverb, pronoun or adjective, double negation is not considered to be grammatically correct. Especially in French, the "double negation" device is governed by more complex rules.

3) Albanian

4) Maltese

5) Romani

6) Modern Greek is a rather special case, as it uses a double negation device involving "false" negative pronouns, which originally were indefinite pronouns - and are still perceived as such in particular contexts (unfortunately, MGreek grammars speak just of "double negation", which is not a proper description of the phenomenon); Notice there was no such thing as "double negation" in Ancient Greek

In Asia/Africa they include:

1) All Indo-Iranian languages

2) Modern Hebrew

3) I'm not sure about Arabic (please, inform me, if anyone positively knows)

I've also heard that some English creoles/dialects etc. do have a "double negation"; is this true?

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1) Ayval b?? khii, khiivel b?? ay!
2) Мне некогда: Хлевагастиз
3) Exterminate lady-haters, now!

Frequently one hears folks say "I never do nuffink".


Also, Old English had double negation- the more negation, the more intense.

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"Man i kisim pusi"
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Ouch!

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< Cev> My people we use cars. I come from a very proud car culture-- every part of the car is used, nothing goes to waste. When my people first saw the car, generations ago, we called it šuŋka wakaŋ-- meaning "automated mobile".

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"Man i kisim pusi"
http://www.doggerelizer.com
http://www.pureenglish.com
YouTube: user/BryanAJParry

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Linguistics will become a science when linguists begin standing on one another's shoulders instead of on one another's toes.
—Stephen R. Anderson

Málin eru höfuðeinkenni þjóðanna.
—Séra Tómas Sæmundsson

In N-S?mi there's an example of double negative verb:

Ii dat astan ?at ii borratge.
no-SG3 SG3/it have.time-PART.PRF any.more no-SG3 eat-INF-even
He didn't have time to even eat any more.

The text book fro which the example is from says that pretty regularily the negative auxilary is doubled or multipled even more if one wants to specially stress the negative meaning. That's quite vaguely said and one easily finds more to the structure than that. Firstly since the unmarked word order is SVO the fronting of the negative verb in the finite part of the sentence to get a partial VS order (actually V.neg SV) itself marks focus on the verb. The second negative verb clearly is a part of the same phrase as the infinite verb borrat so its place is very likely to have special meaning and not just be a dublicated negative just thrown somewhere (as a note the first verb is indeed finite however being a participle, it's just the way S?mi [and Balto-Finnic] forms the negation in the past tense). Since the infinite verb is already marked modally by the clitic -ge I'm tending to analyse the second negative verb rather as enforcing and perhaps some kind of optional agreement with it. So because the focused negation is already expressed by the placing ot the first negative verb I'd say the latter negative acts more to focuse the verb "to eat" than the negation itself.

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<Dudicon> i would but you're too fat to fit in my mouth!!

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1) Ayval b?? khii, khiivel b?? ay!
2) Мне некогда: Хлевагастиз
3) Exterminate lady-haters, now!

_________________
1) Ayval b?? khii, khiivel b?? ay!
2) Мне некогда: Хлевагастиз
3) Exterminate lady-haters, now!

_________________
1) Ayval b?? khii, khiivel b?? ay!
2) Мне некогда: Хлевагастиз
3) Exterminate lady-haters, now!

_________________
1) Ayval b?? khii, khiivel b?? ay!
2) Мне некогда: Хлевагастиз
3) Exterminate lady-haters, now!

Afrikaans double negation doesn't just apply to the simple negative particle "nie" but also to all negatives:
niemand, geen, n?rens, niks, nooit...

Daar is niemand by die deur nie.
Daar is geen blomme in die veld nie.
Ek gaan di? naweek n?rens nie.

There is no double negation in subject-verb, subject-verb-pronoun, and sentances beginning with an adverbial phrase, unless it is a compund verb, in which case double negation is used.

_________________
1) Ayval b?? khii, khiivel b?? ay!
2) Мне некогда: Хлевагастиз
3) Exterminate lady-haters, now!

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Nek vatar s-voli nasnap migi dmuxa k ti

->

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1) Ayval b?? khii, khiivel b?? ay!
2) Мне некогда: Хлевагастиз
3) Exterminate lady-haters, now!

De nada !!!
I personnaly didn't know there were so many language who have double negation. Being French native and having the natural "ne + verb + pas" construction, I think it is good to 'pack' the verb between two negation forms...
I've just remembered. Someone talks about arabic:
Maghreban Arabic also has double negation:
I don't know: ma n'raf shi

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Nek vatar s-voli nasnap migi dmuxa k ti

->

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1) Ayval b?? khii, khiivel b?? ay!
2) Мне некогда: Хлевагастиз
3) Exterminate lady-haters, now!

I believe this feature also exists in African American Vernacular English.

"Don't nobody know the answer" is an example.

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Nek vatar s-voli nasnap migi dmuxa k ti

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