Sources of "because"

[Terra]

What sources do languages use for "because"?

English has:
- "because", from earlier "by (the) cause"
- "since", from the meaning "after"
- "for"
- "as"

Spanish has:
- "porque", meaning "for that" ("que" signifies that a clause follows, instead of a noun)

Japanese has:
- "kara", meaning "from"

[Ziz]

Old English has for þām or for þām þe, which is basically "for that," with an optional þe acting as a relativizer to mark the whole as a subordinating conjunction.

The most basic Hebrew word for "because" is כי ki, but I don't know how to parse it, although that doesn't necessarily mean it's not parsable. כי is also a fancy substitute for the complementizer -ש še in literary Hebrew, so it could result just from a modern narrowing of a variety of possible meanings.

[Ser]

You're only interested in conjunctions giving a reason, right? Note that languages can have something quite different for "because of (something)"...

Spanish has:
- "porque", meaning "for that" ("que" signifies that a clause follows, instead of a noun)

It means "because". Literally, you can analyze it as "for that" (or "by that").

There's also:
- "ya que", meaning something close to English "since", literally "already that"
- "como", meaning something close to English "as", other glosses of the word are the prepositions "as" ("as your best friend") or like ("like your best friend"), etymologically from 'in what way'

[Astraios]

Lakota has čha which means and so, and consequently:

Yahí čha čhaŋtémawašte.
I'm happy because you came. > "You came and so I'm happy."

It can also use the instrumental postposition uŋ, which is just the verb úŋ use:

Yahí uŋ čhaŋtémawašte.
I'm happy because you came. > "By means of your coming I'm happy."

[Ser]

French:
- "parce que" (colloquial: pa'ce que /paskə/), close to "because", literally "by this that" (where "that" = subordinating conjunction)
- "puisque", close to "since", etymologically from "after that"
- "comme", close to "as" (same as Spanish como)

Modern Standard Arabic:
- لأنّ li-ʔanna, close to "because", literally "to that"
- بما أنّ bi-mā ʔanna, close to "since" and "as", literally "with what that"

Modern Standard Chinese:
- 因為 (Mandarin: yīnwèi, Cantonese: yānwaih, Simplified Chinese: 因为), close to "because", literally "because for". It is often echoed in the main clause by 所以 (Mandarin: suǒyǐ, Cantonese: sóyíh) 'therefore'. It has a monosyllabic variant: 因 (Mandarin: yīn, Cantonese: yān).
- 由於 (Mandarin: yóuyú, Cantonese: yàuhyū, Simplified Chinese: 由于), some sort of more formal "because" (~"due to"), literally "from in/at/on/to" (於/于 had quite a number of versatile uses in older Chinese...).
- 既然 (Mandarin: jìrán, Cantonese: geiyìhn), close to "since". Etymologically coming from 既 'to be complete, completely', and -然, a suffix to derive adverbs. It is often echoed in the main clause by 那麼 (Mandarin: nàme, Cantonese: láahmō, Simplified Chinese: 那么) 'then', 那 (Mandarin: nà, Cantonese: láah) 'then', or 就 (Mandarin: jiù, Cantonese: jauh) 'then'.
(As for a translation for "as", this suggests you can use 因為/因为 like that...)

[finlay]

Most languages tend to have more than one, as you've listed for English there. I know Japanese also has 〜ので, which can sometimes be translated as 'because'. I feel certain there's at least one or two more ways.

[Jipí]

German:

weil, cf. Weile: from M.H.G. wîl(e), O.H.G. (h)wīla; Goth. ƕeila, Engl. while. Ultimately from PIE *k^u̯ei̯ə- 'to rest', cf. Old Indian cirá-ḥ '(taking) long', Lat. quietus 'resting, silent'. The conjunction weil (late M.H.G. wîle 'while, during', cf. English while) is the Acc. Sg. of the noun, deriving from a shortening of M.H.G. die wîle 'all the while', O.H.G. dia wīla so 'in the timespan(, when)'.

da 'there'

Middle High German also had sît, 'since'.

My conlang's yanoyam is literally place.BEN. No idea whether I intended that when I coined it.

[finlay]

Most languages tend to have more than one, as you've listed for English there. I know Japanese also has 〜ので, which can sometimes be translated as 'because'. I feel certain there's at least one or two more ways.

as a quick gloss, the で means 'for' or 'at' or something like that, and the の nominalises or something, so it's like "for the (doing), ...". it shows up in the counterpart question なんで (why? or "for what?"). there's also another word meaning why which is なぜ. i dunno what the difference is tbh.

[linguoboy]

Irish has a wide range of variants. Here's a handy list in tabular form with literal glosses. With few exceptions, they all incorporate the subordinating conjunction go (e.g. de bhrí go "of strength that", as ucht go "from breast that"), although some can be used with verb-noun constructions instead.

[Izambri]

Catalan has

perquè (literally "by what") Used to introduce the reason or purpose of the action expressed in the main sentence.

As a causal conjunction can be substituted by ja que (literally "now that").

As a final conjunction can be replaced by a fi que (literally "to end that").

Doncs indicates the consequence or conclusion of what has been said previously.

[Terra]

as a quick gloss, the で means 'for' or 'at' or something like that, and the の nominalises or something, so it's like "for the (doing), ...". it shows up in the counterpart question なんで (why? or "for what?"). there's also another word meaning why which is なぜ. i dunno what the difference is tbh.

I didn't know about "node". I think that a better gloss for "de" would be "at" or "by" (instrumental).

"naze" is just a colloquial version of "nande", like "'cuz" is to "because" in English. (This might be just an American English thing.")

[finlay]

by no means. the pronounciation varies on the minutia level – in BrE it tends to have a vowel other than schwa or /ʌ/, so i'd usually spell it "cos", and many authors use "cause" or 'cause with or without an apostrophe, but (something like) this is pretty much universal for colloquial speech.

[Thry]

I used Latin quia for Silladen, which came out as pe, but I don't know what the etymology of quia is or if it's a correlative.

Idhin pe im favas.
I eat because I'm hungry.

[----]

Vietnamese has vì, which also apparently has a meaning related to "for", but I don't think the word is used in a non-"because" sense [anymore?]

[Terra]

by no means. the pronounciation varies on the minutia level – in BrE it tends to have a vowel other than schwa or /ʌ/, so i'd usually spell it "cos", and many authors use "cause" or 'cause with or without an apostrophe, but (something like) this is pretty much universal for colloquial speech.

For the record, "cause" (the noun or verb) in American English has the vowel that one would expect: /A/. Only "because" seems to have taken a weakened vowel.

[Bob Johnson]

as a quick gloss, the で means 'for' or 'at' or something like that, and the の nominalises or something, so it's like "for the (doing), ...". it shows up in the counterpart question なんで (why? or "for what?"). there's also another word meaning why which is なぜ. i dunno what the difference is tbh.

I didn't know about "node". I think that a better gloss for "de" would be "at" or "by" (instrumental).

Hm, I thought this <de> was a conjunctive form of the copula, not the contraction of <nite> (instrumental, active locative)

[clawgrip]

で is not instrumental in that instance. You can consider it the conjunctive form of のだ. I think the closest gloss of XのでY would be something like "it being X, Y."
Edit: I see Bob answered this.

Another similar phrase in Japanese is のため, which is often used to mean "for the purpose or benefit of," but can also have a meaning like "because of" or "due to."

In the phrase あなたのために作った Anata no tame ni tsukutta it means "I made it for you."

But cf.:
"混雑のため、電車が遅れます" konzatsu no tame, densha ga okuremasu "the train will be late due to crowding"
"がんのために死んだ" gan no tame ni shinda "(he) died of cancer"

Here it shows the cause, not the purpose.

[Travis B.]

by no means. the pronounciation varies on the minutia level – in BrE it tends to have a vowel other than schwa or /ʌ/, so i'd usually spell it "cos", and many authors use "cause" or 'cause with or without an apostrophe, but (something like) this is pretty much universal for colloquial speech.

For the record, "cause" (the noun or verb) in American English has the vowel that one would expect: /A/.

Only if cot-caught-merged, and merged to an unrounded vowel too! Cause has the THOUGHT vowel, i.e. historical /ɔː/, so I would expect a good portion of NAE to have a rounded vowel for it.

[finlay]

by no means. the pronounciation varies on the minutia level – in BrE it tends to have a vowel other than schwa or /ʌ/, so i'd usually spell it "cos", and many authors use "cause" or 'cause with or without an apostrophe, but (something like) this is pretty much universal for colloquial speech.

For the record, "cause" (the noun or verb) in American English has the vowel that one would expect: /A/.

Only if cot-caught-merged, an merged to an unrounded vowel too! Cause has the THOUGHT vowel, i.e. historical /ɔː/, so I would expect a good portion of NAE to have a rounded vowel for it.

Yeah worth noting that nobody pronounces it with a thought vowel in BrE, even if they spell it "cause". Usually it's a lot vowel or a schwa, the same as the vowel in because. (I should revise the previous post to say "other than /ʌ/", tbh.)

[Salmoneus]

by no means. the pronounciation varies on the minutia level – in BrE it tends to have a vowel other than schwa or /ʌ/, so i'd usually spell it "cos", and many authors use "cause" or 'cause with or without an apostrophe, but (something like) this is pretty much universal for colloquial speech.

For the record, "cause" (the noun or verb) in American English has the vowel that one would expect: /A/.

Only if cot-caught-merged, an merged to an unrounded vowel too! Cause has the THOUGHT vowel, i.e. historical /ɔː/, so I would expect a good portion of NAE to have a rounded vowel for it.

Yeah worth noting that nobody pronounces it with a thought vowel in BrE, even if they spell it "cause". Usually it's a lot vowel or a schwa, the same as the vowel in because. (I should revise the previous post to say "other than /ʌ/", tbh.)

No, 'cause has LOT or schwa... cause does indeed have CAUGHT.

Also, pedantry, I'm pretty sure some people have CAUGHT in 'because' - the same people who say "orf" instead of "off".

[hwhatting]

Russian has:
потому, что potomú, chto lit. "after (or: according to) that, that"
так как tak kak lit. "so how / as"

[Click]

Croatian:

zato "for that" (za "for" + to "that"(neuter gender)
jer "because" I don't know of any etymology for this word.

[Qwynegold]

Swedish has för att (lit. "for to") and därför (att) (therefore, lit. "there for (to)"). Finnish has siksi (therefore) and koska (because). I don't know where siksi comes from, but it's similar to miksi (why). Koska also means "when (interrogative)".

[Terra]

Only if cot-caught-merged, an merged to an unrounded vowel too!

Yes, indeed.

Yeah worth noting that nobody pronounces it with a thought vowel in BrE, even if they spell it "cause". Usually it's a lot vowel or a schwa, the same as the vowel in because. (I should revise the previous post to say "other than /ʌ/", tbh.)

What is the difference between the THOUGHT and LOT vowels? Is THOUGHT the same vowel as CAUGHT?

* * *

Anyways, so far I'm surprised that English is the only one where the word for "because" is related to "cause". I expected more.

[Yng]

Levantine Arabic has ʿašān (< ʿalā šān 'on account of') and minšān (< min šān 'from account of'). These are used both as conjunctions (ʿašān it-taʾṣ kān bard, because the weather was cold) and as prepositions (ʿašān-a ṣaʿb an-nōm! because of her it's hard for me to sleep!). They also have a benefactive meaning - minšān-ek fī ʿand-i siʿr i-mnīḥ, 'for you I have a good price'.