ယသးဟ့ၣ်နၤ
ya thah hay nar
The phrase ယသးဟ့ၣ်နၤ (ya thah hay nar) is how you say "i hate you" in Karen.
This phrase is used as an expression of intense dislike.
Meaning: expression of intense dislike (phrase)
What does it mean word for word?
The phrase is composed of ယ meaning "I", သး meaning "heart/feeling", ဟ့ၣ် meaning "to give" and နၤ meaning "you".
How do you pronounce it?
ya thah hay nar
Did you know?
- In Sgaw Karen, expressing hate is relatively rare in polite social settings. People often use indirect language or silence to signal dislike rather than using a direct phrase like ယသးဟ့ၣ်နၤ.
- The word သး functions as both the center of emotional feeling and the seat of intellectual thought in Karen culture.
- Karen is a tonal language, meaning that the word နၤ for 'you' must be pronounced with a specific pitch to avoid confusion with other words. A slight mistake in tone can change the meaning of the entire sentence.
Example conversation
Two friends are arguing after a disagreement.
- စောကေ Saw Kayနုနု, နမၤဘၣ်တၢ်မၤကွၢ်တဖံး!Nu Nu, na ma bo ta ma kway ta phee!Nu Nu, you did something wrong!
- နုနု Nu Nuယသးဟ့ၣ်နၤ, စောကေ!ya tha ho na, Saw Kay!I hate you, Saw Kay!
- စောကေ Saw Kayယသးဟ့ၣ်နၤ ယုး!ya tha ho na yu!I hate you too!
- နုနု Nu Nuအဝဲတအိၣ်ဘျီန့ၣ်.a wa ta oh bee nohIt is not like that.
