From Proto-Turkic *nē- (“what”), the only Turkic root beginning with /n/. "The earliest form must have contained a unique initial nasal (generally nasals were not allowed word-initially), having yielded specific reflexes in modern languages."
Cognate with Bashkir ни (ni, “what”), Chuvash мӗн (mĕn, “what”), Karakhanid (nē, “what”), Kazakh не (ne, “what”), Khakas ниме (nime, “what”), Kyrgyz не (ne, “what”), Old Turkic 𐰤𐰀 (ne, “what, which”), Old Uyghur (ne, “what”), Tatar ни (ni, “what”), Turkish ne (“what”), Turkmen nǟmä (“what”), Tuvan чүү (çüü, “what”), Uyghur نېمە (nëme, “what”), Uzbek na (“what”), Yakut туох (tuoq, “what”).
nə (definite accusative nəyi, plural nələr)
The words nə and su (and sometimes mövqe) are the only ones in Azerbaijani to take a y in the singular accusative, genitive, and dative cases, and in the singular possessive forms.
| Declension of nə | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| singular | plural | |||||||
| nominative | nə |
nələr | ||||||
| definite accusative | nəyi |
nələri | ||||||
| dative | nəyə |
nələrə | ||||||
| locative | nədə |
nələrdə | ||||||
| ablative | nədən |
nələrdən | ||||||
| definite genitive | nəyin |
nələrin | ||||||
nə
| English | Azerbaijani |
|---|---|
| what | nə, nəmənə (South Azerbaijani) |
| who | kim |
| which | hansı |
| which (in a numbered series) | neçənci |
| who (by occupation) | nəçi |
| who (by origin) | haralı |
| where (which place) | hara |
| where (at which place) | harada |
| whither (to which place) | hara, haraya |
| whence (from which place) | haradan |
| when | nə vaxt, nə zaman, haçan, havaxt (colloquial) |
| why | niyə, nə üçün, neyçün |
| how | necə, nətər |
| how much | nə qədər |
| how many | neçə |
From Persian نه (na). Cognate to Old English ne (“not”).
nə
| Perso-Arabic | نه | |
|---|---|---|
From Proto-Turkic *nē- (“what”).
nə
nə ... nə ...