nijesu

Serbo-Croatian

Alternative forms

• (Standard Bosnian, Standard Croatian, Standard Serbian) nísu
• (regional, chiefly Serbia) nésu

Etymology

From Proto-Slavic *ne + *sǫtь, first-person plural present tense form of *byti. This formation was kept in Old Church Slavonic as не сѫтъ (ne sǫtŭ) (see бꙑти (byti)). However, in other South Slavic vernaculars, this form irregularly later created něsu (attested in 1334), probably influenced by něsam (see nijesam). Because of the yat reflex, něsu became rendered as nijesu in Ijekavian speeches.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /nijěːsu/, /nijěsu/
• Hyphenation: ni‧je‧su

Verb

nijésu, nijèsu (Cyrillic spelling није́су, нијѐсу)

1. (historical, literary) negative third-person plural present of biti

References

• “nijesu” in Hrvatski jezični portal
• Pero Budmani, editor (1892-1897), “jesam”, in Rječnik hrvatskoga ili srpskoga jezika‎^[1] (in Serbo-Croatian), volume 4, Zagreb: JAZU, page 606