Why is it called “eja” in Sardinia ? “Eja” or “eia” means “yes” . A word belonging to the Sardinian Campidanese, as can be deduced from the fact that in Logudorese, Nuorese and Sassari it is said "Emmu or emmo", which derives from the Latin "Immo".
The word "yes", on the other hand, derives from the Latin "sic est" which means "so it is". Thus also the word "eja" could derive from the Latin adverb "etiam" which means "certainly, without a doubt".
However, some scholars think differently as the word "eja" resembles other terms that are used in other languages to say "yes" :
- Corsica (ie)
- Armenia (ayo)
- Brittany (yan)
- Yiddish (ya)
- Northern Europe (ja)
This suggests that it could be a very ancient word of Indo-European derivation, which arrived in Sardinia in some way. According to the philologist Max Leopold Wagner , the most important scholar of the Sardinian language at the beginning of the 20th century, there are natural sounds, so primitive as "ei, eja" that can arise anywhere . The mystery is therefore not clarified to date.