何も言うでない ! meaning and origin I have found this sentence in Odin Sphere. I guess it's kind of old fashion for a strong interdiction. I first thought it came from the negative form of but it doesn't seem to be replaceable by . Does anyone know the origin of this form?

Yes, is an old-fashioned and pompous way of saying "Don't do !".

In modern Japanese, this is a kind of (stereotyped role words) which is typically used by nobles and/or old people in manga and samurai dramas. This seems to have been used a lot more 100 years ago or so, because I can find many similar expressions (eg. , , ) in .

As for the etymology, unfortunately I could not find a good article which explains this. One answer in this chiebukuro question says:

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So it seems to have originated from somewhere in the Kansai region in the Edo period.

In this question (note 1) two people say it's , but I don't know whether real samurai in the Edo period actually spoke in this way.

Note 1: expired link removed, 02/02/2022