The use of litotes is common in English, Russian, German, Yiddish, Dutch, Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, Ukrainian, Polish, Chinese, French, Czech and Slovak, and is prevalent in some other languages and dialects. It is a feature of Old English poetry and of the Icelandic sagas and is a means of much stoical restraint.
This is
very, veryquite similar to the British use of “quite” to mean “extremely”.Fun fact: that has a name! It’s called Litotes
So not ALL languages? TIL