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No hay ni gallinas ni cerdos aquí.

No hay ni gallinas ni cerdos aquí.
There are neither hens nor pigs here.
From Lesson 196:Neither and nor (ni... ni)·Spanish (Latin America)

Breakdown of No hay ni gallinas ni cerdos aquí.

aquí
here
ni
nor / not even
el cerdo
the pork
la gallina
the hen

Questions & Answers about No hay ni gallinas ni cerdos aquí.

Why is there a no at the beginning if ni... ni already means "neither... nor"?
In Spanish, if negative words like ni... ni come after the verb (hay), you must put a no before the verb. It is a double negative, which is required in Spanish grammar! If you moved the animals before the verb, you would drop the no: Ni gallinas ni cerdos hay aquí.
Why isn't it ni las gallinas ni los cerdos?
When using ni... ni with plural nouns in a general sense, we usually drop the definite articles (las and los). You would only use the articles if you were talking about specific animals, like "neither the hens nor the pigs that we saw yesterday".
Could I use tampoco instead of the second ni here?
No, because ni... ni is a matched pair that works exactly like "neither... nor" in English to list options. Tampoco means "neither" in the sense of "not either" (as in, "I don't have hens, and I don't have pigs tampoco"). For linking nouns in a negative list in this way, always use ni... ni.
Since we are talking about plural animals, shouldn't the verb hay change to a plural form?
No, hay (meaning "there is" or "there are") is an impersonal verb. In standard Spanish, it never changes to a plural form, even when you are listing multiple plural nouns like gallinas and cerdos.

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