Hello,

Can anyone suggest where I might find the history behind the irregular verb "be"? I wanted to find out how the eight modern forms of "be" (is, am, were, was, are, be, being, been) came about. Are there any books or websites that discuss the etymology behind this verb?

Thank you in advance.

I can just say that be/been resembles German ich bin (I am), Dutch ik ben (I am); is resembles German ist and Dutch is; are resembles Swedish är and Danish er; was resembles Dutch was and German war; and are resembles Swedish/Danish var.  This could well have been the result of two, three verbs in the past welding into one, as happened to Portuguese/Spanish ir, a combination of Latin ire, vadere and esse.

Brazilian dude

Hi,
[quote author=Harmless_Drudge link=board=etymology;num=1142108525;start=0#0 date=03/11/06 at 15:22:05]Hello,
Can anyone suggest where I might find the history behind the irregular verb "be"?

Here you can find some information.

Frank

[quote author=Brazilian_dude link=board=etymology;num=1142108525;start=0#1 date=03/11/06 at 16:45:36]and are resembles Swedish/Danish var.

For once, I have to disagree with BD.  var corresponds to was.

This could well have been the result of two, three verbs in the past welding into one

Agreed! Trying to recapitulate what I learned forty years ago, many of our present varieties may be traced to a PIE set for the root *H[sub]1[/sub]es- giving (1-3 person sing; plur) *esmi, *es(s)i, *esti; *sme/os, *s-the, *s-e/onti.

Be etc. seem to have emerged from a *bheu, meaning ‘to be, exist, grow’.

The was/var group, including German war; gewesen, might relate to a *wes-, Sanskrit vasati ‘remain, live’ etc. This is a prime example of a Gmc. -s- sometimes being -z-, developing into -r-.

Not going into every detail, I think I’ve covered most of the forms mentioned in the OP, using 3 roots.

[quote author=anders link=board=etymology;num=1142108525;start=0#3 date=03/11/06 at 18:23:56]
For once, I have to disagree with BD.  var corresponds to was.

Yep, rhotacism (r-s) is the keyword here.

F

For once, I have to disagree with BD.  var corresponds to was.

I disagree with myself as well!  :o Did I write that nonsense?  ??? It must have been lapsus digitorum fessorum.  :-[

Brazilian dude

Based on your replies, I realized this project of mine is going to take a great deal of research. I had no idea "be" was formed by three distinct verbs:

S-root = eom, eart, is, sindon
B-root = beo, bist, bið, beoð
W-root = wesan, wæs, wæron.

I imagine with enough research, I can create a detailed mind map of "be’s" morphological history.

I appreciate your past and future replies.

Re: The verb ‘to be’.

It is irregular in almost every language of the world. This in turn indicates  that there are certain universals which govern all languages. It also strengthens the case for a common origin of all human languages.  

[quote author=brian_costello link=board=etymology;num=1142108525;start=0#7 date=03/16/06 at 02:51:57]Re: The verb ‘to be’.

It is irregular in almost every language of the world. This in turn indicates  that there are certain universals which govern all languages. It also strengthens the case for a common origin of all human languages.  

You could probably also say that the fact that there is a verb that’s irregular in most languages indicates that there are no universals.

It just so happened that I yesterday bought a book, "Univerals of language", reporting from a conference where giants like Jacobson, Ullman, Weinreich, and Mr. Universals himself, Greenberg, participated. So far, I’m not impressed. Languages tend to use vowels and consonants. But E. Pulleyblank argues that Chinese has just consonants and glides, i.e. no vowels at all, and he is very respected in at least other branches of Chinese lingustics. Other "universals" are more like tendencies and statistic majorities than arguments for a closer tie between all languages.

Obviously, I don’t think it’s necessary to believe that all languages are related. I can easily imagine a scenario in which people were scattered from an African origin, developed bodily at comparable speeds, and when the organs of speech were sufficiently useful, independently developed languages in more than one part of the world.

That would make it no wonder that there are huge differences like between Hawaiian and its high percentage of vowels on one hand, and then Sanskrit approaching a 50/50, and further most Caucasian and some African languages with a bewildering variety of consonants.

[quote author=brian_costello link=board=etymology;num=1142108525;start=0#7 date=03/16/06 at 02:51:57]Re: The verb ‘to be’.

It also strengthens the case for a common origin of all human languages.  

Please tell me why it’s important that all languages are related.  
I believe all people are related as in we all share DNA that has similarity, so wouldn’t it follow that our languages have something in common?

~N~

Thus either choice between PIE bheu- GK pp.146-148 and AHD bheu’- "to be, grow" will indeed discover its Hellenic cognate very often represented with purely conjectural [bh] aspirate quite evident in this surd [ph] reflex, and so primordial [eu] diphthong too in simple [u: or u] grade: hence such PDLP luminaries as AG indicative phuo "beget" and its 2nd aorist ephu "grew or was" yet with syllabic augment, while primary derivatives of our newly consummate [phu] root may also include other PDLP gems, such as phule "tribe" phulon "race" phuton "plant" phusis "nature" and, by the same token, at least one secondary formation can still be clearly seen in Hellenistic ta meta ta physika biblia no less rendered today by Engl. compound "Metaphysics" the subsequent collation to Aristotle’s Physics—a philosphical treatise composed in 4.cent BC.  Now to swing this merry discourse on through Italic languages & phonology, where said protogeneous [bh] aspirate v. supra will henceforth divide in two separate phonemes and, on the one hand, duly transform into voiceless [f] spirant or fricative on account of being initial, just as heteroclitic CL stem fi in PDLP indicative fio "become" and so as congenial fu in perfect indic. fui "have been" and its future participle futurus "about to be" or the changeling fo stem in fut. infinitive fore simply "to be" should all demonstrate well enough together; suffix forms, on the other hand, could even help to distinguish the far more subtle permutation of aspirated [bh] firstling into a medial isotope, results however best gotten with such clear evidence as rather ordinary b[tt][sup]e[/sup][/tt]/[tt]o[/tt] (n.b. here normal IE gradation between characteristic e and o) found in this PDLP trey of probus "true" acerbus "bitter" and chiefly poetic superbi "gods above" or else with fourth declension bu in tribus "tribe" also primary b(i) in plebs, bium "commons" and so likewise radical ber more typically rhotic in pubes, eris "grown up" or with instrumental bulum (primary bu + secondary l[tt][sup]e[/sup][/tt]/[tt]o[/tt]) in pabulum "fodder" and its feminine bula (again bu + sec. la) in fabula "myth" or, last of all, with passive suf. bil(i) (very likely bu once more plus reciprocal apocope of the stem vowel yet before simple il(i) here) in nobilis "known" and gerundive bund[tt][sup]e[/sup][/tt]/[tt]o[/tt] (still again bu + verbal nd[tt][sup]e[/sup][/tt]/[tt]o[/tt]) in moribundus "dying"—not to mention syncretic case endings, such as dative-ablative (i)bus in 3rd decl. plural gentibus "nations ergo world" and so cardinal adjective duobus "two" and, furthermore, as dat-abl. bis in the highly recognizable pronoun nobis "us, but also me" evenso then cf. ex musis lost abl. termination phi(n) here (v. iterum Hellenic [phu] root supra) in HG vestige nauphin "ships" ever with prepositional bearing that would otherwise call for a genitive object e.g. 14.498 in Homer’s Odyssey:

I have seen this post and all of them have given their opinions. I would like to recommend and online resource which helps to increase vocabulary and it also contains resources for English Language Usage. 

The noun “be” refers to a honey-gatherer that has just left its derriere painfully implanted in your flesh.

Old English: an irregular verb whose full conjugation derives from several originally distinct verbs.

http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/bexx?view=uk

Word History
 
The prehistoric Germanic word from which be is derived, is also the ancestor of English boor, booth, build, husband, and neighbor, and perhaps also of bylaw.

http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/features/dictionary/DictionaryResults.aspx?refid=1861589419

Originated before 900 from Middle English been < Old English beon, from beo + -n, infinitive suffix. Irregular forms inherited from the Old English compound verb bēon-wesan.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/be

Origin:
bef. 900; ME been, OE bēon (bēo- (akin to OFris, OHG bim, G bin, OS bium, biom (I) am, OE, OHG, OS būan, ON būa reside, L fuī (I) have been, Gk phy- grow, become, OIr boí (he) was, Skt bhávati (he) becomes, is, Lith búti to be, OCS byti, Pers būd was)) + -n inf.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=be&r=66

O.E. beon, beom, bion “be, exist, come to be, become,” from P.Gmc. *beo-, *beu-. Roger Lass (“Old English”) describes the verb as “a collection of semantically related paradigm fragments,” while Weekley calls it “an accidental conglomeration from the different Old English dial[ect]s.” It is the most irregular verb in Mod.E. and the most common. Collective in all Gmc. languages, it has eight different forms in Mod.E.: BE (infinitive, subjunctive, imperative), AM (present 1st person singular), ARE (present 2nd person singular and all plural), IS (present 3rd person singular), WAS (past 1st and 3rd persons singular), WERE (past 2nd person singular, all plural; subjunctive), BEING (progressive & present participle; gerund), BEEN (perfect participle). The modern verb represents the merger of two once-distinct verbs, the “b-root” represented by be and the am/was verb, which was itself a conglomerate. The “b-root” is from PIE base *bheu-, *bhu- “grow, come into being, become,” and in addition to Eng. it yielded Ger. present first and second person sing. (bin, bist, from O.H.G. bim “I am,” bist “thou art”), L. perf. tenses of esse (fui “I was,” etc.), O.C.S. byti “be,” Gk. phu- “become,” O.Ir. bi’u “I am,” Lith. bu’ti “to be,” Rus. byt’ “to be,” etc. It is also behind Skt. bhavah “becoming,” bhavati “becomes, happens,” bhumih “earth, world.”

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=be

You can try these sites:

http://www.verbalsuccess.com/email_course/

Free vocabulary course

http://encarta.englishtown.com/Sp/portal.aspx?art1=149-vocab&etag=E01624

Ten tips to build English vocabulary

http://vocabulary-vocabulary.com/

FREE Vocabulary Course by E-mail

http://www.usingenglish.com/reference/idioms/country/british+english.html

Idioms

Pardon my worn-out cliché but it’s a relatively meager beginning!

Maybe this is discussed elsewhere on the forum; I haven’t checked yet, but there are dialects/variations of English which still use older forms of ‘Be’ such as “he be’s”, “I be” etc.  Here in Ireland there is a well known (by linguists) construction “Do be” which seems to hark back to older forms of English and also perhaps a tendency toward Gaelic use of “Bionn” which is the equivalent of English “be”.  Still in use are expressions such as “I do be there every Wednesday” with the continuous sense which lacks in the Standard English “I’m there/I go there every Wednesday”.

Anyone have any personal anecdotes of other such usage of “Be”?