By the beginning of the 13th c., the Infinitive and Participle, Imperative, and pres. (having all the present, but no past tenses) meaning to ‘become, come to be’, and thus often serving as a future tense To es-, the two constituting the substantive verb am-was. was, which, though still a distinct and complete vb. Optative), all the other parts being supplied from the stem Present tenses, Indicative and Subjunctive (orig.

(like the oldest extant Teutonic) possessed only the Wis-an to remain, stay, continue to be, OS., OE., OHG. Union of the surviving inflexions of three originally distinct and independent verbs, viz. For a time at the birth of what we today call Modern English, both competing forms were found.Īll this and much more is explained in the OED’s etymology entry for be (verb), an extremely small excerpt of which I enclose below.Īn irregular and defective verb, the full conjugation of which in modern Eng. The are forms like aron, aren, arn, are survived only in the north, but gradually spread south. The German-looking form was replaced by more regular-looking inflections of be itself like ben and even best and beth. The singular am had two competing plurals, one of which earon, aron was cognate to Old Norse eru, and the other was sind as in German.

Another familiar verb with suppletive forms is go and went, where the past of wend replaced that of go. The verb be has a complex history, being a hodgepodge porridge of three entirely different original verbs, with some forms of one lost to suppletion by forms of another.

Borrowed german words in english