the Wheel and Dating PIE or NW-IE

[Eduard Selleslagh]

----- Original Message -----
From: "petegray" <petegray at btinternet.com>
Sent: Tuesday, March 28, 2000 10:16 PM

> [On English as `more archaic' than German, alleged to be a "fair statement"]

[snip]

>> 6) The preservation of 1st sg am in English as opposed to its loss in
>> German.

> English has 1st sg "be" or even (I believe) "bin" in non-standard dialects.
> What does non-standard German have?

[snip]
> Peter

[Ed]

I don't know about non-standard German dialects having anything else than 'Ich
bin', but I can inform you about Dutch, closely related to both English and
German:

Standard: ik ben, jij bent (in Flanders, and archaic, often :gij zijt, actually
a plural), hij/zij is; pl.: wij zijn, jullie zijn (Fl. and arch. often: gij
zijt), zij zijn. In Antwerp and other Brabant dialects: 1st sg. ik zijn
(actually a plural), and in various Holland-Dutch dialects 1st/2nd/3rd pl.
wij/jullie/zij benne(n) (actually a 'fabricated' plural of 'ben').

As you can see, a lot of permutations among the three (actualy two original
ones) roots 'is'/'zijn'/'be'. Like in all Germanic, and IE in general.

Ed. Selleslagh.