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He/She/It ... Is
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He/She/It ... Is

Is there something special about the third person singular that would make it a more likely candidate to be borrowed?

John McWhorter's avatar
John McWhorter
Apr 13, 2023
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Lexicon Valley from Booksmart Studios
Lexicon Valley from Booksmart Studios
He/She/It ... Is
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Tourists gather in front of St. Paul’s Cathedral in the fortified city of Mdina, Malta.

This week, Alexandre Arbitol tells us:

I’ve been learning Albanian and noticed an unusual irregular form for he/she is. In Albanian, “I am” is “unë jam,” but “he is” is “ai është.” I suspect it is borrowed from the Latin “est” from when the Romans conquered Ilyria (even though, as I understand, Albanian is in its own linguistic family within proto-Indo-European). But, I was wondering if there is something special about the third person singular that would make it a more likely candidate to be borrowed? For example, is it common in creoles for “is” to be different than the rest of the “to be” verb conjugation (if there even are different forms)?

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