Note the common components:
"To Be"
spanish: ser- soy, eres, es, somos, sois, son
french: être- suis, es, est, sommes, êtes, sont
latin: esse - sum, es, est, sumus, estis, sunt
Not only is french closer, but it also has only one verb "to be" like latin. Spanish also has estar: estoy, estás, está, estamos, estáis, están.
Notice, that the irregularity was already in the Latin before ever getting to the "modern" tongues. I don't know about such things, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was a merging of two verbs to form esse. I don't notice the vowel shift. "Cogito ergo sum" is an example of latin verbs ending in 'O'. But that is neither the vowel sound in the latin (u) or french (ui) or spanish (oy). In fact, spanish still has many 'O' sounds just like latin (pensar->pienso), whereas as far as my french learning has progressed, there are few left (penser -> pense). Yes, a lot of shoe verbs took the 'oy' sound, but I don't think it's indicative of the language as a whole. |
