Irregular Verbs: sum, esse

[@EthanHackney]

french: can i borrow your homework? latin: yes just change it a little bit so the teacher can’t tell

[@yadielnieves2894]

Latin: The Answer is Marcus est fortis. French: Oh, so Marc est fort!

[@legaleagle46]

@@yadielnieves2894 That's pretty much what happened!

[@masicbemester]

As a speaker of French, I'll just go ahead and say this: French is just Latin, but half of the letters are silent, the sound *r* makes is the german uvular rhotic /ʁ/ and some vowels shifted (/u/ turning into /y/)

[@marcusmiles5449]

@@yadielnieves2894 true det

[@EPSON-HP]

@@masicbemester Well, I cannot debate a French Speaker...

[@latintutorial]

It's better to set the ceiling higher than lower. In the Netherlands, you have 6 years of Latin and 5 of Greek; in American those schools that *do* offer Latin typically have at most 4 years of it, and none of Greek (or at least none officially, since many Latin teachers do Greek with interested students on the side). I'd like to see the classics valued much more across the board (more Latin *and* Greek), but that isn't the case.

[@ShaareiZoharDaas]

Amen

[@RedOctober_]

Tristus):

[@jelle129]

wait, you are dutch?

[@Chairman_LmaoZedong]

I believe Indians can learn Latin faster than euros as it's grammatical rules are similar to sanskrit & pronunciation as well.

[@mckendrick7672]

​​@@Chairman_LmaoZedongExcept most Indians don't actually speak Sanskrit outside of religious contexts anymore. That's like saying Italians would be better at learning Sanskrit than Indians because Latin is closer to Sanskrit than Hindi (I don't know if it actually is, just an example).

[@senayildirim1262]

you're great teacher

[@TheModernHermeticist]

Very clear exposition in this one, well done - you're doing a huge favor to many many people and playing a vital part in keeping the language alive through digitization. Keep up the good work!

[@HugoJanKanAl]

es(u)m es est es(u)mus estis es(u)nt... Makes perfect sense and after seeing it, it's almost difficult to believe I've missed this. Thanks for the insight. I did two years of Latin at 13-14 years old. My teachers never told me this. We just had to cram in tables of vocabulary, verb endings, inflexions and irregularities without much context or attention for the patterns. It's interesting to keep in mind the language as bearing the marks of its own evolution while studying it. That's where you find the logic in the irregularities. Glad to see your channel has so many videos. I will try my best to watch them all. My goal is to be able to read 'De bello Gallico' in the hopefully not too distant future. Thank you. Subscribo!

[@latintutorial]

Gratias! I think that going a little more in depth about why things are the way they are helps understand the language (and of course aids in memory). When you do get to Caesar, do your best to plow through the things that don't quite make sense, and refer to a translation whenever possible. Bonam Fortunam!

[@jdl0624]

Seriously, thank you for your contributions. You teach in such a logical manor. I am learning so much.

[@asapplepie8112]

This is way better than reading everything in my grammarbook, so thanks for these videos! I love your pronunciation btw, at first it seemed a bit odd and I couldn't figure out what sounded strange, but I found out it's the "r". I'm not a native English speaker, so it's a little odd to hear words with an English accent and a rolling "r", but I really like it.

[@yumtoyl2263]

Phonology often helps with this kind of stuff. Great video.

[@latintutorial]

Thanks for the clarification.

[@latintutorial]

That's a great question, and I was never curious about it until you asked. Folk etymology derives aller from ambulo, ambulare, but this is probably wrong. The research that I found suggests that the present forms come from vado, vadere (to go), while the future/conditional, as you suggest, comes from eo, ire.

[@jbdbibbaerman8071]

"Can you imagine a language without the verb 'to be?'" Conlangers: Write that down! Write that down!

[@legaleagle46]

That last segment certainly accounts for the forms of "to be" in the Slavic languages. I immediately recognized, for example, Polish "jestem, jestes, jest, jestemy, jestecie, sa" in the Indo-European paradigm.

[@Eugensson]

"Can you imagine a language without to be". Well Russian, if we are speaking of present tense. Although there ae remnants of proto indo european "to be" in the form of original 3sg "jesti" nowadays used for all pronouns, so it is omitted in 99% of times.

[@hannahdecker7669]

It would be wonderful to have a complement tutorial that went over the conjugation & translation of sum,esse in all the other tenses!

[@SanchazOnCombatArms]

This is really helpful, i am currently taking latin as a course and these videos make the lessons clearer! Thanks.

[@HojoOSanagi]

Aller is one of the few verbs that came from Gaulish. It's a Celtic word (Al-, Il-, El- are common Celtic roots for the verb to go.)

[@latintutorial]

The clue to εἰμί is from the very last part of the video: it's evolution from the proto-Indo-European copula. And it actually looks more like this PIE form than the Latin esse. *h1esmi to εἰμί (eimi) ,*h1essi to εἶ (ei, in Homeric Greek, eis or essi), *h1esti to ἐστί (esti), *h1smes to ἐσμέν (esmen), *h1sth1e to ἐστέ (este), and *h1senthi to εἰσί (eisi, probably the least visually similar form).

[@DarkPrinceOfClowns]

I swear I love you right now! I ALWAYS ask my teachers about these things, and they can NEVER answer. (And half of them reply "That's just how it is. Shut up and do it the completely illogical way for no good reason."" Okay...they mat not say exactly that, but it's what adds up to.) At least I have some rules for the iregular verbs now. You make a great teacher! PLEASE keep making more Latin videos! ^^

[@patsyk1213]

Thanks. Learning the logic behind irregular verbs really helps to memorize them with less annoyance.

[@latintutorial]

Already made. Check my old videos.

[@ShaareiZoharDaas]

Which ones?

[@lirunze5300]

bravo: you saved a linguistics major from memorizing those verb changes mechanically

[@03thinking]

This is the best lesson I've ever watched about this verb and about irregular verbs

[@taylorrawson2042]

Absolutely phenomenal! Answered all of my questions and then demonstrated the evolution of the language in a way that is both fascinating and extremely helpful in understanding the content.

[@latintutorial]

Yes! The kids won't get the reference, and my intent is completely opposite to Iverson's, but it's still a useful phrase. Now, if only I went on for five minutes reinforcing the need for practice...

[@Frahamen]

knowing French helps: sum --> Je suis es --> tu es est --> il est sumus --> nous sommes estis --> vous êtez (the ^ used is usually a remnant of an s in (vulgar) Latin) sunt --> ils sont

[@rommel2640]

Spanish too, because Spanish is evolved Latin. ;-) sum: soy/estoy es: eres/ estás es: es/ está sumus: somos/ estamos estis: sois/ estáis sunt: son/ están

[@prado7391]

Portuguese: sum: sou es: és est: é sumus: somos estis: sois sunt: são

[@НикитаГеографический]

🇷🇴Romanian: Sum: sunt Es: ești Est: este (e) Sumus: suntem Estis: sunteți Sunt: sunt

[@НикитаГеографический]

🇮🇹Italian: Sum: sono Es: sei Est: è Sumus: siamo Estis: siete Sunt: sono

[@НикитаГеографический]

🇱🇻Latvian (I think that the Latvian verb "to be" ("būt") is a little bit similar to the Latin one ("esse"). Sum: esmu Es: esi Est: ir Sumus: esam Estis: esat Sunt: ir

[@latintutorial]

And also note that Latin will use esse with datives of possession with the same meaning as the English word "to have". So "sunt mihi bis septem nymphae" (Aeneid 1.71) is really "I have 14 nymphs", rather than "there are for me 14 nymphs). So your observation about Chinese is interesting in a meta-language sort of way (but I'm sure there's no relationship between the two structures).

[@latintutorial]

Yes yes yes, I wouldn't doubt that. Colloquial use of languages is sometimes completely different from the proper forms. But I think we're both talking about this (the Chinese copula) without too much authority, and because of that, I think we're both right.

[@latintutorial]

I'm no expert on Chinese either, but Wikipedia (my first source for things beyond my sphere of knowledge) says that 是 shì is used as the primary copula in sentences where a noun is the complement (but this is fraught with difficulties, apparently). Most languages do have a form of "to be" (or really, a copula, which our "to be" really is), but it's often not as simple as a direct translation. I encourage you to look at the wikipedia entry for "Copula_(linguistics)" for much more information.

[@la-civetta]

The point about learning and "brute force": You can name it like this, or you can tell students that learning irregular verbs will come with time and use of those very verbs. Which means, that is is important and viable to apply them plenty, forming sentences... So it is, didactically speaking, a matter of "framing": Learning by heart and learning with brute forcing hours over dull tables, lists ,... vs. applying, reading and actually using until understanding and ease finally "just happen".

[@latintutorial]

Hence my "in general". I don't doubt that there are exceptions, especially outside of my limited linguistic knowledge (which, as you suggest, is dominated by Indo-European languages). But, in general, my audience here aren't those who know about Proto-Nostratic (or even Nostratic), but more those who are learning more about sum. Anyway, thanks for the additional info and setting the record straight.

[@latintutorial]

Yes, and I think you're lucky to have the Dutch school system rather than the American one, which undervalues Latin and Greek not at all.

[@legaleagle46]

This explains why "sum" developed the way it did in the Romance languages. I can see the conjugation of "sum" in the present tense of every Romance descendant: Spanish and Portuguese "ser," French "être," Italian "essere," and Romanian "a fi" (which also borrowed heavily from Latin "fio").

[@aspektx]

Thank you for this. While I am all for memorization, understanding adds to memory and can provide broader use skills.

[@Zolgev55Languages]

Thanks for the video, it is very useful. When are you making videos about regular latin verbs conjugation ?

[@sewind6613]

Brilliant, and eye-opening. Great video. Thanks.

[@latintutorial]

No. Latin is an Italic language, while Etruscan is something completely different (likely not even Indo-European).

[@N00bcrunch3r]

Don't worry! I had nothing better to do with my summer, so I spent it studying Latin and linguistics. I hope I am not getting too obsessive.

[@montyvlc1634]

"Can you imagine a language without 'to be'?" Try to learn russian... :D Great videos, keep it up :)

[@montyvlc1634]

Not sure. I'm learning russian in my university and sentencces like "my name is" have no verb. In russian it would be "menya zovut" = "my name". But I don't know the past tense :D

[@annap9756]

Actually, Old Russian language used to have "to be", but it was lost historically for the present tense. Check out "бꙑти" in Wiktionary. Russian had changed quite a bit since then, for examples letters like ѫ or ѣ aren't used anymore, and there are few more tenses for past and future in Old Russian compared to what we have today. If you look closer at those old tenses and how they were formed, you can understand why "to be" is still used and necessary in the future or past tense. This topic is really interesting and complex, so if you want to dive deeper into it, I'll be happy to tell in detail about the history of the language, the difference between the language of the people and the official language of the church, what happened to the letters and the grammar over the centuries etc. By the way, "menya zovut" directly means "they call me" without the word "they", because, like in Latin, the conjugation of the verb "zvat'" - "zovut" indicates 3rd person plural.

[@pablodescamisado]

"menya zovut" stands for "me (they) call" so there shouldn't be any "to be", even hidden one :-) so: to be is hidden only in the present tense.

[@林靈-o8p]

Chinese as well

[@lirunze5300]

right, no visually overt "to be" found in Chinese either

[@GosseMinnema]

Yes, I noticed... I responded before I saw that part... But I agree, Greek looks more like PIE than Latin does. My Latin/Greek teacher often says this is why Greek is more interesting than Latin... But anyway, great video! And I love your video on the history of Latin/IE, too!

[@TaunWe519]

Latin never died. It just evolved.

[@jackdarby2168]

You have excellent grasp over this subject

[@MarcHaysHaus]

Thank you for the videos you have published here on KZbin. I enjoy your manner as much as your knowledge. Can you recommend a favorite book about the history of Latin? Can you tell me the resource where you learned this particular history of "sum esse"? Thanks again.

[@latintutorial]

+Marc Hays Thanks, Marc. A general Roman history book can be hard to find, because there's just so much to fit into one volume. I do like Christopher Mackay's "Ancient Rome: A Military and Political History". It's very informative, and gets much of the big brush strokes of the history, while going into some detail. He's a good, academic writer, so for mature minds, he's appealing. (But I wouldn't ask my own high school students to read it, unless they were very advanced) For this sum, esse, I relied upon a couple of standard grammars, Allen and Greenough, Hale and Buck, along with a couple of papers, Latin Sum/Oscan Sum, Sim, esum (Joseph and Wallace, 1987) and Where Does Latin Sum Come from? (Nyman, 1977).

[@MarcHaysHaus]

Great! Thanks for the info and the speedy response. Keep up the good work!

[@aarondelgado3421]

I would recommend this book titled "A Natural History of Latin" by Tore Janson.

[@beatrixzhou]

thank you so much for these videos ... i think they are really good because they not only talk about grammar but also mentions a lot of intuitive things ... could you please make more of them !! and i would really like to follow sth like, a text and you explain and we follow you and understand and try to memorize ...

[@GosseMinnema]

Thanks for your reaction! As I said, my knowledge of Chinese is very limited, but a few years ago I had a few Chinese lessons at school, and I'm always certain 我 荷兰人 (wo + he-lan + ren, I + Holland/Dutch + Person) means "I'm Dutch" or "I'm a Dutch person" , and as you can see, no copula is used to connect the two nouns. But than again, my knowledge is very limited, and probably things are much more complicated. But anyway it shows that, as you pointed out, "to be" can't always be translated.

[@guriausa]

This is fantastic. Thank you for the hard work you do on these videos.

[@armankamal3879]

Yes his films are so fantastic

[@pauleugenio5914]

Languages do not lose complexity with time (5:56). The sounds of words erode and old edifices are forgotten, but new forms are constantly being constructed out of the need for expressiveness and an abundance of metaphor. We may lose accusative "whom" but gain future-marking "gonna", for example. And the nuance of grammar by word order is complex. (I recommend Guy Deutscher's, Unfolding of Language.)

[@tarquinius2184]

I love how similar some of these words are in my language. (Latvian) Es esmu - ego sum Tu esi - Tu es

[@htfcm]

0:41mmediately thought about Allan Iverson : )

[@lemonfresh1135]

Does anyone know why Rhotacization has happened in Latin? I can't seem to find out why online.

[@latintutorial]

Yes, that's one way to put it. Another would be to substitue "hard" for "interesting", but that's bad public relations!

[@modigbeowulf5482]

Always of great help.

[@metaphox]

best latin course i've ever taken. thanks a lot.

[@GosseMinnema]

Awesome video... Although I'am not really scared of "esse" anymore, but it's great to know why esse is the way it is. Now I'm even more curious how this works in Greek... (eimi, einai).

[@calicoixal]

Thank you. Oh, thank you so much. You blew my mind, and maybe I'll blow my Latin teacher's mind.

[@charliebennett3622]

THANKS!!! I have a Latin test tomorrow

[@latintutorial]

I don't understand what you're talking about in the context of the discussion I was having with Gosse. And no, you wouldn't necessarily have come across some of the minutiae of Latin grammar, since you'd probably be reading literature after the first couple of years, not learning grammar.

[@barcalonga]

great, but can you do tis same type of video with the subjunctive ?

[@radostl5253]

It is an interesting theory that you are presenting. Do you have any sources where I can read more about it?

[@latintutorial]

Any good grammar guide will have this info.

[@TheAustralianTomato]

I don't actually learn latin, but regardless I find this (especially this episode) interesting, I was curious as to know from which latin verb would the french verb aller derive? i can see that the future/conditional stem of ir- comes from the latin ir, but the aller? I've no clue.

[@hansbrackhaus8017]

Knowing German has made some things easier. Quem? Wem? Est. Ist. Sunt. Sind. To name a few.

[@latintutorial]

Nor would I consider Calculus and other higher maths to be simple, so does that make them less beautiful? Launching a satellite is definitely not simple, nor is constructing a bridge, building a house, or coming up with a decimal numbering system or consonantal-vowelic alphabet. Our number system may seem simple to you because it's what you've learned, but the creation of it was not simple (or it would have been done a long time ago.

[@ariefbudiman1544]

imagine a language without 'to be'? yes I can, my language seldom use it.. it exists,we just get used of not using it in casual speech, and context is everything anyway, thx for the clear explanation

[@legaleagle46]

True. Russian doesn't use "to be" in the present tense, for example, and Hungarian also tends to omit it in certain contexts.

[@calicoixal]

Could you do more videos about how the words make sense in irregularity, or just why some words are different even though they are the same principal part? Like how an 's' is used for 3rd conjugation perfect, I think (I'm new to Latin), but a 'v' is used for 1st conjugation? I hope you understood my question. Thanks.

[@tomislav13]

There is also verb sedeo, sedere and some Romance languages have some forms of that verb as a copula. So, sum, esse, fui; sedeo, sedere and sto, stare as copula verbs in modern Romance languages (I am mostly interested in Italian and Spanish, but comparative analysis including La Spezia-Rimini line would be a great benefit).

[@tomislav13]

Can You make a video about (Vulgar) Latin verbs sum, esse, fui and sto, steti, statum and their development in Proto-Romance, so in modern Romance languages like Italian they are kind of "merged" to form copula (i.e. sono per 1 person sg present indicative, stato/a/i/e for past participle), Spanish kept both verbs (ser and estar).

[@roben2791]

even Italian has two verbs . Io sono or Io sto as in come stai ?

[@jesseandersen4055]

They say a language becomes more simple over time. How did they get so “complex” to begin with though. Are we saying that language started in its most complex form, and has been breaking down ever since, cause that seems ridiculous. Also, in some ways modern English is far more complex than old English. Sure we don’t really have cases, but the old English cases were breaking down anyway. So now words don’t change as often, but we arrange them in many different ways that can subtly change meaning, whereas in old English word order didn’t matter as much, and didn’t change meaning as much. We have many different tenses using a combination of verbs that didn’t exist before. I don’t think language really gets more “simple” over time, complexity just moves from one area to another.

[@tomislav13]

Superb video. As all LT videos are.

[@marquisewilliams3904]

Question. Could you structure a sentence with the irregular verb at the end:: "Marcus fortis est." I've seen a couple of textbooks that did this.

[@latintutorial]

Yes. Word order like this is somewhat fluid.

[@marquisewilliams3904]

@@latintutorial Holy crap thanks for the quick reply :0

[@JJFlashBang]

Marquise Williams You’ll learn quickly too, when reading through Latin literature, that placing the verb at the end of the sentence or similarly in an SOV formation is quite common.

[@pwinn1177]

I got midterms, pray for a youngin

[@Arahansannihilation]

6:40 It's the same as in Sanskrit and Pali: Asmi is I"am", Asti he/she"is" and Santi they"are". I wouldn't have been able to make this connection. Thanks, now I'm certain they came from the same source albeit Latin is much easier with less cases and most people can read from the start.

[@SebastianLeToux]

The language doesn't matter, it the way that one learns the language(s) that one is exposed to. I'm sure Romans found Latin quite simple, the same way one thinks of English as simple.

[@GosseMinnema]

I agree on that... But I thought you meant Greek wasn't undervalued at all in the US, instead of not being there at all... Anyway Latin seems to be (much) more important in both systems, and I guess that's the case in other school systems as well. And in the Netherlands you see, at least on my own school, that most students prefer Latin somehow - when given the choice to continue learning Greek, or Latin, or both, most choose Latin. Which I think is not a good thing.

[@GosseMinnema]

I think it's the opposite thing in The Netherlands: our system undervalues Greek a bit: you can study it for a maximum of 5 years (on a "gymnasium" grammar school that is; you can of course extend this by going to college), where Latin is up to 6 yrs. But why do you think I'm lucky? Since you said you thought Greek was harder, wouldn't it be logical prioritize Greek rather than Latin?

[@latintutorial]

I think the Romans and Greeks would argue that their languages aren't complex for their own sake. They are what they are and the "complexity" is mostly because of its use in formal, aristocratic literature. Would you also dismiss English because Shakespearean English is too complex for you? Roman numerals don't have any influence on Latin itself and are a separate discussion. Plus, I don't think many ESL learners would agree with you that English is simple.

[@grxiv5608]

As an ESL learner, it's pretty easy if you learn English in school, especially if the school enforces English. My school does that and most students are an EFL in all but name. One of my friend is even more British than he is of his country

[@R.F.9847]

I had always thought this was a result of suppletion. I hadn't considered that it was just good old-fashioned phonotactics at work. Broken down like this, it's really not as irregular as it seems!

[@broytingaravsol]

got the piece, thanks

[@EvanC0912]

There are a few languages without formal copula ("to be"). At least my native language doesn't have any copulas. Indonesian does not have direct translation for "to be". There is one basic word, "adalah", which often stands for "to be" in translations, but it is a particle, not copula. For instance: I am a doctor. = Saya dokter. (lit. I doctor) You are happy. = Kamu senang (lit. you happy) It is possible to say "Saya adalah dokter." but "Kamu adalah senang." is just completely wrong.

[@joseantoniobenlopez3240]

Enhorabuena por el vídeo.

[@TheAustralianTomato]

I've read that it may be of celtic origin, being borrowed from a Gaulish verb *aliu meaning to go, but still, interesting none the less.

[@N00bcrunch3r]

I am merely trying to imagine what one could possibly do in a Latin 6 class, especially if one is reading Latin literature by Latin 2 or 3.

[@sanderson2838]

thank you, great video

[@dtouey]

Nice Iverson reference.

[@erentoraman2663]

5:47 well, Turkish doesn't. You can use a suffix, but it doesn't exactly mean "to be" and is also completely regular (if you take vowel harmony and softening/hardening of consonants to mind)

[@vladimirvalenwood3334]

How can I get a Latin textbook?

[@islam4life94]

Awesome!

[@Dawn_Of_Justice]

Excellent.

[@Annie.brandauer]

Oh thank god i found your videos! Ive got a final today

[@GosseMinnema]

I guess it is... But personally, I'm not sure if Greek is harder than Latin. I do think Greek is grammatically more complex (since you have things like the optative mode or the aorist which Latin doesn't have), but somehow I think Greek is easier - and most people I know who are learning both Greek and Latin agree. But maybe this has something to do with the Dutch school system and not with the languages themselfs.... But that's another discussion :-)

[@legaleagle46]

Only if you're talking about Ancient or Koine Greek. Modern Greek only has the indicative, the subjunctive, and the imperative -- the optative was merged with the subjunctive -- and active and passive voice (the middle was merged with the passive). Modern Greek also did away with the dual number and reduced its cases to just nominative, genitive, and accusative (the dative has been replaced by the genitive and is rarely used except in a few fixed expressions that date back to antiquity).

[@GosseMinnema]

Are there really no languages without the verd "to be"? I believe there are: some non-Indo-European languages such as Chinese don't have this verb. In Chinese, when you want to say something like "I am English", you say (by the way, correct me if I'm wrong, I'm not an expert) "I English". In other cases, such as "there is a father", the verb "to have" is used.

[@icegoddess1308]

How would you say "I am hidden" in latin? Ego occulta sum? Ego occultus sum?

[@latintutorial]

You probably wouldn't use sum, esse, but instead the passive form of a verb meaning "to hide", or even an active form with a reflexive object ("I hide myself"). Go with "me celo" or "me occulo", "celor" or "occulor".

[@Kurz-wu1vs]

As a polish speaker I memorise such things by comparison to my own language or local dialects and similar languages. It's psychological trick to imagine that foreing language is a very distant dialect of my own indoeuropean language. So: ja jestEM, ty jestEŚ, on/ona/ono jest, my jesteŚMY, wy jesteŚCIE, oni SĄ ("ą" is nasal "o" so similarity to latin "sunt" is striking, even more in some countryside dialects where it sounds like "su(m)" for "they are" where by brackets I marked nasalisation of "u"). Or I can compare it to czech (more or less) like that: jsem, jsi, je, jsme, jste, jsou.

[@Kurz-wu1vs]

And conjugation of "to love" in polish: kocham, kochasz, kocha, kochamy, kochacie, kochają. It worth also to mention that in russian -t is added in 3 singular person, like in latin, (in 3 plural too but it's less meaningful in my opinion for memorisaition by comparison, than denasalised "u" before "t").

[@N00bcrunch3r]

and some of them have evolved various moods, some have up to 16 different moods. 5:56 Chinese has been completely analytic for its entire history. Proto-Nostratic was also probably analytic. 5:47 Yes! "Zero Copula" languages.

[@silentmajority9101]

This is so similar to spanish, the conjugations

[@kristinacowan1470]

is the image on 1:28 the conjugation?

[@kelvin2736]

Thank you!

[@joliettraveler]

Did latin evolve from Etruscan?

[@matthewku4563]

WOW!!! I actually understand why sum is like that!!! This is amazing!!! :)) I really like your approach to learning irregular verbs (or irregular words in general). It has proven to be really effective in my learning. But at 0:40 practise with an s is better...? Idk, I mean since we're on the page of grammar anyways...

[@TimeTravelingAltair1337]

why does sum, esse in the imperfect tense have the infix -ra- instead of -ba-?

[@nephuraito]

the imperfect suffix is long a, the R of eram is the rothacized S. es-a:-m > er-a:-m. So the diference is a: vs ba:, the -a: suffix es older, the -ba: is newer because a: is already used for subjunctives. ba: has the same root of the perfect fui: and english "be", imperfects in -ba: are periphrastic in origin. Maybe ama:ns ba;m > ama:bam

[@TheLonelyNihilego]

Thanks for this

[@elisap6081]

I also love latin and linguistic lol