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Origin of "there is/are" | ||
Tags: Meaning of words | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| Greendog Triglot Groupie United States Joined 5270 days ago 47 posts - 52 votes  Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: German | Message 1 of 15 07 October 2011 at 12:46am | IP Logged | ||
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Today in English class in preparation for our reading of the Canterbury Tales our
teacher left us a reading on Old English vs Middle English since we had a substitute. One of the exercises on the sheet was to read a short poem and underline any words from the Middle English period. The poem started with the words "there were", and this made me think: is "there is/are" a Germanic or Romance expression? In German we say "es gibt", which literally translates to "it gives/exists", but in French they say "il y a" which literally translates to "it there has". The Nordic languages all have (if I remember correctly) a variation on "det er" (it is). I can't tell whether the expression "there is/are" is Latinate or Germanic because while the French has the implication of a specific location which the Germanic languages lack, the Germanic languages use a verb that can mean "to be", which French does not do. Does anyone know where the expression comes from? Is it a mix of the two? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5766 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 2 of 15 07 October 2011 at 10:57am | IP Logged | ||
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In German, there's also a 'da ist/sind', but it is kind of colloquial and refers to actual situations and not metaphysical states.
"Da ist Wurst im Kühlschrank, kannste (kannst du) dir nehmen." (I'm not sure which in parts of Germany this is acceptable and where it may not be, but I myself wouldn't say 'es gibt' in this particular sentence, and it feels like visiting my family near Kassel.) But it is certainly possible to say the same sentence with 'es gibt' and you can't say anything like 'Es gibt nur einen Propheten' (=metaphysical) or 'Heute gibt es Zeugnisse' (=bekommen wir) with that construction. As far as I remember, 'det' also has a deictic value, just as German articles do in certain usages. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| jdmoncada Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5034 days ago 470 posts - 741 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Finnish Studies: Russian, Japanese | Message 3 of 15 07 October 2011 at 3:14pm | IP Logged | ||
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I like "hay" from Spanish. The one word means both "there is" and "there are."
In Japanese there are the two versions which mean "there exists" (one for animate objects, and a different one for inanimate). Not the same exactly, but often serves the same purpose. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4828 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 4 of 15 07 October 2011 at 10:35pm | IP Logged | ||
Thanks. This is useful for me. I had not realised that there was a qualitative difference between "es gibt" and "es ist" (or "es sind"). EDIT: Oops: I didn't read your posting properly. I thought you gave "es ist" and "da ist" as equivalent alternatives, but on closer re-reading, you didn't mention "es ist" at all. hmm.... Edited by montmorency on 07 October 2011 at 10:42pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5766 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 5 of 15 07 October 2011 at 11:19pm | IP Logged | ||
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'Es ist ...' maps pretty closely to 'it is ...', as a full verb it's used in sentences of the 'a = b' pattern. 'Es gibt' doesn't have any deictic value by itself, if you want to indicate a location you have to add an adverbial of place.
'Da ist' isn't an alternative for all usages of 'es gibt', it works only for the very specific situation that you want to point to something that you know exists. It's pretty much a 'da' sentence that has as main verb 'sein' and no other verb, and not a 'da sein + third person' sentence. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| yenome Hexaglot Newbie United States Joined 5374 days ago 37 posts - 45 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, French, Persian Studies: Thai, Arabic (Iraqi), Mandarin | Message 6 of 15 15 October 2011 at 7:48am | IP Logged | ||
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Spanish hay < habet, "it has," so pretty close to German es gibt.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| PaulLambeth Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5373 days ago 244 posts - 315 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Icelandic, Hindi, Irish | Message 7 of 15 28 October 2011 at 2:25am | IP Logged | ||
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You're right about the Nordic languages. It's like that in Norwegian (det er). In Icelandic the phrase is 'það er', which also translates to both 'it is' and 'there is', depending on the context. 'Er það bók hérna?' - is there a book here? 'Er það bók?' - is it a book? 'Er það til bók?' - does a book exist? You can also say 'það voru' - there were.
'It is' and 'there is' seem to be tied in a lot of languages. Maybe that's the root, and having 'there' is a deviation? I've no clue. I'd be intrigued to find out. The word 'það' in its declensions gets around a lot anyway in Icelandic: þess vegna (therefore - literally 'because of it', reversed); af því að (because - 'of it that'); vegna þess að (also because - 'because of it that'). I don't know if the same happens in other Scandinavian languages. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6582 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 8 of 15 28 October 2011 at 7:13am | IP Logged | ||
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No no no, "det är" is not the (at least Swedish) equivalent of "there is". That would be "det finns", which translates literally as "it is found". "to exist" is "att finnas" in Swedish (or "att existera", but that's a loan), which is really the passive form of "att finna", meaning "to find".
I'd be very interested in the answer to the thread's original question, too. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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