A linguistic question (looking mainly at you thnidu, but there are other folks who might know, too)

[xiphias]

Elsejournal, a couple days ago, someone wrote a post which quoted Bishop John Shelby Spong: "The verb 'to be' is the key verb in every human language. We use it to describe that which is of our very essence."

The post was, and is, a lovely meditation on the nature of coming out, and the reactions to National Coming Out Day, but I objected to that quote, saying that plenty of languages lack a verb "to be".

So it started me wondering: do languages with an explicit verb "to be" fall into any specific clusters? Do some language families have them, and others lack them, or is it more scattershot?

Comments

[embryomystic.livejournal.com]

Well, not to diminish Eliezer Ben-Yehuda's efforts to make it a native language again, but the revival of Hebrew as a spoken language predates him, and the resultant movement, while it acknowledges him as founder, owes a great deal to earlier revivalists.

I wouldn't go so far as to say Modern Hebrew went through a creole phase, just that it was influenced by the 'business Hebrew' being spoken when its first native speakers were growing up. I'm happy to agree to disagree, though, if our perspectives cannot be reconciled.