# to be



## Diaspora

These verbs mean "to be" in the present tense. Why and when did they disappear?

есмь, 
еси, 
есть, 
есмы, 
есте, 
суть,


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## Ptak

Diaspora said:


> These verbs mean "to be" in the present tense. Why and when did they disappear?
> 
> есмь,
> еси,
> есть,
> есмы,
> есте,
> суть,


In modern Russian, "to be" in ALL forms is just "*есть*" (not "есмь", "еси", etc). In the present tense it is always omitted though.


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## Panda Nocta

Diaspora said:


> when did they disappear?


Centuries ago.



> суть


Some people still use this one.


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## Maroseika

Diaspora said:


> These verbs mean "to be" in the present tense. Why and when did they disappear?
> 
> есмь,
> еси,
> есть,
> есмы,
> есте,
> суть,


 These forms have never existed in what is called "Russian language", they were used in Ancient Russian (East-Slavic language before 14-15 century), the language differing from Russian in many respects, with different phonetics, grammar and sintax. 
In particular, the verb есть was used to form the complex tense forms (Perfect and Plusquamperfect). Maybe this is the reason why all personal forms of this verb dissappeared - in Russian these Tenses are absent.


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## ExMax

Panda Nocta said:


> Some people still use this one.


When they want to showboat a little


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## BoldCat

Diaspora, if you came across these verbs in you study books, you`d better throw them away[ They are out of date.


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## Sonnia

BoldCat said:


> Diaspora, if you came across these verbs in you study books, you`d better throw them away[ They are out of date.



The question was  *Why *and *when* did they _disappear_?
Nothing was said about study books. And according to the question Diaspora knows that these forms do not exist now. 
Maroseika answered the 2nd question. Nobody answered *why*.


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## sokol

The "why" question will be difficult to answer.

Sure, it boils down to redundancy: while in other Slavic languages you only use "to be" + object (like Slovenian "sem človek") and the personal pronoun only if you put special emphasis on it (Slov. "jaz sem človek"), in Russian the personal pronoun became obligatory - and thus finite form of "to be" became redundant (я человек).

Or it was the other way round: that the loss of "to be" was what made the personal pronoun obligatory.
Or the loss of "to be" began in past tense and spread to present tense; but while in past tense at least gender and number was marked with the participle this was not the case so that in present tnese the personal pronoun became obligatory.

Or yet another explanation.
But we'd need an expert here; I can only offer those guesses.


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## Diaspora

BoldCat said:


> Diaspora, if you came across these verbs in you study books, you`d better throw them away[ They are out of date.


 
I'm fascinated by comparative and historical linguistics but information is hard to find, many grammar books are made for tourists and do not mention the history.

Also, terminology is intersting, what is called the Past tense in Russian, is called the Perfect tense in BCS even though their functions are practically the same.


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## Q-cumber

Diaspora said:


> Also, terminology is intersting, what is called the Past tense in Russian, is called the Perfect tense in BCS even though their functions are practically the same.



What's BSC? The British Computer Society?


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## sokol

Q-cumber said:


> What's BSC? The British Computer Society?


Not quite; it is "Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian" or "Bosnian, Serbian, Croatian" if you prefer. 

In Russian there is of course only one past tense - in BCS there are three (with aorist and imperfect), so no need to distinguish in Russian.

In Russian past tense "to be" isn't used at all, not even in definitions when 3rd person singular could be used in present tense, right? Like:
Это было дерево, теперь есть уголь.
(The use with "tree" and "coal" might be wrong, but that's the principle at least, or is it? I couldn't think of any "definition" sentence in past tense - but probably you just can't translate an "есть" sentence into past: a definition is, after all, not "past" but not defined in terms of time.)

If you do not use "to be" with Russian past tense only little information is lost which (usually) easily is "recovered" through context; so after thinking about it for a while I think it would not be unlikely that the phenomenon could have begun with past tense (and spread from there); but that's still a wild guess only.


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## Q-cumber

> In Russian past tense "to be" isn't used at all, not even in definitions when 3rd person singular could be used in present tense, right? Like:
> Это было дерево, теперь есть уголь.



_(Раньше) это было дерево, теперь это    уголь. _   Hmmm.... In Russian *present* tense of "to be" is hardly used at all, but the past tense is always used. Could you provide some examples to explain the general idea?


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## ExMax

They mean, "...[modal verb] "to be" isn't used..."


Diaspora said:


> what is called the Past tense in Russian, is called the Perfect tense in BCS


Don't forget about imperfective and perfective aspects of Russian verbs!
_ *Sokol wrote:* "In Russian the personal pronoun became obligatory"_
What do you mean? There are so called incomplete sentences, incl. impersonal and personal sentences.
_Edited: Sorry, it is my fault... You meant "A pronoun" + (to be) + "object", not "action". 
Yes, you are right..._


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## sokol

Q-cumber said:


> _(Раньше) это было дерево, теперь это  уголь. _   Hmmm.... In Russian *present* tense of "to be" is hardly used at all, but the past tense is always used. Could you provide some examples to explain the general idea?


Sorry for the misunderstanding - I did provide an example above, the misunderstanding is due to the fact that in other Slavic languages it would be (Slovenian here): "sem bil/a" while in Russian it is only "был/a" (that is, "был" is used not as an auxiliary but as a simple verb, the auxiliary would be "sem" in Slovenian, "sam" in BCS etc.).


ExMax said:


> _*Sokol wrote:* "In Russian the personal pronoun became obligatory"_
> What do you mean? There are so called incomplete sentences, incl. impersonal and personal sentences.


Sorry again for the misunderstanding.
Here, that is only a wild guess of mine - a *theory*. The fact is that you use, in present tense, only the personal pronoun and that the finite form of "to be" is not used at all.
So at _some _point in the development it has become obligatory to use personal pronoun and to leave out the form of "to be".

(And I only hope that I didn't explain this in an even more confusing way ...)


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## russian99

Verb есть is for the present tense singular, and verb суть is used to be for the plural. You can still find суть in some old text like the Bible.


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## Orion7

Maroseika said:


> These forms have never existed in what is called "Russian language", they were used in Ancient Russian (East-Slavic language before 14-15 century), the language differing from Russian in many respects, with different phonetics, grammar and sintax.
> In particular, the verb есть was used to form the complex tense forms (Perfect and Plusquamperfect). Maybe this is the reason why all personal forms of this verb dissappeared - in Russian these Tenses are absent.


In Proto-Slavic language probably still existed Baltic-like complex tenses:

*Old Prussian - Latvian - Proto Slavic - English*

_As asmai buv|uns,-usi - Es esmu bij|is,-usi_ - Яз есмь бывш(a) / Jaz jesmi byvš(a) - I have (am) been.
_Tū asei buv|uns,-usi - Tu esi bij|is,-usi _- Ты есь бывш(a) / Ty jesi byvš(a) - Thou hast (art) been.
_Mās asamai buvusi|ai,-as - Mēs esam bijuš|i,-as_ - Mы есме бывшы / My jesme byvšy - We have (are) been.
_Jūs asatai buvusi|ai,-as - Jūs esat bijuš|i,-as_- Вы есте бывшы / Vy jeste byvšy - You have (are) been.

But these forms were replaced by _Яз есмь был(a) / Jaz jesmi byl(a)_ - like forms, possible due to difficult pronunciation of _вш/vš_ in everyday use. In Russian also disappeared those _есмь, есь_ as they became senseless in this context and were difficult to pronounce too.
Russian has retained the adjectival form of former past participle: бывшый - Latv. _bijušais_ 'former'.


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## Sobakus

Orion7 said:


> In Proto-Slavic language probably still existed Baltic-like complex tenses:
> 
> *Old Prussian - Latvian - Proto Slavic - English*
> 
> _As asmai buv|uns,-usi - Es esmu bij|is,-usi_ - Яз есмь бывш(a) / Jaz jesmi byvš(a) - I have (am) been.
> _Tū asei buv|uns,-usi - Tu esi bij|is,-usi _- Ты есь бывш(a) / Ty jesi byvš(a) - Thou hast (art) been.
> _Mās asamai buvusi|ai,-as - Mēs esam bijuš|i,-as_ - Mы есме бывшы / My jesme byvšy - We have (are) been.
> _Jūs asatai buvusi|ai,-as - Jūs esat bijuš|i,-as_- Вы есте бывшы / Vy jeste byvšy - You have (are) been.
> 
> But these forms were replaced by _Яз есмь был(a) / Jaz jesmi byl(a)_ - like forms, possible due to difficult pronunciation of _вш/vš_ in everyday use. In Russian also disappeared those _есмь, есь_ as they became senseless in this context and were difficult to pronounce too.
> Russian has retained the adjectival form of former past participle: бывшый - Latv. _bijušais_ 'former'.



There wasn't any "бывш" forms of the verb "byti", as far as I know, it was past participle, so it doesn't have anything to do with verbs..  Я есмь виделъ, for example, is perfect, and Я видеахъ is imperfect. I think the perfect may has lost it's "to be" because the -L past participle(виделъ) didn't conjugate in persons, as in modern Russian, so you had to use personal pronouns to make yourself clear, which caused "byti" to become unnecessary, then the usage of personal pronouns became widespread and here we are! Just my guess, though.


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## david672orford

russian99 said:


> Verb есть is for the present tense singular, and verb суть is used to be for the plural. You can still find суть in some old text like the Bible.



Суть, есмь, and еси are all used in the Synodal edition, mainly in the New Testament. (The New Testament is translated in a more stilted and formal style than the Old Testament is.) Use seems to be limited to declarative statements made by Jesus Christ or to statements about God's existence. A Google search turns of numberous uses of есте in brief quotes of the words of Jesus such as "вы есте соль земли". (I have never seen this word in an actual Bible though.) I can't find an example of есмы in a Russian Bible.

The fact that the 19th century translators of the Old Testament used суть seldom and the others (probably) not at all suggests that they were already very seldom used in the simple Russian into which they strove to translate the Bible. That even the translator of the New Testament (who did not strive for simplicity as they had done) used it in only of the fraction of the places where he could have suggests the same.

These forms do have some modern uses. Even though to be is usually skipt in the present tense, there are some cases where it is still needed such as when it has to be emphasised or it is the whole point of the statement. Суть still seems to be used in certain formal contexts, particularly when discussing identity of persons. For example: По паспортам они суть студенты. Есми is used in certain philisophical contexts, such as to discuss the fact that we exist. I can recall only one recent use of еси, in the translated title of the film O Brother where art Thou? (Where it was intended to convey the archaic tone of the original.)

Most of the time though, modern texts have есть even where it is not, strictly speaking, gramatically correct. For example, fearing contradiction, a character in a novel asserts "Я есть хозяйка!"

I have seen some of these words in modern texts in languages related to Russian, so I think they are real words. I just don't know whether they were ever in common use in Russian during the early days of its existence as a distinct language.


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