THE VERB 'BEON.'

The Verb béon ("be") occurs frequently enough in texts that it makes sense for AITists to learn it even though it's completely "irregular" unlike most other Old English verbs. Notice, for example, that it's impossible to understand the connection between "been" and "was" as a sound change similar to that from "sung" to "sang." This is because the verb is actually cobbled together out of three different Indo-European verbs--the whole thing is a total mess, in fact, and does not respond easily to analysis. On the other hand, it's pretty much like Modern English in that respect, so the necessity for memorization isn't too difficult (for English speakers, anyway).

Take a look at the following table:

ic eom - I am . þú eart - thou art (i. e. you are sing) héo, hé, hit is - she, he, it is wé sindon (sind, sint) - we are. gé sindon (sind, sint) - you are plural. híe sindon (sind, sint) - they are.

It shows the conjugation of the verb béon in the present, one of only two tenses in Old English (to give some encouragement to those who have suffered over the passé simple, passé composé, imparfait, plus-que- parfait, and so on!)

Things to notice:

The second person pronoun þu survives into Early Modern English, but mostly as a familiar form of address--if someone calls someone else "thou" in a Shakespeare play, it implies a relationship of familiarity (the speakers are friends, lovers, etc.) or that an inferior is being addressed (e. g. the speaker is noble and the person addressed is a servant). In Old English the pronoun has no such implication; the sole meaning is that only one person, as opposed to two or many, is being addressed.

Notice that the pronouns for "he," "she," and "they" are very similar to one another. In fact, by late Old English/ early Middle English they were beginning to run together in pronunciation, and this is reflected in texts as some uncertainty about how to spell the pronouns. You may see, for example, the plural pronoun (híe) appearing in some texts as heo. The verb form stays the same for all of the "persons" of the plural, but it may appear in texts in a variety of forms, including sind, sindon, sint, and spellings of those with y instead of i. This last one may be obvious or it may not be: the "third person" form of the verb (the one that corresponds to he, heo, hit, or to hie) is the one used when a noun is the subject: se fæder is . . . ; þá cyningas sindon . . . .

Past of the Verb béon with the Personal Pronouns.

The past tense of the verb, usually called the "preterite," is as follows: ic wæs - I was. þú wære - thou wert (i. e. you were sing) héo, hé, hit wæs - she, he, it was. wé wæron - we were. gé wæron - you were plural: híe wæron - they were

Learning the Verb Conjugations the Old-fashioned Way.

If I can recommend an old-fashioned method of learning here, it does help some students to develop a little chant from verb conjugations, and to say, for example, "ic wæs, þú wære, héo, hé, hit wæs, wé wæron, gé wæron, híe wæron" over and over again until the connection between subject and the form of the verb becomes ingrained.

You can bet that this way of learning is at least a thousand years old and that Anglo-Saxon children repeated their Latin conjugations in just the way it was done in schools until recently: "amo, amas, amat, amamus, amatis, amant." Of course, other people run screaming from the room long before any "ingraining" takes place! Just find the way of learning that suits you.