By definition, language is an arbitrary construct, and it doesn’t map as well to ‘reality’ as many believe. As my understanding of language drops precipitously after French and English but includes a smattering of Japanese from the years I lived in Japan and conversational Spanish from Los Angeles, I’ll limit this to French and English.

Here’s a short table I’ll use as a reference.

English	French	English Transliteration
How old are you?	Quel âge avez-vous?	What age have you?
I am 10 years old.	Je suis 10 ans.	I have 10 years.
I am cold.	j’ai froid	I have cold.
It is I.	C’est moi.	It is me.

Notice the response to the age question, ‘how old are you?’ « quel âge avez vous? » is ‘I am 10 years old’ « Je suis 10 years. » Ignoring the grammar-defying use of how in English, and the fact that the question relates to age and the response relates to years, the English verb is are, the infinitive to be, whilst the French verb is avez, conjugated from avoir.

In English you are years. They are an existential part of your essense—of your being. In French, they are an attribute—something you have or possess, like a coat or a morsel of food.

In language, we don’t even consider these things. We just use the language as we’ve been taught. In English we are, but en français, we have.

It makes me wonder if this construction doesn’t give native English language speakers a greater sense of entitlement. Just a thought. They don’t have coldness; they are cold. It’s the difference between being and having. To be deprived of a possession (endowment effects notwithstanding) as a opposed to your core person feels less significant—a pencil versus a finger.

Diversion

The last example isn’t so existential, but why not? It’s a subject versus object distinction. Of the people I know, when speaking English and asked the question, ‘Who is it?’ (‘To whom am I speaking?’), the response is invariably ‘It’s me‘ (‘It is me) despite the given grammatically correct prescription of ‘It is I‘, where I is the subject pronoun and me is the object pronoun. In French, using the object pronoun for this response is the prescription, c’est moi, and I feel that English will eventually catch up and lose the distinction. Some pidgin English already accepts me as a subject form. This is captured in Star Wars reviled Jar Jar Binks’ character’s use is mesa, as with: Mesa called Jar Jar Binks, mesa your humble servant!

Disclaimer

My time has been occupied all over the map. I haven’t posted anything here in a while, so I thought I’d at least share a cursory thought.