Creer, leer, .... veer(?)

[laepelba]

This thread should hopefully be of special interest to Perikles. It's not really a question, but just a comment on something I read, and I would love to see what kinds of interesting etymologies you all have for me.....

I am reading a book on Spanish irregular verbs (yeah, okay, so I have no life....). In the chapter on the three verbs that are irregular in the imperfect, the author says that the verb "ver" used to be "veer" (a very long time ago), and is thus conjugated like "creer" and "leer". I find that to be quite interesting, and thus it really, really helps me to remember the conjugation.

Discuss......

[aleCcowaN]

"ansi esta en el Genesis, en el capitulo viiiº, onde dize del cuervo que enbio Noe a veer si estava la tierra seca..."

Libro de las paradojas

El Tostado (Alonso Fernández de Madrigal), 1437, España

[languagelover]

Interesting. And certainly a good way of remembering irregular conjugation patterns!

If you find any more interesting facts, please do share.

[Perikles]

I notice that creer, ver and leer all derive from Latin roots where a consonant has dropped out: credere, videre and legere. Also, the older spelling of ver is still there with proveer, to provide, where in English the root pro - videre is still visible. I'm not sure what to deduce from all this, if anything.

[laepelba]

As I have looked at the conjugations, it does not apply to every conjugation (for example the preterit...), but is just so helpful for me to remember the imperfect with this conjugation. Thanks for your input, y'all ... these are the tidbits that help me to remember the verbs...........