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This Ancient Language Has the Only Grammar Based Entirely on the Human Body (www.scientificamerican.com)

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An endangered language family suggests that early humans used their bodies as a model for reality

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

According to The Online Etymology Dictionary:

Old English dyde, past tense of do (v.). The only remainder in Germanic of the old linguistic pattern of forming a past tense by reduplication of the stem of the present tense. Far back in Germanic the equivalent of did was used as a suffix to make the past tenses of other verbs, hence the English -ed suffix (Old English -de).

It's interesting that a similar thing didn't happen for the word shall or will, in order to create a future tense. For example, using a suffixe from "will", like "-ll" or "-ill" for a future tense.