Have always wondered about this. This is such an enormously famous quote although the exact choice of words has always perplexed me. Initially figured it is an artifact of translation, but then, wouldn’t you translate it into the new language in a way that is grammatical? Or maybe there is some intention behind this weird phrasing that is just lost on me? I’m not a linguist so eli5
In: 1806
I’m surprised no one yet mentioned French (and other Latin rooted languages). There are a set of verbs that use “to be” as their auxiliary. DR MRS VANDERTRAMP is a strategy to help French learners remember some verbs which use être as an auxiliary verb.
They’re basically all about movement or change in state, and they all take ‘to be’ instrad of ‘to have’ for the past tense.
The very first one is “devenir” or to become.
This structure is a rememant of Latin when it heavily influenced Early Modern English – where we get works like Chaucer and King James Bible.
TL;DR — “I am become” is old-timey like “thou” because it was codified (frozen) in early modern English texts. It’s based on Latin grammar that used “to be” for certain auxiliary verbs of movement.
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