Re: The 'have' of possession

 Ar an triochadú lá de mí Aibreán, scríobh Peter Moylan:

 > [...] An alternative possibility, I suppose, is that this used to be a
 > standard feature of IE, one that most of the successor languages eventually
 > lost. But that sounds less likely to me.

That’s roughly what the consensus is, though.

https://www.google.com/books?q=%22mihi+est%22+Indo-european

Early Latin preferred the dative + sum construction, haber took over with time.
Note that Latin haber (and its Romance descendants) are not related (beyond a
likely Sprachbund effect) to English ‘to have’ and its Germanic relatives.
Similar dynamic with Greek, and I learn today with Tocharian.

I don’t have a neat explanation as to why both Russian and Irish have all the
palatalisation you could want, though!

--
‘As I sat looking up at the Guinness ad, I could never figure out /
How your man stayed up on the surfboard after fourteen pints of stout’
(C. Moore)