submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by to c/lemmybewholesome@lemmy.world
 
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[–] 12 points 1 year ago

This is a combination of how the Celtic languages do possessive sentences and the very common European metaphor for "having" a feeling

Basically Irish (among with many other languages) don't have a word for have, instead they use the phrasing "X is at Y", where X is the thing being had and Y is the haver. This ties in with the metaphor of "having" a feeling, which can be seen in the English "I have a desire to..." or the German "Ich habe Hunger"

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