The verb To Be

    Strange but true: some languages do not use the verb To Be, like Russian or Indonesian, for instance. But we have chosen to have a picto for To Be although we know it is a rather peculiar verb. Contrary to other verbs, To Be does not express any action.

    This is why we represent it by a sitting figure:

    Quite often we use the verb To Be to express an attribute. For instance, when we say "She is strong" or "He is a man". In such cases we cannot use


because all we want is to have a link between Woman and Strong or between He and Man.
The simplest way to express it is with the picto , a human figure pointing to both sides, so as to link one with the other. Let's see some examples: