2277: Optative Voice Mar 11, 2021

In certain languages, there is another mood along with indicative, subjunctive, imperative and the like known as the optative expressing a wish, as might be covered in English by 'if only...'. This was common verbal mood across Indo-European languages historically but these have usually been lost in a gradual process of morphological and syntactic simplification, reducing many distinct specific features for less precise periphrastic constructions. Some languages like Sanskrit and Ancient Greek are well known for this, but it is retained in Albanian, Armenian, and Kurdish, as well as non-Indo-European languages like Navajo, Yupik, Turkish and Georgian. English cannot neatly express this, but modal verbs like 'may' in "may you have good health" convey a similar intent, though this is also possible even with the present tense as in "G-d help us". In Albanian this is known as "mënyra dëshirore" or literally "wishing mood".