The concept of possession is expressed differently in different languages. Yesterday morning I sat down in my easy chair to study Japanese, and thought to myself, I have my books, but I don't have my coffee. In Japanese there is no verb for to have. so, 私の 本が あります、しかし コーヒーが ありません。watashi no hon ga arimasu, shikashi koohii ga arimasen. Literally, my books exist, but my coffee does not exist. Then I thought, that's the same structure as Turkish; Kitabım var, ama kahveyem varmı. My books exist, but my coffee does not exist. Then my mind drifted to Finnish. While not the same, the pattern is similiar. Minulla ovat kirjat, mutta ei ole kahvi. To me there are books, but there isn't coffee. Then I got up and made my coffee exist. Are these languages related? Not according to current linguistic thought, but that may be a topic for a future article. In the meantime it makes the concept of "having" easier.
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