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> OK, after looking at it I don't have much more to say. According to the book > the picture is too blurred to give a secure answer. To get to |estre| (the Old > French form), you have to suppose a form *ESSRE instead of *ESSERE, something > not impossible but intriguing. Moreover, the participles |estant| and |esté| > cannot even be surely said to come from STARE. They could very well be a > creation from the new infinitive |estre|. So basically without a time machine > we'll never know :)) . But indeed, STARE at that time had given the verb > |ester| (which died out a little later), so a single origin from it is nearly > out of the question. Apparently, the French infinitive does come from essere via: essere > essre* > estre** > e^tre) *(like pre(he)ndere to prendre) **(like camera to cjamera to tsjamera to tsjamra to tchambra to tchambre to chambre) However, e'tant and e'te' did come from stare's forms. (this is according to Larousse Nouveau Dictionnaire Etymologique)