and (especially in the south of Italy) with the meaning of "to be located", although a distinction can be expressed in most varieties of Italian: è in cucina 'it's in the kitchen (where it usually is)' versus sta in cucina 'it's in the kitchen (where it isn't usually located)'. In Old French, the verb ester < maintained the Proto-Romance meaning of "to stand, stay, stop". In modern French, this verb has almost totally disappeared (see below for the one exception), although the derivative verb of rester ("to remain") exists, and some parts of the conjugation of ester have become incorporated into être "to be" < . As a result of this complex evolution, even though French has a single verb for "to be" (être), its conjugation is highly irregular. History In English, it is possible to say "there stands..." instead of "there is..." in certain contexts. In Latin, too, it became common to eschew in favour of and say where things "stood" instead of where they "were". With time, it became common to use this verb to express other states. Today, Spanish, Galician, Portuguese, Catalan, and (to a lesser extent) Italian commonly use two copulas, one from each of the Latin verbs. The others use just one main copula, from . There is also a notable tendency for a derivative of the supine of () to replace the past participle of verbs deriving from (which in Latin had no supine). Examples: Italian has stato as the past participle of not only stare but also essere, instead of the expected essuto (which, along with suto, we encounter only in mediaeval texts). Standard Catalan has estat as the past participle of not only estar but also ésser. However, many people use forms such as sigut or sét, which are considered also standard for colloquial speech. French has été as the past participle of être, which had a complex phonetic development like many words of the language: → /sˈtatu/ (Vulgar Latin) > /esˈtæðo/ (Proto-Gallo-Romance) > /esˈteθ/ (early Old French) > /ehˈte/ (late Old French) > /eːˈte/ (Middle French) > /ete/ (Modern French). Notes Following the standard practice, Latin verbs are quoted here in the first person singular of the present indicative. In other words, is literally "I am", rather than "to be". Their infinitives were and . Although it is normal to use lower case when writing Latin in modern times, this article,