Editing Infinitive (section)

== Other Germanic languages ==
The original [[Proto-Germanic language|Proto-Germanic]] [[Suffix#Inflectional suffixes|ending]] of the infinitive was ''-an'', with verbs derived from other words ending in ''-jan'' or ''-janan''.

In [[German language|German]] it is ''-en'' ("sagen"), with ''-eln'' or ''-ern'' endings on a few words based on -l or -r roots ("segeln", "ändern").  The use of ''[[wikt:zu#Particle|zu]]'' with infinitives is similar to English ''to'', but is less frequent than in English. German infinitives can form nouns, often expressing abstractions of the action, in which case they are of neuter gender: ''das Essen'' means ''the eating'', but also ''the food''.

In [[Dutch language|Dutch]] infinitives also end in ''-en'' (''zeggen'' — ''to say''), sometimes used with ''te'' similar to English ''to'', e.g., "Het is niet moeilijk te begrijpen" → "It is not hard to understand." The few verbs with stems ending in ''-a'' have infinitives in -n (''gaan'' — ''to go'', ''slaan'' — ''to hit''). [[Afrikaans]] has lost the distinction between the infinitive and present forms of verbs, with the exception of the verbs "wees" (to be), which admits the present form "is", and the verb "hê" (to have), whose present form is "het".

In North Germanic languages the final ''-n'' was lost from the infinitive as early as 500–540 AD, reducing the suffix to ''-a''. Later it has been further reduced to ''-e'' in Danish and some Norwegian dialects (including the written majority language [[bokmål]]). In the majority of Eastern Norwegian dialects and a few bordering Western Swedish dialects the reduction to ''-e'' was only partial, leaving some infinitives in ''-a'' and others in ''-e'' (å laga vs. å kaste). In northern parts of Norway the infinitive suffix is completely lost (å lag’ vs. å kast’) or only the ''-a'' is kept (å laga vs. å kast’). The infinitives of these languages are inflected for passive voice through the addition of ''-s'' or ''-st'' to the active form. This suffix appeared in Old Norse as a contraction of ''mik'' (“me”, forming ''-mk'') or ''sik'' (reflexive pronoun, forming ''-sk'') and originally expressed reflexive actions: (hann) ''kallar'' (“[he] calls”) + ''-sik'' (“himself”) > (hann) ''kallask'' (“[he] calls himself”). The suffixes ''-mk'' and ''-sk'' later merged into ''-s'', which evolved to ''-st'' in the western dialects. The loss or reduction of ''-a'' in the active voice in Norwegian did not occur in the passive forms (''-ast'', ''-as''), except for some dialects that have ''-es''. The other North Germanic languages have the same vowel in both forms.