É é

From Language Hat:

IS IS, WAS IS.
For years now I've been noticing the increasing prevalence of the grammatically unmotivated doubling of is, as in "The thing is is that..." [...] I was recently watching a Nova program about the mission to repair the Hubble when I heard astronaut Mike Massimino say "My point was is..." [...].

The observation above lends itself for a discussion about a similar development in Portuguese and Spanish; similar in that we find two conjugated verbs in succession, one of them being the verb to be. Though it is not quite part of the formal language, it is rather common in Portuguese, found in Brazil as well as Portugal; in Spanish, it is not as common, though I have encountered it from Colombians, for instance, and Venezuelans. This verbal process makes use of an emphatic, and sometimes contrasting, to be, which is placed right after the main verb in a sentence. In other words, the conjugated form of to be emphasizes the verb it follows, in a construction that is ultimately an ellipsis of a more traditional structure; for instance, eu quero é escrever, lit. I want is to write, being just about equal in meaning to o que eu quero é escrever, what I want is to write (or that which I want is to write) with the o que (that which, or, what) being omitted. Some more examples are eu quero é diversão*, lit. I want is fun (i.e. with emphasis, it is fun that I want); eu quero é Deus*, lit. I want is God (i.e. it is God that I want); ele tem é inveja, lit. he has is envy (i.e. it is envy what he has). Although this emphatic structure is frequent with querer (to want) and eu (I), it is used with other verbs and the other personal pronouns as well. When used with ser (to be), it leads to the special case of two consecutive is's, é é, particularly in Brazil where the verbal system relies heavily on third person forms: você/ele/ela/a gente é (discussed before on my blog*). Thus, if the main verb is itself is, we end up with that double is: ele é é burro, lit. he is is dumb, which could be expanded to o que ele é é burro, what he is is dumb.
So far, we have seen verbs in the present tense, but this is just as valid in the past; building from previous examples, we would have: eu queria era escrever, lit. I wanted was to write (o que queria era escrever, what I wanted was to write); ele tinha era inveja, lit. he had was envy (i.e. it is envy what he had).
In the future, this emphatic to be can be found along with the conjugated verb ir (to go) to form the periphrastic future: ele vai é ficar aqui, lit. he goes is to stay here (i.e. as for what he is going to do, he is going to stay here), as opposed to ele vai ficar aqui, he is going to stay here, with no emphasis or contrast.
While this construction is found in Spanish as well, it is not an extended feature, and in no way whatsoever has it penetrated the language the way it has in Portuguese; rather, its distribution is quite limited, regionally, like I stated; as an example, nonetheless: tengo es dinero, lit. I have is money, which can be said to be short for lo que tengo es dinero, lit. that which I have is money (i.e. it is money that I have).