One (word)
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One is a common word in the English language. It can mean either the number 1 or be used as a pronoun.
[edit] Etymology
The Old English án is in Old Frisian ân, ên, Old Saxon ên (Middle Dutch, Dutch een), Old High German (Middle High German, German) ein, Old Norse einn:–ein-r (Danish een, Sw. en), Gothic ain-s:–Old Teutonic *ain-oz:–pre-Teutonic *oinos = Latin ūnus (Old Latin oinos); Old Irish óen, Old Slavic inu, Lithuanian venas one; cf. Greek oἶνoς, oἴνη, ace. Old English án became in regular course in south and midland dialect on, exemplified before 1200. By the 15th century, on, oon, in southwest and west, had developed (through on, uon, uön, won, wun) an initial w (cf. the southwest wuk, wuts = oak, oats), which only occasionally appears in the spelling, but is now the standard pronunciation. The first orthoepist to refer to it was apparently Jones 1701: earlier grammarians, down to Christopher Cooper, 1685, give to one the sound that it has in alone, atone, and only; Thomas Dyche in 1710 has IPA: /ɒn/ beside /wɒn/. In the north, ān was retained in Middle English; but through the narrowing of the originally long ā to /æː/, /ɛː/, /eː/, /ɛə/, /ɪə/ ân has sunk in dialectal utterance through ane, to eane, eän, yan, yen, the development of /jɛn/ in the north being the counterpart of that of /wʌn/ in the south. In Old English, án had the full adjective inflexions, definite and indefinite, remains of which persisted in the south to ca. 1300, and in Kent still later; but, in north and midland England, the uninflected ān, ōn, with the definite form āne, ōne (Old English ána, áne), is found in the accusative and dative, as well as the nominative by 1200. Already also, ān, ōn were reduced before a consonant to ā, ō (oo), which did not die out till the 16th century.
In the north the separation of ân and â was more permanent; at the present day in Scots the full form ane, eane, etc., is only used absolutely or in the predicate, ae, eae, is the attributive form before consonants and vowels alike: ae day, ae yeir, we hae ane; so in north English dialects with yà and yàn. From the early an, a, pronounced proclitically without stress, arose the “indefinite article” an, a. In the northern dialect the numeral and article were long written alike, the stress or emphasis alone distinguishing them; in 16th century Scots both were written ane. By more or less permanent coalescence of a preceding thet, the collocations thet ane, thet one, thet a, thet o, became the tane, the tone, the ta, the to.
