We

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This article is about the English personal pronoun. For other uses, see We (disambiguation).

We (IPA: /wiː/) is the first-person, plural personal pronoun (subject case) in Modern English.

1 Etymology
2 Atypical uses of we
3 Inclusive and exclusive we
4 See also
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Etymology

Personal pronouns in Old English
			Nominative	Accusative	Dative	Genitive
1st	Singular		ic	me(c)	me	min
	Dual		wit	unc		uncer
	Plural		we	us		ure
2nd	Singular		þu	þe		þin
	Dual		git	inc		incer
	Plural		ge	eow		eower
3rd	Singular	Masculine	he	hine	him	his
		Neuter	hit	hit	him	his
		Feminine	heo	hie	hire	hire
	Plural		hie	hie	him	hira
			Nominative	Accusative	Dative	Genitive

From Old English wé, which was pronounced something like way in modern English. It is related to West Frisian wy, Dutch wij, German wir, Danish vi and Faroese vit.

Other Indo-European languages that have cognates with English we include Hittite, which has wês, and Sanskrit, which has vayam.

The Latin nos represents the enclitic form of the pronoun, which is preserved in English us.

In some Romance languages including Spanish and Catalan, the word for "we" (from Latin nos) is supplemented by the word for "others" (nosotros and nosaltres "we-others" — similarly in the Quebec French locution nous autres).

Written and formal spoken French retains "nous," but in colloquial French, "nous" is almost entirely replaced by the third person singular pronoun on ("one"). Verbs are conjugated to the third person singular. The direct and indirect object form is nous, and the possessive is notre/nos, but the reflexive form is that of on (se; e.g. On se calme vs. Ils nous agacent).

Personal pronouns in Middle English
		Singular			Plural
		Subject	Object	Possessive	Subject	Object	Possessive
First		I	me	mi(n)	we	us	ure
Second		thou	thee	thy	ye	you	your
Third	Impersonal	hit	it/him	his	he they	hem them	hir their
	Masculine	he	him	his
	Feminine	sche	hire	hir

The oblique case of we in English is us (stressed IPA: /ʌs/; unstressed IPA: /əs/); the genitive case is our (IPA: /aʊr/ or IPA: /ɑr/), and the possessive predicate adjective is ours (IPA: /aʊrz/ or IPA: /ɑrz/).

[edit] Atypical uses of we

Main article: Pluralis Majestatis

A nosism is the use of 'we' to refer to oneself^[1]. A common example is the royal we (Pluralis Majestatis), which is a nosism employed by a person of high office, such as a monarch or pope. It is also used in certain formal contexts by bishops and university rectors. The expression was first used in 1169 when English King Henry II (d. 1189), hard pressed by his barons over the investiture controversy, assumed the common theory of "divine right of kings," that the monarch acted conjointly with the deity. Hence, he used "we" as "God and I...," or so the legend goes. (See Rolls Series, 2.12)

In the public situations in which it is used, the monarch or other dignitary is typically speaking, not in his own proper person, but as leader of a nation or institution. Nevertheless, the habit of referring to leaders in the plural has influenced the grammar of several languages, in which plural forms tend to be perceived as deferential and more polite than singular forms. This grammatical feature is called a T-V distinction.

Popes have used the we as part of their formal speech with certain recent exceptions. The English translations of the documents of John Paul II dispensed with this practice, using the singular "I", even though the Latin original usually continued to use the first person plural "We".

The editorial we is a similar phenomenon, in which editorial columnists in newspapers and similar commentators in other media refer to themselves as we when giving their opinions. Here, the writer has once more cast himself or herself in the role of spokesman: either for the media institution who employs him, or more generally on behalf of the party or body of citizens who agree with the commentary.

Similar to the editorial we is the practice common in scientific literature of referring to a generic third person by we (instead of the more common one or the informal you):

By adding three and five, we obtain eight.

"We" in this sense often refers to "the reader and the author", since the author often assumes that the reader knows certain principles or previous theorems for the sake of brevity (or, if not, the reader is prompted to look them up), for example, so that the author does not need to explicitly write out every step of a mathematical proof.

The patronizing we is sometimes used in addressing instead of "you". A doctor may ask a patient: And how are we feeling today? This usage is emotionally non-neutral and usually bears a condescending, ironic, praising, or some other flavor, depending on an intonation: "Aren't we looking cute?".

[edit] Inclusive and exclusive we

Main article: Inclusive and exclusive we

Some languages, in particular the Austronesian languages, Dravidian languages, and many others such as Taiwanese (Min Nan) and Mandarin have a distinction in grammatical person between inclusive we, which includes the person being spoken to in the group that is included in we, e.g.:

We can all go to the zoo today.

This contrasts with exclusive we, which excludes the person being spoken to, e.g.:

We mean to stop your evil plans!

About half of Native American languages have this distinction, regardless of the languages' families. Cherokee, for instance, distinguishes between four forms of "we". These are: "you and I (inclusive dual)"; "another and I (exclusive dual)"; "others and I (exclusive plural)"; and "you, another or others, and I" (inclusive plural). Fijian goes even further with six words for "we", with three numbers—dual, small group (three or four people), and large group—and separate inclusive and exclusive forms for each number.

English makes this a grammatical distinction only marginally through inclusive "let's". For example, the phrase "let us eat" may exclude the addressee, as a request to be left alone to eat, or include the addressee, as an invitation to eat together. The latter usage is formal, however, and the contracted form "let's eat" can only be inclusive.