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Personal Pronouns
Joannes Richter
Abstract
Our language may have evolved to its present stage in at least 3 stages. Intermediate stages used
various personal pronouns, which allow us to reconstruct some of the basic philosophies.
The principal philosophical core seems to be the νώ / νῶϊ (nō / nōi) pronoun (“we two”) which:
• in Greek language relates to Νοέω (to understand), Νόος (mind) and νοῦς (Nous, ~mind),
• in Latin-based languages relates to Nos (“we”), nosco (“to know”),
• in Germanic languages relates to Wit (“we two”), wit (knowledge) and Tiw (God).
These concepts are interrelated by the Dutch accusative personal pronoun “ons” (us) and German
“uns” (us), which are garbled equivalents of the Latin personal pronoun “nos” (us).
The Greek philosophers Homer (800 BCE), Hesiod (700 BCE) and Heraclitus (500 BCE) described
Eris (English: duel; Dutch: twist, tweedracht; German: Zwist, Zwietracht) as a powerful tool for the
basic struggle between two participants.
The νώ / νῶϊ (nō / nōi) -concepts seem to be the elder roots, cognate to Νοέω (to understand), Νόος
(mind) and νοῦς (Nous), to be followed by Latin-based Nos (“we”), nosco (“to know”) and
resulting in the Germanic concepts Wit (“we two”), wit (knowledge) and Tiw (God).
In European philosophy the Mediterranean NOS- and NOUS-concept is linked to the Germanic
“WIT”- and “TIW”-concept by the common accusative (Dutch “ONS”, German “UNS”) for the
personal pronouns of the first person “WIT” (“we two”).
Stage 1 – The personal pronouns in Paradise
Definitions
Personal pronouns are pronouns that are associated primarily with a particular
grammatical person – (A) first person (as I), (B) second person (as you), or (C) third
person (as he, she, it, they). The term "personal" is used here purely to signify the
grammatical sense; personal pronouns are not limited to people and can also refer to
animals and objects (as the English personal pronoun it usually does).
Personal pronoun are inventions to manage the linguistic communication between persons. Usually
these references will be reduced to three group categories named the Personal pronouns for the 1 st
person, the 2nd person and the 3rd person in singular, dual and plural.
Communication is defined as one transmitter (“I”) and a group of active receivers, addressee(s) or
hearers).
In the following sketches and tables the members of these groups will be categorized as follows1:
• A = speaker (“I”). For simplicity in this analysis of basic communications only one speaker
will be allowed. A speaker may also represent a group of persons (in this analysis especially
the speaker's wife, who according to Plato's Creation Legend in Symposium) may be
considered as a halve “Man”). For the analysis “In Paradise” however Adam is supposed to
to restrict his communication to one person “Eve”.
• B = the addressee(s) or hearer(s), which may be singular, dual and plural. In the dual form is
defined as (1) the speaker and (2) one hearer. In this case the set for categories of plurals is
empty.
• C = is any included group of other involved persons, who may receive or ignore the
speaker's messages.
The first stage of the personal pronouns starts from a dual concept of two first human beings, which
commonly are named Adam and Eve. This assumption simplifies the boundary conditions of the
communication. The group C is absent and we may reduced the system to 2 communicators A and
B. We may use this basic scheme to produce some sample utterances between Adam and Eve:
• Adam (A) to Eve (B): ”I am a man”
• Adam (A) to Eve (B): “You are a woman”
• Eve (A) to Adam (B): “I am Eve”
• Eve (A) to Adam (B): “We two are Man”, in Old-English: “Wit are Man”.
1 Grammatical person
There is no specification for the dual form for the 2 nd person “you two”, because in the initial
Paradise there is no human being who could say “You two are Man”.
This hypothetical concept considerably reduces the system of the personal pronouns.
The personal pronoun "Tu" (confidential you) is being used for confidential relations
(e.g. husband and spouse), whereas "shoma" (respectful you) is signifying a more
distant and respectful relation (even between parents and children). In “Kite Runner”
the bride starts using the personal pronoun "Tu" (confidential you) directly after the
wedding ceremony3.
In the Book Genesis two additional “entities” (God and the snake) had to be addressed, which often
caused problems in the translations of singular, dual and plural forms.
In the Bible God (Elohim4) is considered as a plural entity (~“Gods”), which technically could not
be addressed with the singular pronoun “Þū”/”Thou”, but should have required a correct plural form
“gē”/“You”.
Instead of adding plural forms for the personal pronouns I decided to develop an extra chapter for a
new version of the overview of the personal pronouns.
In the following example the subject is “mi”, the verbal pronoun is “i” and the verb is “leso” (“to
read”):
“(mi) i leso” translated to English as “(me) I am reading”
instead of the modern version “i leso” (“I read”). The subject [mi] seemed to be an obsolete object.
Also the alternative version uses subjects in the form of nojàutri, respectively vojàutri which
seemed to refer to deviations (àutri → “other”) from the common form “noi” respectively “voi”.
8 The use of this pronoun, along with os, in ordinary spoken language is confined to the Philippines, Equatorial
Guinea, and Spain, excluding southwestern regions of Spain and most of the Canary Islands. Elsewhere in the
Spanish-speaking world, it is found only in oratory and legal and religious language.
9 Noialtri
10 Voialtri
The following overview defines all 10 nominative combinations of the potential entities A
(Speaker), B (Addressee) and C (others) for the personal pronouns, categorized in 3 forms (singular,
dual form and plural form).
• Fig. 1, 2 and 3 describe the singular form for the 1st , 2nd and 3rd person.
• Fig. 4, 5 and 6 describe the dual form for the 1st , 2nd and 3rd person.
• Fig. 7 describes the exclusive “we”-plural of the 1 st person in which the addressee is
excluded.
• Fig. 8 describes the inclusive “we”-plural (“we all”) of the 1 st person in which the addressee
is included.
• Fig. 9 describes the “you all”-plural of the 2nd person.
• Fig. 10 describes the “others”-plural of the 3rd person.
In Middle English (and some other Germanic languages) the word wiþ shifted to denote association
rather than opposition. The words remained unchanged, but their symbolism switched to the
opposite position mid ↔ wiþ.
Stage Validation of Eris (strife, discord, duel) Greek philosopher Estimated era
Thesis Negative influence Homer ~ 800 – 750 BCE
Antithesis Positive influence Hesiod ~ 750 - 650 BCE
Synthesis Neutral influence (in balancing two antipodes) Heraclitus ~ 535 – 475 BCE
Old English we, first person plural pronoun, "I and another or others," from Proto-
Germanic *wejes (source also of Old Saxon wi, Old Norse ver, Danish vi, Old Frisian
wi, Dutch wij, Old High German and German wir, Gothic weis "we"), from PIE *we-
(source also of Sanskrit vayam, Old Persian vayam, Hittite wesh "we," Old Church
Slavonic ve "we two," Lithuanian vedu "we two").17
The Old Church Slavonic ve "we two," and Lithuanian vedu "we two", seem to correlate with “we”
and “wit” (by losing a “t”?). This also may have been the case for Upper Sorbian wi.
The Upper Sorbian dual wi, found earlier in dialects (cf. Pfuhl 1866: 780, Schuster--Šewc 1978–
1996, ii: 942), is, in contrast, more problematic as – on the one hand – it is later and – on the other
hand – it means only nominative dual masculine (‘we two men’).18
The Slovene dual forms (midva, medve, midve) and the Lithuanian dual forms (vèd, vedu, mùdu m,
mùdvi f) seem to simultaneously serve the associating and dissociating antipodal roots miÞ ↔ wiÞ.
In midve the “mid”-section represents the associating and the ve-section the dissociating element.
14 Notes to the Dual Form and the Nous-Concept in the Inari Sami language
15 The etymology of the Greek dual form νώ (νῶϊ)
16 source in etymology online: us (pron). quoted in The Common Root for European Religions
17 we (pron.) quoted in The Common Root for European Religions
18 (Old Church) Slavonic etymology and Indo-European studies quoted in The Common Root for European Religions
The Noi-pronoun in Piedmontese language
In the description of the 2nd stage I had chosen the sample “(mi) i leso”, which may illustrate
the combination of the obsolete personal pronoun (mi) and the new pronoun “i” in
Piedmontese language.
The most interesting word in the Piedmontese pronouns seems to be noi / nojàutri (“we”). The
nojàutri-construct still exists as an exclusive “we”-plural of the 1st person, which is a common
structure in most Mediterranean languages. Nojàutri is also cognate to the Spanish pronoun
nosotros, French nous autres and Italian noialtri.
Especially Nojàutri and Italian noialtri correlate to Greek νώ / νῶϊ (nō/nōi) "we two". The pronoun
noi itself is also found in Romanian, Dalmatian, Aromanian and Bourguignon, which extends the
range of the noi which at least for old-Greek had been a dual form. The shift from the dual form
(νῶϊ) the common Mediterranean pronoun (noi / nos) “we” of the first person may be confirmed by
a vast amount of symbolic vocabulary with relevant correlations to the corresponding pronouns
(“noi” respectively “nos”). Some of these correlations also had been studied in earlier papers.
22 Mythology Ion
23 free German-Piedmontese dictionary_A5.pdf
24 Nosgnor (God) = “Nostro Signore”
Conclusion
The central philosophical core seems to be the νώ / νῶϊ (nō / nōi) pronoun (“we two”) which
• in Latin-based languages relates to Nos (“we”), nosco (“to know”),
• in Greek relates to Νοέω (to understand), Νόος (mind) and νοῦς (Nous),
• in Germanic languages relates to Wit (“we two”), Tiw (God), wit (knowledge).
These concepts are interrelated by the Dutch accusative personal pronoun “ons” (us), which is a
garbled variant of the Latin personal pronoun “nos” (us).
The νώ / νῶϊ (nō / nōi) -concepts seem to be the oldest roots, leading to Νοέω (to understand),
Νόος (mind) and νοῦς (Nous), to be followed by Nos (“we”), nosco (“to know”) and resulting in
the Germanic concepts Wit (“we two”), Tiw (God), wit (knowledge).
In European philosophy the Mediterranean NOS-concept is linked to the Germanic “WIT”-concept
by the common accusative (German “UNS”, Dutch “ONS”) for the personal pronouns of the first
person “WIT” (“we two”) and the common words for “wit”, “knowledge” (the Mediterranean
“Nous” respectively the Germanic “wit).
The Greek philosophers Homer (800 BCE), Hesiod (700 BCE) and Heraclitus (500 BCE) described
Eris (English: duel; Dutch: twist, tweedracht; German: Zwist, Zwietracht) as a powerful tool for the
basic struggle between two participants.
Appendix - Overview of the Publications by Joannes Richter
The following overview lists Joannes Richter's publications in Academia.edu and Scribd (between
07.10.2017 and 20.05.2019):
Title Source
De miraculeuze transformatie van de Europese samenleving JR
The Miraculous Transformation of European Civilization JR
The Duality in Greek and Germanic Philosophy JR
Bericht van de altaarschellist over de Lof der Zotheid jwr47
De bronnen van Brabant (de Helleputten aan de Brabantse breuklijnen) JR
De fundamenten van de samenleving JR
De rol van de waterbronnen bij de kerstening van Nederland JR
De etymologie van "wijst" en "wijstgrond" JR
The Antipodes Miᚦ and Wiᚦ jwr47
The Role of the Dual Form in the Evolution of European Languages JR
De rol van de dualis in de ontwikkeling der Europese talen JR
The Search for Traces of a Dual Form in Quebec French JR
Synthese van de Germanistische & Griekse mythologie en etymologie JR
De restanten van de dualis in het Nederlands, Engels en Duits -
Notes to the Corner Wedge in the Ugaritic Alphabet JR
The Origin of the long IJ-symbol in the Dutch alphabet JR
Over de oorsprong van de „lange IJ“ in het Nederlandse alfabet JR
The Backbones of the Alphabets JR
The Alphabet and and the Symbolic Structure of Europe JR
The Unseen Words in the Runic Alphabet JR
De ongelezen woorden in het runenalfabet JR
The Role of the Vowels in Personal Pronouns of the 1st Person Singular JR
Over de volgorde van de klinkers in woorden en in godennamen JR
The Creation Legends of Hesiod and Ovid JR
De taal van Adam en Eva (published: ca. 2.2.2019) JR
King Chilperic's 4 Letters and the Alphabet's Adaptation JR
De 4 letters van koning Chilperik I en de aanpassing van het Frankenalfabet JR
The Symbolism of Hair Braids and Bonnets in Magical Powers JR
The Antipodes in PIE-Languages JR
In het Nederlands, Duits en Engels is de dualis nog lang niet uitgestorven JR
In English, Dutch and German the dual form is still alive JR
The Descendants of the Dual Form " Wit " JR
A Structured Etymology for Germanic, Slavic and Romance Languages JR
The “Rod”-Core in Slavic Etymology (published: ca. 27.11.2018) JR
Encoding and decoding the runic alphabet JR
Über die Evolution der Sprachen JR
Over het ontwerpen van talen JR
The Art of Designing Languages JR
Notes to the usage of the Spanish words Nos and Vos, Nosotros and Vosotros JR
Notes to the Dual Form and the Nous-Concept in the Inari Sami language JR
Over het filosofische Nous-concept JR
Notes to the Philosophical Nous-Concept JR
The Common Root for European Religions (published: ca. 27.10.2018) JR
A Scenario for the Medieval Christianization of a Pagan Culture JR
Een scenario voor de middeleeuwse kerstening van een heidens volk JR
The Role of the Slavic gods Rod and Vid in the Futhorc-alphabet JR
The Unification of Medieval Europe JR
The Divergence of Germanic Religions JR
De correlatie tussen de dualis, Vut, Svantevit en de Sint-Vituskerken JR
The Correlation between Dual Forms, Vut, Svantevit and the Saint Vitus Churches JR
Die Rekonstruktion der Lage des Drususkanals (published: ca. 27.9.2018) JR
Die Entzifferung der Symbolik einer Runenreihe JR
Deciphering the Symbolism in Runic Alphabets JR
The Sky-God, Adam and the Personal Pronouns JR
Notities rond het boek Tiw (Published ca. 6.2.2018) JR
Notes to the book TIW JR
Von den Völkern, die nach dem Futhark benannt worden sind JR
Designing an Alphabet for the Runes JR
Die Wörter innerhalb der „Futhark“-Reihe JR
The hidden Symbolism of European Alphabets JR
Etymology, Religions and Myths JR
Tabel 6: Overview Academia publications JoannesRichter (Status: 3.2.2019)
Titel bron
The Symbolism of the Yampoos and Wampoos in Poe's “Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym Jr
from Nantucket”
Notizen zu " Über den Dualis " und " Gesammelte sprachwissenschaftliche Schriften " Jr
Ϝut - Het Nederlandse sleutelwoord Jr
Concepts for the Dual Forms Jr
The etymology of the Greek dual form νώ (νῶϊ) Jr
Proceedings in the Ego-pronouns' Etymology Jr
Notities bij „De godsdiensten der volken“ Jr
The Role of *Teiwaz and *Dyeus in Filosofy Jr
A Linguistic Control of Egotism Jr
The Design of the Futhark Alphabet Jr
An Architecture for the Runic Alphabets Jr
The Celtic Hair Bonnets (Published Jun 24, 2018) Jr
Die keltische Haarhauben Jr
De sculpturen van de Walterich-kapel te Murrhardt Jr
The rediscovery of a lost symbolism Jr
Het herontdekken van een vergeten symbolisme Jr
De god met de twee gezichten Jr
The 3-faced sculpture at Michael's Church in Forchtenberg Jr
Over de woorden en namen, die eeuwenlang bewaard gebleven zijn Jr
De zeven Planeten in zeven Brabantse plaatsnamen Jr
Analysis of the Futhorc-Header Jr
The Gods in the Days of the Week and inside the Futhor-alphabet Jr
Een reconstructie van de Nederlandse scheppingslegende Jr
The Symbolism in Roman Numerals Jr
The Keywords in the Alphabets Notes to the Futharc's Symbolism Jr
The Mechanisms for Depositing Loess in the Netherlands Jr
Over het ontstaan van de Halserug, de Heelwegen en Heilwegen in de windschaduw van Jr
de Veluwe
Investigations of the Rue d'Enfer-Markers in France Jr
Die Entwicklung des französischen Hellwegs ( " Rue d'Enfer " Jr
De oorsprong van de Heelwegen op de Halserug, bij Dinxperlo en Beltrum Jr
The Reconstruction of the Gothic Alphabet's Design Jr
Von der Entstehungsphase eines Hellwegs in Dinxperlo-Bocholt Jr
Over de etymologie van de Hel-namen (Heelweg, Hellweg, Helle..) in Nederland Jr
Recapitulatie van de projecten Ego-Pronomina, Futhark en Hellweg Jr
Over het ontstaan en de ondergang van het Futhark-alfabet Jr
Die Etymologie der Wörter Hellweg, Heelweg, Rue d'Enfer, Rue de l'Enfer und Santerre Jr
The Etymology of the Words Hellweg, Rue d'Enfer and Santerre Jr
The Decoding of the Kylver Stone' Runes Jr
The Digamma-Joker of the Futhark Jr
The Kernel of the Futhorc Languages Jr
De kern van de Futhark-talen Jr
Der Kern der Futhark-Sprachen Jr
De symboolkern IE van het Nederlands Jr
Notes to Guy Deutscher's "Through the Language Glass" Jr
Another Sight on the Unfolding of Language (Published 1 maart, 2018) Jr
Notes to the Finnish linguistic symbolism of the sky-god's name and the days of the week Jr
A modified Swadesh List (Published 12 / 17 / 2017) Jr
A Paradise Made of Words Jr
The Sky-God Names and the Correlating Personal Pronouns Jr
The Nuclear Pillars of Symbolism (Published 10 / 28 / 2017) Jr
The Role of the Dual Form in Symbolism and Linguistics (Oct 17, 2017) Jr
The Correlation between the Central European Loess Belt, the Hellweg-Markers and the Jr
Main Isoglosses
The Central Symbolic Core of Provencal Language (Oct 7, 2017) Jr
Tabel 7: Overview Academia publications Joannes richter (Status: 27.12.2018)
Contents
Abstract.................................................................................................................................................1
Stage 1 – The personal pronouns in Paradise .....................................................................................2
Definitions.......................................................................................................................................2
The special internal language for married couples.....................................................................3
Stage 2 – The personal pronouns extended to the 3rd person..............................................................4
Overview of specifications for “nojàutri” in neighboring languages..............................................4
Stage 3 - The transition phase of pronouns..........................................................................................7
The transition phase of sacred symbolism ......................................................................................7
The exchange transition of symbolism between miÞ ↔ wiÞ in English.........................................7
Associating and dissociating processes.......................................................................................8
The different categories of dual forms for p. pronouns of the 1st person........................................9
Correlations between divine names and dual forms..................................................................9
The Noi-pronoun in Piedmontese language..............................................................................10
The νόος- or “nous”-Concept....................................................................................................10
“Nos”-Concepts in the Piedmontese vocabulary......................................................................10
Conclusion..........................................................................................................................................12
Appendix - Overview of the Publications by Joannes Richter ..........................................................13