We is the
first-personGrammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns...
,
pluralIn linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
personal pronounPersonal pronouns are pronouns used as substitutes for proper or common nouns. All known human languages have personal pronouns.- English personal pronouns :English in common use today has seven personal pronouns:*first-person singular...
(
subject caseThe nominative case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments....
) in
Modern EnglishModern English is the form of the English language spoken since the Great Vowel Shift in England, completed in roughly 1550.Despite some differences in vocabulary, texts from the early 17th century, such as the works of William Shakespeare and the King James Bible, are considered to be in Modern...
.
A
nosism is the use of 'we' to refer to oneself. A common example is the
royal we (
Pluralis MajestatisThe majestic plural is the use of a plural pronoun to refer to a single person holding a high office, such as a monarch, bishop, pope, or university rector. It is also called the Royal pronoun, the Royal 'we' or the Victorian 'we'...
), which is a nosism employed by a person of high office, such as a monarch, earl or
popeThe pope is the Bishop of Rome and, as such, is leader of the worldwide Catholic Church...
. It is also used in certain formal contexts by
bishopA bishop is an ordained or consecrated member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight. Within the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox Churches, in the Assyrian Church of the East, in the Independent Catholic Churches, and in the...
s and university
rectorThe word rector has a number of different meanings; they indicate an academic, religious or political administrator...
s. The expression was first used in 1169 when English King Henry II (d.
We is the
first-personGrammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns...
,
pluralIn linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
personal pronounPersonal pronouns are pronouns used as substitutes for proper or common nouns. All known human languages have personal pronouns.- English personal pronouns :English in common use today has seven personal pronouns:*first-person singular...
(
subject caseThe nominative case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments....
) in
Modern EnglishModern English is the form of the English language spoken since the Great Vowel Shift in England, completed in roughly 1550.Despite some differences in vocabulary, texts from the early 17th century, such as the works of William Shakespeare and the King James Bible, are considered to be in Modern...
.
Atypical uses of we
A
nosism is the use of 'we' to refer to oneself. A common example is the
royal we (
Pluralis MajestatisThe majestic plural is the use of a plural pronoun to refer to a single person holding a high office, such as a monarch, bishop, pope, or university rector. It is also called the Royal pronoun, the Royal 'we' or the Victorian 'we'...
), which is a nosism employed by a person of high office, such as a monarch, earl or
popeThe pope is the Bishop of Rome and, as such, is leader of the worldwide Catholic Church...
. It is also used in certain formal contexts by
bishopA bishop is an ordained or consecrated member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight. Within the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox Churches, in the Assyrian Church of the East, in the Independent Catholic Churches, and in the...
s and university
rectorThe word rector has a number of different meanings; they indicate an academic, religious or political administrator...
s. 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 distinctionIn sociolinguistics, a T-V distinction describes the situation wherein a language has second-person pronouns that distinguish varying levels of politeness, social distance, courtesy, familiarity, or insult toward the addressee.-History and usage:...
.
Popes have used the
we as part of their formal speech with certain recent exceptions. The English translations of the documents of
John Paul IIPope John Paul II , born Karol Józef Wojtyła served as Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church and Sovereign of Vatican City from 16 October 1978 until his death almost 27 years later. His was the second-longest pontificate; only Pope Pius IX served longer...
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 editorialEditorials are featured in many newspapers and magazines, usually written by the senior editorial staff or publisher of the publication. Additionally, most print publications feature an editorial, or letter from the editor, sometimes followed by a Letters to the Editor section...
columnistA columnist is a journalist who writes for publication in a series, creating copy that can sometimes be strongly opinionated. Columns appear in newspapers, magazines and other publications, including blogs on the Internet....
s 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 spokesmanA spokesman or spokesperson is someone engaged or elected to speak on behalf of others.In the present media-sensitive world, many organizations are increasingly likely to employ professionals who have received formal training in journalism, communications, public relations and public affairs in...
: 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 personGrammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns...
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 proofIn mathematics, a proof is a convincing demonstration that some mathematical statement is necessarily true. Proofs are obtained from deductive reasoning, rather than from inductive or empirical arguments. That is, a proof must demonstrate that a statement is true in all cases, without a single...
.
The patronizing we is sometimes used in addressing instead of "you", hinting a facetious assurance that the one asked is not alone in his situation, that "I am with you, we are in this together". 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?".
Inclusive and exclusive we
Some languages, in particular the
Austronesian languagesThe Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia. It is on par with Bantu, Indo-European, Afro-Asiatic and Uralic as one of the best-established ancient language families...
,
Dravidian languagesThe Dravidian family of languages includes approximately 73 languages, spoken by around 200 million people. They are mainly spoken in southern India and parts of eastern and central India as well as in northeastern Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Iran, and overseas in other...
, and others such as
Min NanThe Southern Min language, or Min Nan , is a family of Chinese languages which are spoken in southern Fujian and neighboring areas, and by descendants of emigrants from these areas in diaspora. In common parlance, Southern Min usually refers to the Hokkien, in particular the Amoy and Taiwanese...
and some dialects of Mandarin Chinese, have a distinction in
grammatical personGrammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns...
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.
CherokeeCherokee is an Iroquoian language spoken by the Cherokee people which uses a unique syllabary writing system. It is the only Southern Iroquoian language that remains spoken. Cherokee is polysynthetic.-Dialects:...
, for instance, distinguishes between four forms of "we". These are: "you and I (inclusive
dualDual may refer to:*a pair or a grouping of two:** dual basis, in mathematics, a basis that uniquely has a zero or unity inner product with a given basis** dual diagnosis, a psychiatric diagnosis of co-occurrence of substance abuse and a mental problem...
)"; "another and I (exclusive dual)"; "others and I (exclusive plural)"; and "you, another or others, and I" (inclusive plural).
FijianFijian is an Austronesian language of the Malayo-Polynesian family spoken in Fiji. It has 450,000 first-language speakers, which is less than half the population of Fiji, but another 200,000 speak it as a second language...
goes even further with six words for "we", with three
numbersIn linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
—dual, small group (three or four people), and large group—and separate inclusive and exclusive forms for each number.
EnglishEnglish is a West Germanic language that developed in England during the Anglo-Saxon era. As a result of the military, economic, scientific, political, and cultural influence of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, and of the United States since the mid 20th century,...
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 informal, however, and the contracted form "let's eat" can only be inclusive.
External links
- Baker, Peter S. 'Pronouns'. In Peter S. Baker. The Electronic Introduction to Old English. Oxford: Blackwell, 2003, c. 5.