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Pronouns: Personal

Personal pronouns are pronouns that represent nouns and names. In English, these are “I”, “you”, “she”, “they”, “me” and so forth.

The Low Saxon system and use of personal pronouns are very similar to those of English. There is one significant difference, though. Since nouns for inanimate objects can have not only neuter gender but masculine or feminine gender as well, inanimate objects can be referred to by means of he (hey) ‘he’, se (sey) ‘she’ or dat (dat) (~ et (et) ~ it (it)) ‘it’, depending on which gender they come with. This is why it is important that with each new noun you learn you learn its gender. This seems at first weird to you if you have never learned an Indo-European other than English, or a Semitic language, for that matter. Just remember that speakers of Low Saxon do not equate grammatical gender with actual gender (sex) when it comes to inanimate objects. This is similar to the now somewhat old-fashioned English habit of referring to ships as “she” or to the Australian expression “She’ll be right” (“(It will be) all right”). Furthermore, a few nouns for animate objects have neuter gender, such as Kind (kind) ‘child’, and are therefore referred to with the neuter pronoun dat (dat) (~ et (et) ~ it (it)) ‘it’. This is similar to using English ‘it’ when referring to a child or animal whose sex is not known. In other words, it is gender-neutral.

Before you get oriented to the Low Saxon system, let’s take a look at the Modern English personal pronouns first.

Singular   Plural   1st 2nd 3rd   1st 2nd 3rd       neu. mas. fem.         Nominative: I (thou) you it he she   we you they Objective: me (thee) you it him her   us you them Reflexive: myself (thyself) yourself itself himself herself   ourselves yourselves themselves

As you can see below, the Low Saxon system is quite similar.

Singular   Plural   1st 2nd 3rd   1st 2nd 3rd       neu. mas. fem.         Nominative: ik ik du du dat dat he hey se sey   wi wy ji jy se sey Objective: mi my di dy dat dat em em ęhr er   u(n)s u(n)s jo ~ ju ~ juuch jou ~ ju ~ juug jem ~ jüm jem ~ jüm Reflexive: mi my di dy sik sik sik sik sik sik   u(n)s u(n)s jo ~ ju ~ juuch jou ~ ju ~ juug sik sik

Now let’s take a look at a simplified table of the same.

	I	we	you	you (all)	it	he	she	they
Nominative:	ik ik	wi wy	du du	ji jy	dat dat	he hey	se sey	se sey
Objective:	mi my	u(n)s u(n)s	di dy	jo ~ ju ~ juuch jou ~ ju ~ juug		em em	ęhr er	jem ~ jüm jem ~ jüm
Reflexive:					sik sik

In typical Low-Saxon-speaking environments, people tend to be on what in English is “first-name basis,” and they tend to use the singular form du (du) and the plural form ji (jy) for “you.” (These correspond to earlier English thou and ye respectively, which you find in older editions of the Bible.) Where this is not the only choice, it serves as the familiar form used among people that know each other well, and it is the only form used in addressing children and animals. Until about the beginning of the 20th century, the polite equivalent for both singular and plural “you” used to be Ji (jy), thus the same form as the familiar plural form, though usually written capitalized. This was used to address members of the gentry, clergy and administration as well as schoolmasters and any “posh” visitors. In more recent times, the use of polite German Sie has caused people to use Se (sey) instead, whenever they address people with whom they do not dare to come across as too forward. However, you will often notice that people that use Sie with each other in German will use du (du) as soon as they switch to Low Saxon, because the language itself tends to set a more familiar, unpretencious tone. Se (sey) is of course the same form as that for “they”. However, here is a twist. You would then expect the objective form to be Jem (jem) or Jüm (jüm), as seen in the tables above. Some people, including myself, do indeed use these forms. Most people, however, use Se (sey) as the objective form. This is because in German the accusative form of Sie is Sie. In other words, German influence has caused confusion.

In the Northern, Mecklenburg and Pomeranian Low Saxon ranges, very few dialects have preserved older neuter pronoun et (et) or it (it) where most dialects now have dat (dat). However, you need to be aware that these older forms (which are related to English “it”) are still used in some dialects. Their shortened form is ’t (’t), identical with the shortened form of dat (dat). This dat (dat) is an extension of the neuter gender demonstrative pronoun (“that”). Very simply speaking, most Low Saxon dialects of the northern range have lost their “it” and use “that” instead. (You might like to think of it as “that one” having replaced “it”.)

And then there are the genitive forms of the personal pronouns as well as their pronominal equivalents (or possessive pronouns). For example, in English, “my” is the genitive equivalent of nominative “I”, and “mine” is the pronominal equivalent of “my”, as in “My computer is slow” versus “Mine is slow”.

First let’s look at the English scheme.

Singular   Plural   1st 2nd 3rd   1st 2nd 3rd       neu. mas. fem.         Genitive: my (thy) your its his her   our your their Pronominal: mine (thine) yours its his hers   ours yours theirs

Now the same in Low Saxon:

Singular   Plural   1st 2nd 3rd   1st 2nd 3rd       neu. mas. fem.         Genitive: mien myn dien dyn sien syn sien syn ęhr er   u(n)s u(n)s joon ~ juun ~ jugen joun ~ juun ~ jugen (jem)ęhr ~ (jüm)ęhr (jem) er ~ (jüm) er Pronominal: mien myn(en) dien dyn(en) sien syn(en) sien syn(en) ęhr(n) er(en)   u(n)sen u(n)sen joon ~ juun ~ jugen joun ~ juun ~ jugen (jem)ęhr(n) ~ (jüm)ęhr(n) (jem) er(en) ~ (jüm) er(en)

The same simplified:

	my/mine	your(s)	its	his	her	our(s)	your(s)	their(s)
Genitive:	mien myn	dien dyn	sien syn		ęhr er	u(n)s u(n)s	joon ~ juun ~ jugen joun ~ juun ~ jugen	(jem)ęhr ~ (jüm)ęhr (jem) er ~ (jüm) er
Pronominal:	mien(en) myn(en)	dien(en) dyn(en)	sien(en) syn(en)		ęhr(n) er(en)	u(n)s(en) u(n)s(en)		(jem)ęhr(n) ~ (jüm)ęhr(n) (jem) er(en) ~ (jüm) er(en)

And further simplified in many people’s speech:

	my/mine	your(s)	its	his	her	our(s)	your(s)	their(s)
Genitive:	mien myn	dien dyn	sien syn		ęhr er	u(n)s u(n)s	joon ~ juun ~ jugen joun ~ juun ~ jugen	(jem)ęhr ~ (jüm)ęhr (jem) er ~ (jüm) er
Pronominal:

Where the polite pronoun form Se (sey) is used, some people, including myself, use Jemęhr (jem er), Jümęhr (jüm er) or just Ęhr (er) as possessive forms and treat them as shown above. Those that follow the more German-influenced way say Se ęhr (sey er) besides just Ęhr (er).

Demonstrative Pronouns