eigenspace22h ago

Wit, unker, Git: The lost medieval pronouns of English intimacy

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20260408-the-extinct-english-words-for-just-the-two-of-us

Wit, unker, git: The lost medieval pronouns of English intimacy

Tales of love and adventure from 1,000 years ago reveal a dazzling range of now-extinct English pronouns. They capture something unique about how people once thought about "two-ness".

BBC
Show threadfrogulis21h ago
Boy that unc/uncer looks tantalisingly close to modern German uns/unser. Wiktionary seems to have it descending from a different PIE root, n̥s vs n̥h -- I'm not at all familiar with PIE though.
Show threadeigenspace
That was my first thought too! So many things in old-english are very very close to modern German, so it's sometimes surprising to see these false-friends.
Apr 9 at 11:50amWeb
Show threadstvltvs18h ago

Contrary to what GP said, they're not false friends. They're a (lost) part of English's Germanic roots, shared with modern German.

Edit: Check out the Proto-Germanic personal pronouns.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Proto-Germanic_person...

Template:Proto-Germanic personal pronouns - Wikipedia

Show threadshermantanktop17h ago

Oh, you mean “Falsche Freunde”?

I have no idea how to say that idiomatically in German, but it struck me that those are both “true” friends.