Word of the Day

Friday, June 10, 2011

She

From Blooming English, by Kate Burridge:

Via ordinary sound change, Old English hē 'he' and hēo 'she' would have collapsed into one form. We would therefore have had one pronoun meaning both 'he' and 'she'. The arrival of she overcame this ambiguity. But where did it come from?


I wonder if Dutch zij/ze or German sie had anything to with it.

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