Personal Pronouns

and show the personal pronouns, equivalent to English I, we, you, he, she, they….

A quick heads up: for simplicity the column labels on these tables do not include any indication of long versus short vowel distinctions when either the vowel or its length differ between Arabic and Hebrew, nor when the vowel length differs between second and third person.

Some patterns can be identified.

• The first person comes in two different forms, an and (an)nahn.

• There are four different root words an, nahn, ant and h.

  • In Hebrew the n in ant disappears and the t becomes doubled to "compensate" and keep the word the same length (in pronunciation), called compensatory lengthening. However a word cannot end in a doubled consonant, c.f. אַתְּ which has a dagesh that hardens but doesn't double.
  • Hebrew consistently disallows the letter nun נ in the middle of a word when it's not followed by a vowel.
• The ending -m indicates a masculine plural, whereas -n (Hebrew) or -nna (Arabic) indicates a feminine plural.
• The words for the first person are the same irrespective of the person's gender. However, their pronunciations often fit in with either the masculine pattern or the feminine pattern. Thus, reading down the first column of we have a, a, a (1st person singular aligns with the masculine in Arabic), while the second column (feminine) contains the i vowel.

• The vowels of the parts attached to the four bases follow certain patterns. Hebrew doesn't like having a short vowel at end of a word.

  Number	Singular				Plural		Dual
  Gender	Masculine		Feminine		Either		Either
  Person	Arabic	Hebrew	Arabic	Hebrew	Arabic	Hebrew	Arabic
  1st	long				short	long	short
  2nd	short	long	short	none		short	short, long
  3rd				long		long

• The third person singular has an extended ending compared to the first and second persons.

  • In Arabic there's an additional consonant: و in the masculine and ـي in the feminine.
  • In Hebrew there's a long vowel instead, but a different vowel to the first and second person.
  • Actually, the equivalent letter gets added in Hebrew too, but it signifies a vowel rather than a consonant sound (ـي ≡ י, و ≡ ו).

English

Old English prior to the Norman Conquest had distinct pronoun words for the dual number. English no longer has these words but the same effect can be achieved by inserting the word both into a sentence, although using this word is optional unlike in Classical Arabic where the dual form must be used when applicable. The second person dual pronoun was spelled git but pronounced as "yit". Many of the other pronouns from that time were spelled and in some cases pronounced differently to their modern equivalents. English originally distinguished between singular, plural and dual in the second person. However, after the Norman Conquest the plural pronoun ye took on a second meaning and came to additionally represent the singular as well the plural in more formal contexts, thus making thou and ye somewhat similar to tu and vous in French. Gradually the pronoun you came to be used in more informal contexts too. reflects the somewhat current system that is rooted in the English of the Early Modern period (Tudor England). More recent developments include thou and ye seldom being used anymore except for artistic effect and the introduction of y'all as a 19th Century American innovation to replace the lost distinction between singular and plural in the second person. Y'all possibly developed out of the Ulster Scots phrase ye aw but is particularly popular within the African American community. Ze was introduced by Kate Bornstein in 1996.

Pronominal Suffixes

Phrases such as "my book" can be written as a single word in Arabic and Hebrew by taking the word for "book", placing it into something called the construct state, and adding a suffix to represent "my". In this case the word for book, كِتَاْب‎, plus the suffix for my, ـيْ◌ِ, gives us كِتَاْبِيْ.

To put a word into the construct state in Arabic:

• Remove the definite article ال.
• If the word ends with a tanwin then replace it with a short vowel (no -n).
• For dual nouns and masculine plurals ending with ن, remove it.

In Hebrew a word often undergoes vowel changes that can be a little bit complicated. Dictionaries tend to give both the normal and construct spellings.

1. Some suffixes have different harakat or niqqud when they're attached to a word which ends in a long vowel or a diphthong. In these cases either the tsere (◌ֵ) is dropped or else the form transcribed after the slash is used (actual Hebrew or Arabic script not shown). In Hebrew these are often single syllable nouns that have an additional י◌ִ added as part of their construct state forms, for example, אָח (brother) → אֲחִי (construct—brother of) → אָחִינוּ (brother of ours).
2. A segol may optionally be included before this suffix, making ךָ◌ֶ

These suffixes mirror the original pronouns from and pretty closely, but there are a few differences.

• The t in ant has switched to become a k sound in Arabic, written with the letter kaf (ـك). And in Hebrew we find the soft pronunciation variant (kh, without dagesh) of the Hebrew letter כ, itself equivalent to ـك.

• The four root words have become shortened.

  Person	Pronoun Base	Shortened Pronominal Suffix Base
  1st	an	nothing left
  1st, Alternate	nahn	n
  2nd	ant	k / kh (changed)
  3rd	h

Some further explanation of the Arabic suffixes is needed.

• In the third person the first vowel in the suffix depends on what the last vowel of the word you're attaching it to is. Words that end with i, i or ay prefer a similar sounding suffix with an i. Words that end in a, a, u, u or aw prefer a suffix with an u sound. Linguists call this kind of phenomenon vowel harmonization.

References

1. Y'all
2. Ye (pronoun)
3. Third-person pronoun