mēs
Latvian edit
Alternative forms edit
- (dialectal, archaic form) mes
Etymology edit
From earlier, and still dialectally attested, mes (with vowel lengthening, either expressively, or under the influence of jūs (“you pl.”)), from Proto-Indo-European *wéy (“we”), with the initial m- appearing due to influence from the first-person singular objective pronoun or the first-person singular verbal ending. For the non-nominative forms, the old Proto-Indo-European *nos was not conserved; new forms were created, following the second-person plural paradigm. Accusative mūs imitated second-person jūs (i.e., *múns after júns, yielding mūs); similarly genitive *mūsōn after *jūsōn, yielding mūsu, and dative mums < *mumus, paralleling jums < *jumus. Cognates include Lithuanian mẽs, Old Prussian mes, mas, Proto-Slavic *my, Old Armenian մեք (mekʻ).[1]
Pronunciation edit
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Pronoun edit
mēs (personal, 1st person plural)
- we; first person pronoun, referring to the speaker and other people
- mēs te strādājam ― we work here
- Eiropa mūs nesapratīs ― Europe will not understand us
- viņš dzīvo pie mums ― he lives with (lit. by) us
- mēs ar Juhanu un Kārli pārnesām savu mantību uz aitu kūti ― Juhans, Kārlis and I (lit. we with Juhans and Kārlis) took our possessions over to the sheep barn
- vai mūsu tauta pavisam zaudējusi balsi? ― has our people completely lost (its) voice?
Declension edit
Related terms edit
See also edit
References edit
- ^ Karulis, Konstantīns (1992) “mēs; mūs”, in Latviešu Etimoloģijas Vārdnīca (in Latvian), Rīga: AVOTS, →ISBN