T0dd:"We saw you" = I and they saw you.

"We saw them" = I and you saw them.

In short, the actual meaning of "we" is "I and at least one other person" where that other person or persons could be designated by a 2nd or 3rd person pronoun. Context determines whether "we" includes or excludes those to whom one is speaking. So a language could actually have *two* pronouns for "we", and I wouldn't be surprised to learn that some do.

I'm fairly sure I've seen notes about something like that on the web somewhere. Also various versions of "they" as well.

But your interpretation of "we" is running up against my religious ideas. Personally I do not want to think of "I" as a separate individual all the time. (As in I am this individual defined by a body and am not someone else defined by their, different body). I don't, or at least try not to, think of I in that limited sense. My view is that a being can be anything, nothing (as in no thing) or indeed anythings plural. But I accept that mine is not a typical view.

"We" seems to function as an adequate word for most of us, so I guess we'll stick with it

Nick

nw2394:

erinja:I agree with Todd's interpretation that "we" is different than "plural I".

Yeah, well, I know what you mean. But even that is arguably a view. In this case a, perhaps, Western view. Some of the Eastern religions/philosophies would maybe differ in that interpretation.

The term "we", can be thought of as meaning that several persons collectively belong to one group or entity. And further that "I" am fully part of being that group, just as others are too. Thus all within the group are being the group and the individuals that comprise the group are simply plurals of "me".

It is the notion that if you harm someone else you harm me too, because that someone else is part of me through being part of mankind.

At the level of mankind as a whole this is a difficult notion for many to grasp. Even if the "someone else" is a fellow occupant of the same town, they seem somehow distant.

But when it gets closer, it is easier to grasp. To take an emotive analogy, what about the subject of rape. To many women this is an intolerable crime, as bad as, if not worse than murder. But to many men, the attitude can be more ambivalent. Or, it can be ambivalent while the victim involved is an unknown "someone else". If the victim is, however, your wife, your sister, your mother, your daughter, then it takes a whole different character. Restrained by modern laws from murdering the culprit, the male relatives of such a person feel fully as violated as the victim herself. And that is when you see the truth of the fact that someone else who is part of your family is not just another separate individual who happens to be in the same group. Rather that someone else is, in some sense, truly a plural "me".

So yes, I get the notion that I/we, mi/ni can be viewed as not being a singular/plural pair. I am not sure the view is, however, wholly correct.

And it/they ĝi/ili certainly are a pair. And for the users of some languages the lack of a (commonly used) singular vi, is also problematic.

(Also there is matter, as has been pointed out, of elegance, simplicity. If you want to say something like, "please don't steal our books", in a language with accusatives and adjective/noun agreement, but no "ni", then "our" becomes something like mijajn. Mi has be pluralised, converted into an adjective, repluralised and put in the accusative. There comes a point where minimal root words with lots of affixes starts to get cumbersome).

Nick

There is the Jamaican Rastafarian idiom "I-and-I", which I don't understand.
Peter

Or on a lighter note, there's the "new Esperanto pronoun" invented (jokingly) by some Boston-area Esperanto speakers who were frustrated by the common phenomenon of people suggesting "We should do this!" then not wanting to take the lead or do any of the work. This pronoun is "ŭi" its official definition is "ni, sen mi" ("we, without me") (basically, a backhand way of saying "you"!)

erinja:Or on a lighter note, there's the "new Esperanto pronoun" invented (jokingly) by some Boston-area Esperanto speakers who were frustrated by the common phenomenon of people suggesting "We should do this!" then not wanting to take the lead or do any of the work. This pronoun is "ŭi" its official definition is "ni, sen mi" ("we, without me") (basically, a backhand way of saying "you"!)

ŭikid smat!