English

who

/huː/
What person or people; which person or people; asks for the identity of someone; used in a direct or indirect question.

    Etymology graph

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    Origin

    From Middle English who, hwo, huo, wha, hwoa, hwa, from Old English hwā (dative hwām, genitive hwæs), from Proto-West Germanic *hwaʀ, from Proto-Germanic *hwaz, from Proto-Indo-European *kʷos, *kʷís.

    The sound change /hw/ > /h/ (without a corresponding change in spelling) was due to wh-cluster reduction after an irregular change of /ɑː/ to /oː/ in Middle English (instead of the expected /ɔː/) and further to /uː/ regularly in Early Modern English. A similar change occurred in two. Compare how, which underwent wh-reduction earlier (in Old English), and thus is spelt with h.

    Compare Scots wha, West Frisian wa, Dutch wie, Low German we, German wer, Swedish vem, Danish hvem, Norwegian Bokmål hvem, Norwegian Nynorsk kven, Icelandic hver.

    From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

    Lineage

    • rootProto-Indo-European*kʷ-
    • inheritedMiddle Englishwho
      • inheritedOld Englishhwā
        • inheritedProto-West Germanic*hwaʀ
          • inheritedProto-Germanic*hwaz
            • derivedProto-Indo-European*kʷos “what; which”

    Related: Scots wha, West Frisian wa, Dutch wie, Low German we, German wer, Swedish vem, Danish hvem, Norwegian Bokmål hvem, Norwegian Nynorsk kven, Icelandic hver

    Words built on it: you-know-who

    Sources