I

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English ich, also i,^[2][3] inherited from Old English ic,^[4][5][2][6] from Proto-Germanic *ek,^[4][7][8] a form that Ayto and Hoad write *eka,^[9][10] from Proto-Indo-European *eg- (“I”), the nominative of the first person singular pronoun.^[4][7][8] Cognates include Old Frisian ik, Old Saxon ik, Old High German ih, Dutch ik, German ich, Old Norse ek and Gothic 𐌹𐌺 (ik),^[11][4] and more distantly Latin ego, Ancient Greek ἐγώ (egṓ), Hittite uk and Lithuanian aš.^[11][4] The reduced form appears in the 12th century,^[10][12][4] first in the north of England according to Etymonline, and later everywhere.^[4] The OED thinks the loss of the final consonant began with an Old English weakening of -c in unstressed positions and was reinforced by contexts such as “ich shal”;^[11] in stressed position the vowel lengthened, and the long form spread to all positions.^[10][11] The pronoun's oblique forms, such as me, come from a separate Indo-European base.^[7][10][11] Ayto thinks aye is probably in origin the same word.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The speaker or writer referring to himself or herself: Old English ic, first recorded in the Corpus Glossary in the OED,^[11] and dated to before 900 by Dictionary.com.^[13] The Middle English Dictionary's first record is in the Peterborough Chronicle, before 1121.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Forms with the old consonant became rare after the 14th century.^[11] Etymonline says that ich or ik lingered in northern England until about 1400 and in southern dialects until the 18th century,^[4] and the OED finds ich later still, especially before a vowel, together with a reduced ch- attached to the following verb.^[11] The capital was in use by the middle of the 13th century, to mark the pronoun as a separate word in handwriting.^[4] Etymonline quotes Jespersen, who explained it as a medieval habit of writing a "long i" whenever the letter stood alone or ended a group of letters, as also in the numeral one.^[4] Johnson (1755) simply cited ik, ic and ich as the older forms.^[14] The word appears as a predicate from before 1393, in Gower.^[11] From 1582 it is recorded in place of me after a verb or preposition when other words come between.^[11] In the south-west of England it has been an emphatic object form,^[11] and in Rastafarian and other Caribbean use it has served as a general object pronoun since 1964.^[11] As a noun, the word itself is named as early as Ælfric's Grammar;^[11] another I, a second self, is recorded from 1539 to 1677,^[11] and in metaphysics Berkeley used it in 1710 for the conscious self.^[11]

Timeline

• before 900 – Old English ic, first person singular pronoun.^[13][11]
• before 1121 – the Middle English form ich.^[3]
• 12th century – the reduced form i.^[10][12][4]
• mid-13th century – written with a capital.^[4]
• before 1393 – as a predicate, in Gower.^[11]
• 1539 – noun, another I, a second self.^[11]
• 1582 – used as an object.^[11]
• 1710 – noun, the self, in Berkeley.^[11]
• 1964 – Caribbean, a general object pronoun.^[11]

Meanings

Pronoun

1. The speaker or writer, as the subject of a verb: I will call tomorrow.^[12][2][11]
2. The speaker or writer, as the complement of a verb: It was I who rang.^[11]
3. (regional) Used as an object: in south-western England as an emphatic form, and in Caribbean use, originally Rastafarian, in general.^[11]

Noun

1. The self; the conscious ego.^[2][11]
2. The word I as a word.^[11]
3. A person who is excessively egotistic.^[2]

Related words

• me
• ego
• egoist
• egotism
• aye

Usage notes

Modern regional and Scots forms such as ah, aa and aw continue a newer unstressed form that the OED derives from the first element of the diphthong.^[11] The English Dialect Dictionary records such unstressed forms county by county.^[15]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
7. ^ a b c Watkins, Calvert (2000), "Indo-European Roots", appendix to The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
8. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
9. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
10. ^ a b c d e Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
13. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
15. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)