- we
[we 词源字典] - we: [OE] We goes back ultimately to Indo- European *wei, which also produced Sanskrit vayám ‘we’. The precise process by which this evolved into German wir, Dutch wij, Swedish and Danish vi, and English we has never been unravelled.
[we etymology, we origin, 英语词源] - we (pron.)
- Old English we, first person plural pronoun, "I and another or others," from Proto-Germanic *wiz (cognates: Old Saxon wi, Old Norse ver, Danish vi, Old Frisian wi, Dutch wij, Old High German and German wir, Gothic weis "we"), from PIE *we- (cognates: Sanskrit vayam, Old Persian vayam, Hittite wesh "we," Old Church Slavonic ve "we two," Lithuanian vedu "we two").
The "royal we" (use of plural pronoun to denote oneself) is at least as old as "Beowulf" (c.725); use by writers to establish an impersonal style is also from Old English; it was especially common 19c. in unsigned editorials, to suggest staff consensus, and was lampooned as such since at least 1853 (see wegotism).
