Singular we

In Shaetlan the form we can sometimes be used even if it only refers to one speaker:

– We’ll see dee laeter! (‘I’ll see you later!’)

This almost only happens in situations of mutuality, so-called reciprocal clauses, with a direct addressee (person 1 is speaking to person 2). Standard English uses “each other” in reciprocal clauses, so the example above could translate to something like “We’ll see each other later”.

In the Scandinavian languages reciprocal clauses are expressed with a special form of the verb (action word), the so-called passive form:

– Vi ses senare! (We’ll see each other later!’)

This form goes back to the Old Norse ‑sk ending, which developed from the pronoun sik ‘oneself’. See previous post for more on reciprocal constructions in Shaetlan.

Picture: Julie Dennison