- What types of personal pronouns does Persian have?
- What are free personal pronouns?
- Do pronouns have masculine and feminine forms?
- Does Persian have formal and informal personal pronouns?
Personal pronouns have two forms: free and bound. Free personal pronouns are independent from their preceding word and are used alone. They are comparable to English I, you, they, … Persian is a gender-neutral language. It does not distinguish between masculine and feminine and has one pronoun for English he and she.
| من man I |
ما mâ we |
| تو to you (informal) |
شما shomâ you |
| او u he, she |
ایشان ishân they |
Formality
Personal pronouns have formal and informal forms. Plural pronouns can be used as formal form for their singular counterpart:
| ما mâ formal form of من (I) |
| شما shomâ formal form of تو (you) (Like French vous, Spanish usted and German Sie) |
| ایشان ishân formal form of او (he/she) |
Extended forms
The basic demonstrative pronouns آن (ân: that) and آنها (ânhâ: those) as well as proximal demonstratives and emphatic demonstratives, are used as personal pronouns for third person. In practical terms, free personal pronouns are:
| من man I |
ما mâ we; I (formal) |
| تو to you (informal) |
شما shomâ you |
| او u he, she |
ایشان ishân they; he, she (formal) |
| آن ân he, she, it |
آنها ânhâ they |
In spoken Persian, آن has taken the place of او.
In today's Persian, ایشان is mainly used as the formal form of he and she. The normal word for they is آنها, both in spoken and written Persian.
In written Persian, there is also وی (vey) for he and she. It is more formal than او.