Personal pronouns are pronouns that represent grammatical persons. Persian has three grammatical persons: first person, second person and third person. They can be singular or plural. Persian is a gender-neutral language. Therefore, grammatical persons do not have distinct forms for masculine, feminine and neuter genders. That is, Persian has one pronoun for English “he”, “she” and “it”.
Free Personal Pronouns
Morphologically, Persian has two sets of personal pronouns: free personal pronouns and bound personal pronouns. Free personal pronouns are types of personal pronouns that can be used alone (i.e they are free morphemes). They are comparable to English “I”, “you”, “they”, … The following table demonstrates Persian’s free personal pronouns.
| Singular | Plural | |
|---|---|---|
| First Person | من ⟨man⟩ I |
ما ⟨mâ⟩ we |
| Second Person | تو ⟨to⟩ you |
شما ⟨šomâ⟩ you |
| Third Person | او ⟨u⟩ he, she, it |
ایشان ⟨išân⟩ they |
In written Persian, there is also وی (“vey”: he, she) for third person singular. It conveys more formality than او.
Formality and Familiarity
In Persian, personal pronouns have formal and familiar forms. Plural pronouns can be used as formal form of their singular counterpart. Therefore, all singular pronouns have formal and familiar forms. For instance, تو (“to”) means “you” (singular, familiar) and شما (“šomâ”) means “you” (singular, formal) and “you” (plural, formal or familiar). This is similar to the relation between French pronouns “tu” and “vous”. It is uncommon among languages to have a formal form for third person singular and even more uncommon to have a formal form for first person singular.
| Formal Form | |
|---|---|
| First Person Singular | ما ⟨mâ⟩ formal form of من (I) |
| Second Person Singular | شما ⟨šomâ⟩ formal form of تو (you) |
| Third Person Singular | ایشان ⟨išân⟩ formal form of او (he/she) |
Extended Forms
Both proximal and distal demonstrative pronouns as well as their emphatic variants can be used as personal pronouns for third person. They can be pluralized with the suffix “-ân” to indicate exclusively animate plural pronouns for third person.
| Third Person | ||
|---|---|---|
| Singular | Plural | Animate Plural |
| این ⟨in⟩ he/she/it (this person/thing) |
اینها ⟨inhâ⟩ they (these people/things) |
اینان ⟨inân⟩ they (these people) |
| همین ⟨hamin⟩ he/she/it (this very person/thing) |
همینها ⟨haminhâ⟩ they (these very people/things) |
همینان ⟨haminân⟩ they (these very people) |
| آن ⟨ân⟩ he/she/it (that person/thing) |
آنها ⟨ânhâ⟩ they (those people/things) |
آنان ⟨ânân⟩ they (those people) |
| همان ⟨hamân⟩ he/she/it (that very person/thing) |
همانها ⟨hamânhâ⟩ they (those very people/things) |
همانان ⟨hamânâan⟩ they (those very people) |
Personal Pronouns in Practice
In today Persian, ایشان is mainly used as the formal form of third person singular (i.e. formal he/she). The normal word for “they” is the demonstrative pronoun آنها, both in spoken and written Persian. In spoken Persian, the demonstrative pronoun آن has replaced او. Therefore, in practice, Persian’s free personal pronouns are as follows. Please note that all demonstrative pronouns are used as personal pronouns both in spoken and written language. However, distal demonstratives are the normal personal pronouns (i.e. آن and آنها).
| Singular | Plural | |
|---|---|---|
| First Person | من ⟨man⟩ I |
ما ⟨mâ⟩ we I (formal) |
| Second Person | تو ⟨to⟩ you (familiar) |
شما ⟨šomâ⟩ you (formal/familiar plural) you (formal singular) |
| Third Person | او ⟨u⟩ he, she |
ایشان ⟨išân⟩ he, she (formal) |
| آن ⟨ân⟩ he, she, it |
آنها ⟨ânhâ⟩ they |