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bì
personal pronoun
— I (first person singular)
personal pronoun
— I (first person singular)
A proposed etymology for bì is from Skt. vayam "we"
Bì is odd among IA first person singular pronouns in that it doesn't descend from an oblique Skt. form with m- (H. main, B. ami, Mar. mī) nor the direct form aham (Kalasha a, Khowar awa). Some etymologies have been proposed including a native development of the root भू "to be."
Masica proposes that bì derives from the first person plural pronoun vayam. This would be a very strange development but there are parallels for it. Ex: in some Hindustani dialects the 1st person plural hum is used as the singular.
Shina uses ⟨be⟩ as the 1st person plural form. The second example is from Indus Kohistani, a language spoken in the Kohistan district of NWFP in Pakistan.
