The set
| one | more than one | |
|---|---|---|
| I | mi | mi-mi — we, not you |
| kita — we, with you | ||
| you | yu | yu-yu — you all |
| he, she, it | ta | ta-ta — they |
Six forms. Four of them you already had; the other two are the plural rule doing its ordinary job.
Four things a pronoun never does here
It never changes for case. Mi kan ta. Ta kan mi. — I see her; she sees me. The same word whether it acts or is acted on. (English I/me, she/her; Amadunia mi, ta.)
It never changes for gender. ta is he, she and it. Whether the tea, the doctor or the child — ta.
It never changes for politeness. One yu for a friend, a stranger, a child, a president. (Spanish tú/usted, Hindi tu/tum/aap, Indonesian kamu/anda — Amadunia yu.)
It pluralises like everything else. Say it twice: yu-yu, ta-ta, mi-mi. The rule from plural.md, applied without exception.
Two ways to say “we”
This is the one place the pronoun set has more than the bare minimum, and it is there because the founder’s first word list already contained it: kita — we, including you.
| means | built from | |
|---|---|---|
| mi-mi | me and others — not you | mi doubled: several of me |
| kita | me and others — and you | its own word |
The form tells you the meaning. mi-mi is made only of mi, so it cannot contain yu. kita is the word for the group that has both of us in it.
| Mi-mi go market. Yu sini? | We’re going to the market. You staying here? |
| Kita go market! | Let’s go to the market — all of us. |
| Mi-mi suda kula. Yu-yu? | We’ve eaten. Have you all? |
| Kita suda kula. | We’ve eaten — you and I both. |
In use
| Amadunia | English |
|---|---|
| Ta-ta suda lai. | They came. |
| Yu-yu mau ca? | Do you all want tea? |
| Ruma ta-ta kabir. | Their house is big. |
| Ca garam. Mi mau ta. | The tea is hot. I want it. |
| Rafiki mi-mi es doktor. | Our friend is a doctor. |
| Kita saufa kan sol. | We will see the sun. |
With possession, nothing new: ruma mi-mi (our house), anak yu-yu (your children — all of yours), nama ta-ta (their names).
Sources
| Form | Source |
|---|---|
| mi | Spanish/Italian mi, English me, Swahili mimi |
| yu | English you |
| ta | Chinese tā 他 / 她 / 它 — one sound for he, she and it |
| kita | Indonesian/Malay/Tagalog kita — we, including the listener |
| doubling for plural | colloquial Indonesian kamu-kamu (you all), kita-kita (us lot) |
The inclusive / exclusive split (kita / mi-mi) is shared by Indonesian, Tagalog, Tamil (nām / nāṅkaḷ), Vietnamese (chúng ta / chúng tôi), northern Mandarin (zánmen / wǒmen), Hausa, Quechua and most of the Pacific. A single genderless third person (ta) is how Turkish, Persian, Hindi, Finnish, Hungarian, Yoruba, Swahili and spoken Chinese all work.
Why this and not the alternatives
Why doubled pronouns, not new words. Every big language with a regular pronoun plural does it with a marker on the singular: Chinese wǒ → wǒ-men, Japanese watashi → watashi-tachi, Vietnamese tôi → chúng tôi. Amadunia’s plural marker is doubling, so doubling it is. It costs no new words, and a learner who knows ta and the plural rule already knows ta-ta.
Why keep the two “we”s. Because kita was glossed “we, including you” from the first day; a contrast that is named must have a partner. And the partner comes free: mi-mi is what the plural rule produces anyway. Dropping the distinction would have meant either changing the founder’s gloss or leaving mi-mi meaning the same as kita — a synonym with no job.
Why ta covers “it”. One third person for everything is the majority pattern by speakers and the only one with no exception. Adding a separate “it” would reintroduce a human / non-human split — a gender by another name.
Why no formal “you”. Politeness levels are the single most common thing learners get wrong in languages that have them, and the most-learned language on Earth does without them entirely.
Candidates rejected, and why:
| Candidate | For | Reason rejected |
|---|---|---|
| kami | we (exclusive) | not needed — mi-mi already fills the slot with no new word |
| hum | they | is “we” in Hindi/Urdu — a pronoun with the opposite reference for 600M people |
| nos | we | minimal pair with no |
| oni, mereka, kalian, antum | they / you all | each adds a word only one family recognises, to do a job the plural rule already does |
| a separate “it” | it | would reintroduce a human / non-human distinction |
| a formal “you” | you | politeness levels are an exception generator |
Open questions
- Demonstratives (this, that) and the missing there are not pronouns in this sense and are still to be decided.
- Reflexives (myself) and reciprocals (each other) are not yet designed.
- Whether mi-mi and ta-ta may ever be shortened in fast speech is a question for later, once there is speech.