Sinograph Addenda · Signs

我I · wǒ · I, me, we — the plain first person

I

Where it comes from

By the received account a toothed halberd — some old weapon — borrowed so early for the word “I” that no classical writer ever thought of the blade. Rank 176; the plain first person, singular and plural alike. Taught in the doing-and-being chapter.

How to remember it

The self armed: I. Nobody knows why the halberd; everybody has used it to say “me” for three thousand years.

In the wild