Written by Dyami Millarson

One of the best places to begin learning a language is the personal pronouns – so it is with the indigenous language of Hindeloopen!

All personal pronouns come in two pairs in Hielepes, because there is a subject-form and an object-form. I will give the former first, then the latter. The subject-object system is the last relic of a case system in Hielepes. The object-form is a merger of the dative and accusative, so it is used for both the indirect and direct objects.

I will include the possessive pronouns here as well, because it is important to see the relationship between the object-form (accusative/dative) and the formation of the possessive pronoun.

Iek – I; mie – me; mien – my

Doe – you (singular); die – you; dien – your

Hie – he; him – him; sien – his

Jó – she; jer – her; jerre – her

‘t – it; ‘t – it; sien – its

Wie – we; uus – us; uus – our

Jimme – you (pl.); jimme – you; jimme – your

Jèè – they; jem – them; jerre – their

There is also a special “locative” form: bie uuzent, at our place, at (our) home. Let me illustrate its use with an example sentence:

Bie uuzent sizze wie dòt nâât só. At (our) home, we do not say it that way.

The so-called “locative” (I merely called it that way based on its current function) is actually derived from a substantivisation of the possessive pronoun with the suffix -ent, which resulted in a new grammatical case being born, although itsuse remains very restricted and thus appears fossilised. One can only wonder what would have happened if it spread to adverbs and nouns; the real question is whether Hielepes could have produced a productive locative case.