ik (Dutch)
Where does "ik" come from?
The Dutch pronoun 'ik' traces its origins back to the ancient Proto-Indo-European form *eǵh₂óm. It evolved through Proto-Germanic and Proto-West Germanic as *ek and *ik before settling into Old and Middle Dutch. Like its distant cousins, including the English 'I' and German 'ich', it has served as the fundamental way for speakers to identify themselves for millennia.
Full etymology tree
- ik (Dutch), 'I; first-person singular subjective personal pronoun'
- inherited ic (Middle Dutch), 'I'
- inherited ik (Old Dutch), 'I'
- inherited *ik (Proto-West Germanic), 'I'
- inherited *ek (Proto-Germanic), 'I'
- inherited *eka (Proto-Germanic), 'alternative form of *ek'
- inherited *eǵh₂óm (Proto-Indo-European), 'alternative form of *éǵh₂'
- compound *éǵh₂ (Proto-Indo-European), 'I (first-person pronoun)'
- compound *-óm (Proto-Indo-European), 'emphatic particle'
- inherited *eǵh₂óm (Proto-Indo-European), 'alternative form of *éǵh₂'
- inherited *eka (Proto-Germanic), 'alternative form of *ek'
- inherited *ek (Proto-Germanic), 'I'
- inherited *ik (Proto-West Germanic), 'I'
- inherited ik (Old Dutch), 'I'
- inherited ic (Middle Dutch), 'I'
Ancestors
- ic (Middle Dutch)
- ik (Old Dutch)
- *ik (Proto-West Germanic)
- *ek (Proto-Germanic)
- *eǵh₂óm (Proto-Indo-European)
Cognates and doublets
- jeg (Danish)
- I (English)
- ich (German)
- ik (West Frisian)
Descendants and derived words
- ek (Afrikaans)
- ikvorm (Dutch)
- ikzelf (Dutch)
- äk (Jersey Dutch)
Updated June 2026
Etymology data from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · About Miraris