# who

Pronunciation: say "HOO" US /hu/, UK /huː/

## Pronoun

1. Used to introduce a clause that describes or identifies a person or people already mentioned, whether that person does the action or receives it.
   - Simple: Used to add information about a person you just mentioned, as in 'the nurse who helped me'.
   - _The nurse who treated me was very kind._
   - _Our neighbors, who moved in last spring, have two dogs._
2. Asks for the identity of a person or people, either directly ('Who called?') or inside a reported question ('I wonder who called').
   - Simple: Asks which person someone is, in a question.
   - _Who told you about the meeting?_
   - _She wanted to know who would be driving._
3. Used, mainly outside the United States, with the names of bands, teams and other groups of people, treating the group as 'who' rather than 'what'. *(colloquial)*
   - Simple: Used after the name of a team, band, or other group, as if the group were people.
   - _Leeds, who lost again on Saturday, are now bottom of the league._
   - _Our old school band, who split up years ago, are getting back together for one last concert._
5. Whoever, or the person who, used with no noun before it.
   - Simple: Means 'whoever' or 'the person who', as in 'vote for who you want'.
   - _Who laughs last laughs longest._
   - _It's my vote, so I'll vote for who I want, not who my parents pick for me._

## Noun

4. The identity of the person involved, usually listed with 'what', 'when', 'how' and 'why' among the unknowns.
   - Simple: The question of which person is involved, used as a noun.
   - _The film revisits the whos and hows of the robbery._
   - _Every good story answers the who before the why._

## Other meanings

- (determiner) In African-American Vernacular English, the interrogative 'who' stands for the possessive 'whose' before a noun ('who phone just rang?').

## Origin

"Who" comes from Middle English "who" (also "wha," "hwa"), from Old English "hwā," going back through Proto-West Germanic "*hwaʀ" and Proto-Germanic "*hwaz" to Proto-Indo-European "*kʷos"; it is related to German "wer," Dutch "wie," Swedish "vem," and Icelandic "hver." The sound change from /hw/ to /h/ (without any change in the spelling) followed an irregular shift of the vowel in Middle English and a regular one in Early Modern English.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/who (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).