Imagine you are standing in a room with your best friend and a large group of people. You want to say, “We are going to the cinema.” In Modern English, that word—”we”—is ambiguous. Are you referred to the specific duo of you and your friend, or are you announcing that the entire crowd is coming along? Today, we have to rely on context or add qualifiers like “We two” or “Just the two of us.”

But a thousand years ago, an Anglo-Saxon speaker wouldn’t have had this problem. They wouldn’t have used the general plural we. Instead, they would have used a word that has since vanished entirely from our lexicon: wit.

Old English, the language of Beowulf and King Alfred, possessed a grammatical feature that makes modern linguists swoon: the dual number. While today we simply toggle between Singular (one) and Plural (more than one), Old English carved out a specific, intimate space for pronouns referring to exactly two people. These lost pronouns—wit and git—offer a fascinating window into how our ancestors conceptualized relationships and distinct numbers.

The Magic of the Dual Number

To understand why wit and git are so special, we first need to look at grammatical number. The vast majority of modern European languages operate on a binary system: unique forms for silence, and distinct forms for plurality. Use a verb for one person, change it for two, but keep it the same for two million.

However, Old English inherited a third option from its ancient ancestor, Proto-Indo-European. This “dual” form was specifically designed for pairs. It makes sense when you consider the human experience; we have two eyes, two hands, and often operate in couples (husband/wife, brother/brother, enemy/hero). In Old English, if you were speaking about yourself and one other person, it was grammatically incorrect to use the plural. You had to use the dual.

This feature sets Old English apart from its Germanic cousins (like Old High German), where the dual form disappeared much earlier. In England, the dual pronouns survived well into the 13th century before finally succumbing to the simplification of Middle English.

Meet the Lost Pronouns: Wit and Git

Let’s break down these two words, their meanings, and—because this is a linguistics discussion—their declensions (how they change based on their role in the sentence).

1. Wit (We Two)

Wit (pronounced roughly like the modern word “wit”) meant “we two.” It functioned as the first-person dual pronoun.

If Beowulf turned to his trusted companion Wiglaf in the heat of battle, he wouldn’t say “We shall fight.” He would effectively say, “The two of us shall fight.” This creates a grammatical bond between the two speakers that the general “we” lacks. It implies an exclusive alliance.

Here is how Wit changed depending on the case:

• Nominative (Subject): Wit (We two)
• Accusative (Object): Unc (Us two)
• Genitive (Possessive): Uncer (Of us two / Our two’s)
• Dative (Indirect Object): Unc (To/for us two)

If you wanted to say, “This is our boat” (referring to just you and your partner), you would say, “Þis is uncer bat.“

2. Git (You Two)

Git (pronounced with a hard ‘g’, like “give”) meant “you two.” It was the second-person dual pronoun.

This is arguably even more useful than wit. Modern English struggles notoriously with the second-person plural. We have “you” for one person and “you” for many. To fix the confusion, we’ve invented dialectal workarounds like “y’all”, “you guys”, “yous”, or “you lot.” Old English didn’t need workarounds. If a mother was shouting at her two children to come inside, she used git. If she was shouting at the whole village, she used ge (ye).

The declension for Git mirrors Wit:

• Nominative (Subject): Git (You two)
• Accusative (Object): Inc (You two)
• Genitive (Possessive): Incer (Of you two / Your two’s)
• Dative (Indirect Object): Inc (To/for you two)

Literary Evidence: The Intimacy of Grammar

To see the dual pronoun in action, we can look to the greatest surviving work of Old English literature: Beowulf. The poet uses these pronouns with precision, and knowing them adds a layer of depth to the reading.

In a famous scene, Beowulf recounts a swimming contest he had with his childhood friend, Breca. Because the story is about exactly two boys swimming in the ocean, Beowulf uses the dual pronoun:

“Wit þæt gecwædon cniht-wesende…”
(“We two agreed on that when we were boys…”)

By using wit, Beowulf emphasizes the isolation of the two swimmers against the vast ocean. Later in the poem, when only Wiglaf stays behind to help Beowulf fight the dragon while the other warriors flee, the use of the dual becomes poignant. It underscores that all others have failed; only “the duo” remains. The grammar itself tells the story of loyalty.

Why Did We Lose Them?

If wit and git were so useful, why did we discard them? The answer lies in the harsh economy of language evolution: redundancy.

Languages generally move toward efficiency. While the distinction between “we two” and “we all” adds nuance, it isn’t strictly necessary for communication. You can achieve the same meaning by saying “we” and letting the context handle the rest.

As Old English transitioned into Middle English following the Norman Conquest of 1066, the language underwent massive simplification. Inflected endings fell away, gendered nouns disappeared, and the complex pronoun system streamlined itself. The dual number was an early casualty. It hung on in some Northern dialects of Middle English into the 1200s, but eventually, the plural forms (we/us and ye/you) swallowed the dual forms entire.

The Modern Echo

Today, English is the only Germanic language that doesn’t distinguish between the singular and plural “you” in standard grammar (German has du/ihr, Swedish has du/ni), let alone the dual.

However, the spirit of the dual lives on in how we try to fix our language. When a Southerner says “the two of y’all”, they are instinctively recreating the dual number. When a contract lawyer writes “both parties”, they are ensuring the duality that wit and git once handled effortlessly.

Learning about wit and git reminds us that language isn’t just a tool for naming things; it’s a framework for how we perceive reality. The Anglo-Saxons saw the world in valid singles, distinct pairs, and vague multitudes. By losing these words, we lost a little bit of grammatical intimacy—but we gained a fascinating history to explore.

Curious about more lost features of English? Stay tuned for our next deep dive into the “thorn” and “eth”—the letters we lost to the printing press!