+204.+ The Latin language has had a great deal of influence upon
English. Many of our words are taken from the Latin. You remember that
all of the names of our parts of speech are derived from Latin words. We
also feel the influence of the Latin language in the way in which we
number our personal pronouns. The Romans naturally thought that one
would think of one's self first, and so the pronouns referring to one's
self, or the person speaking, are called the _first_ person pronouns.
They are, _I_, _my_, _mine_, _me_ and _we_, _our_, _ours_, and _us_.
Then they naturally thought that one would think second of the person
spoken to, so the pronouns referring to the person spoken to are called
the _second_ person pronouns. Formerly _thou_ was used in speaking to
one person. In German and many other languages this form is still used,
but in English we do not today use the singular form _thou_ with its
variations, _thy_, _thine_, and _thee_, except in poetry or poetic
prose. In every-day speech we use _you_ and its forms, _your_ and
_yours_, for both the singular and the plural.
Then the Romans considered last the person or thing of whom they were
speaking; so pronouns referring to the person or thing spoken of are
called the _third_ person pronouns. These are _he_, _she_, and _it_,
with their other forms, _his_, _him_, _her_, _hers_, _its_, in the
singular, and _they_, _their_, _theirs_ and _them_ in the plural.
+A personal pronoun is one that denotes the speaker, the person spoken
to, or the person or thing spoken of.+