Originally, the dative of archaichvo, fromOld Danishhwa,hwo, obliquehwem, genitivehwes. InOld West Norse, the nominative and accusative of this pronoun has been replaced by another pronoun,hverr, but the dative and genitive are still extant:hveim,hves. FromProto-Germanic*hwaz(“who”), cognate withEnglishwho,Germanwer,Gothic𐍈𐌰𐍃(ƕas). The pronoun goes back toProto-Indo-European*kʷos,*kʷís.
hvem (neuterhvad,genitivehvis)
- (interrogative)who
Hun ved godt,hvis cykel det er- She knowswhose bike it is
- (relative)who,that
De mennesker, forhvem livet indebærer hårdt arbejde- The people forwhom life is hard work
Han er i en by,hvis navn han ikke kan udtale- He is in a town, the nameof which he cannot pronounce
FromDanishhvem, fromOld Norsehveim. Known in a runic spelling ashuem (with a bind rune) in a magical manuscript from around 1650.
hvem
- (interrogative)who,whom
- Hvem gjorde det? ―Who did that?— (subject)
- Hvem er du? ―Who are you?— (predicate)
- Hvem spurte du? ―Whom did you ask?— (verbalobject)
- Avhvem? ―Bywhom?— (prepositionalobject)
- (dated, relative after a preposition)who,whom
- (dialectal, Drammen)which
- In indirect questions,hvem is followed by the relativesom as a subject:Jeg vet ikkehvem som gjorde det.(“I don’t knowwho did that.”) In all other functions,som is obligatorily left out:Jeg vet ikkehvem du er.(“I don’t knowwho you are.”)
- “hvem” inThe Bokmål Dictionary.
- “hvem” inDet Norske Akademis ordbok (NAOB).
- L.K. Helstad (2019) Runer i norske svartebøker.
hvem (genitivehvems,pluralhvilka)
- obsolete spelling ofvem
