benim

Benim is a Turkish word that functions as the first-person possessive, meaning “my” when used before a noun and “mine” when used independently as a pronoun. It is part of a possessive system that includes benim, senin, onun, bizim, sizin, onların to express ownership across persons.

In use, Turkish typically marks possession by attaching suffixes to the noun (for example, araba → arabam, “my car”) or by placing a possessive determiner before the noun, as in benim arabam (“my car”). The determiner form can also serve as a standalone pronoun in contrastive or emphatic contexts.

For standalone reference, phrases such as Bu benim or Bu benimdir can mean “This is mine,” with dir being the copular suffix used in more formal or emphatic styles.

The related form benimki, built with the suffix -ki, means “the one that is mine” and is used to refer to a specific item in a shared context, e.g., Bu kalem benimki. This demonstrates how Turkish combines possessive determiners, noun suffixes, and pronoun forms to express ownership.

Etymologically, benim originates from ben (“I”) plus the first-person possessive suffix -im, a combination that has become a stable, standalone possessive pronoun in modern Turkish. Cognates and parallel possessive forms appear across Turkic languages, reflecting a common historical heritage of marking possession within the family of languages.