who

Who is a pronoun in the English language that refers to people. It functions as an interrogative pronoun in questions about identity and as a relative pronoun introducing clauses that describe a person.

Origin and history: Who derives from Old English hwā, from Proto-Germanic *hwa-, and is related to other Germanic forms such as German wer and Dutch wie. The pronoun has developed a distinct nominative form who and a traditional accusative/dative form whom, with whose as the possessive.

Forms and basic use: The primary forms are who (nominative), whom (objective), and whose (possessive). Who is used for people and, in modern English, is common in both subject and object positions in everyday speech. Whom remains the prescriptive choice for the object of a verb or a preposition in formal writing, though many speakers use who in those positions. Whose marks possession and can refer to people, animals, or things in various contexts.

Interrogative and relative use: In questions, who appears at the beginning with subject-verb inversion, as in Who is there? Who did you meet? In relative clauses, who introduces a clause about a person: The author who won the prize. In strict grammar, the object position would take whom: The person whom you met. After a preposition, traditional usage favors whom (to whom, with whom), while many speakers now say who.

Indefinite forms: Whoever and whomever are compound pronouns used to refer to an unspecified person, with whomever serving as the formal object form.