yeye
pronoun
he; she; him; her (third-person singular independent pronoun).
Independent pronoun for emphasis or contrast; often contracts to yee in speech.
Origins
Yeye is the independent third-person singular pronoun. Historical handbooks list it beside wewe and wao, and the comparative record treats it as unborrowed.
Sources3
M. Haspelmath and U. Tadmor, World Loanword Database · Swahili profile (Max Planck Institute / Lexibank, 2009), Swahili profile; forms.csv (yeye).
Lists Swahili yeye for he/she/it with no evidence for borrowing.
A. C. Madan, Swahili-English Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1903), contrastive examples with yeye.
Attests yeye in contrastive and emphatic pronoun use.
Edward Steere, A Handbook of the Swahili Language as Spoken at Zanzibar (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1884), alphabetical entry: Yeye / Yee.
Records Yeye / Yee as he or she, him or her.
Examples
Yeye ni mwalimu.
He/she is a teacher.
Si yeye.
It is not him/her.
Yeye mwenyewe alisema.
He/she personally said it.
Nimemwona yeye sokoni.
I saw him/her at the market.
Yeye anajua njia.
He/she knows the way.
Wao walikwenda, lakini yeye alibaki.
They went, but he/she stayed.
Huyu ni rafiki yake yeye.
This is his/her own friend.
Yeye hataki kelele.
He/she does not want noise.
Uliza yeye moja kwa moja.
Ask him/her directly.
