IT WAS I

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Personal pronouns. First person singular.

I in English.
Io in Italian.
Yo in Spanish.
Je in French.
Ich in German.
Jag in Swedish.
Man in Farsi (Persian).
Minä in Finnish.
Ego in Latin.

Do you know it in some other language(s)...?

“The perpendicular pronoun” (Pystysuora pronomini: I)

You remember the TV series Yes Minister? This is how Sir Humphrey once said “It was I”, when he had to confess to a major mistake he had made.

“The identity of the official whose alleged responsibility for the hypothetical oversight has been the subject of recent discussion is NOT shrouded in quite such impenetrable obscurity as certain previous disclosures may have lead you to assume, but not to put too fine a point on it, the individual in question is, it may surprise you to learn, one whom your present interlocutor is in the habit of defining by means of the perpendicular pronoun.”

Yes, indeed. the message was “It was I, Minister”.
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