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Did English ever have a formal version of "you"? (2011)

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Re: Did English ever have a formal version of "you"? (2011)

#141

Post by qingcharles »

Symmetry wrote: post #32
dahart wrote: post #5

I had never until just now considered the possibility that “you” might be the thorn misprint of “thou”, just like how in “ye olde shoppe” was (according to legend) pronounced “the old shop” because Y got used in printing presses as a stand-in for the thorn “Þ” character they didn’t have, that looks kinda-sorta like a Y. Seems like the answers suggest I’m just imagining something that didn’t happen, but it was a fun t…

I believe it was a stand in for yᷤ instead of Þ, which is a much smaller leap.

Your first unicode character won't render in Windows.

þ?

I can see it is LATIN SMALL LETTER Y + COMBINING LATIN SMALL LETTER S .. not sure what that ligature is, though. My knowledge of old English is very lacking :)

Re: Did English ever have a formal version of "you"? (2011)

#142

Post by dwheeler »

panarky wrote: post #97
flappyeagle wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because there are many still-popular and important literary works like those of Shakespeare and the King James Bible which benefit from understanding the distinction.

For most of my life I've quietly despised the people in the church of my youth for switching to thee/thou/thy in public prayers. I always thought this was grandstanding performance of piety, or cargo cult mumbo jumbo, or both. It just seemed so silly to think that God only understands archaic English. Now it turns out these people I despised were only being respectful, and trying to use the formal forms? However, sin…

In Old English "thou" is singular, "you" is plural.

As noted in Wikipedia:

> As William Tyndale translated the Bible into English in the early 16th century, he preserved the singular and plural distinctions that he found in his Hebrew and Greek originals. He used thou for the singular and ye for the plural regardless of the relative status of the speaker and the addressee. Tyndale's usage was standard for the period and mirrored that found in the earlier Wycliffe's Bible and the later King James Bible.

Later, presumably due to French influence, "thou" became informal and "you" formal.

Finally "thou" was dropped from everyday speech, though it still shows up in various old phrases.

Re: Did English ever have a formal version of "you"? (2011)

#144

Post by ffgjgf1 »

entuno wrote: post #104
slyall wrote: post #55

There is a scene in The Lord of the Rings (Book) where Éowyn switches to using "thou" and "thee" when begging Aragorn to take her with him when he takes the Paths of the Dead. If you don't know (as I didn't for a long time) that she has switched to intimate/informal language then the scene has less impact. Especially since Aragorn keeps things formal in his reply. http://coco.raceme.org/literature/lordoftherings/retu…

This is very noticeable in the Athrabeth, where Finrod switches between "you" and "thou" when talking to Andreth throughout the conversation. Tolkien also talks in Appendix F of The Return of the King about how hobbits had largely lost the distinction between "you" and "thou" - so when Pippin speaks to Denethor in Minas Tirith and addresses him with the familial term, people assume that he must be royalty himself to…

> must be royalty himself

Technically I guess he was about as close to royalty as you can get in the Shire.

Re: Did English ever have a formal version of "you"? (2011)

#145

Post by derriz »

Aaronmacaron wrote: post #128
netsharc wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

German also has the 2 levels, but addressing the police with the informal you might get you into trouble. There's a great clip (not sure if it's a sketch show or a 360p mobile phone recording) of a guy peeking out of his apartment door and seeing a lot of coos, and he says to one of them, "Piss off, you (informal) asshole!." . The cop says "excuse me?", and the guy responds with, "Ah, sorry, you (formal) asshole!". T…

asshole is a very euphemistic translation

Could you explain. I'd guess "Arschloch"?

The translation of "bad language" is very tricky.

English is my mother tongue but I live in a German (sort-of, it's complicated) speaking country. I've learned that "scheisse" is not a very good translation for the English word "sh*t". It seems to me that the English word is much stronger/more offensive than the common German translation at least where I'm from.

German "scheisse" seems more at the level of "damn" in my experience (maybe it varies according to region?) and so is acceptable to be used in many more situations than the common English translation - i.e. by young kids or with strangers.

I think German speakers, as a result, don't realize how strong the English word is and use it a bit more liberally than would be expected. For example, I was very surprised that broadsheet (respectable) newspapers will casually drop an expression like "sh*tstorm" into a German sentence in a serious article.

Re: Did English ever have a formal version of "you"? (2011)

#146

Post by NewsyHacker »

ffgjgf1 wrote: post #140
NewsyHacker wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Historians today tend to trace the ultimate fall of the Roman Empire to the multiple crises of the third century, even if the name of the empire limped on for a couple of centuries more. So AD 293 is quite a late date, on the threshold to a new era. From the viewpoint of modern historians, it is hard to understand how Italian Fascism could have seen anything that late as worth being proud of and emulating.

> trace the ultimate fall of the Roman Empire to Or the plague and the subsequent Arab invasions. The empire was rebounded several times from near collapse after the 300s

The Western Empire was the only Roman Empire that the Italian Fascists ever really cared about. Early Byzantium was totally foreign to their mythology.

Re: Did English ever have a formal version of "you"? (2011)

#147

Post by dustincoates »

yawaramin wrote: post #18

'Thou' is also used in English prayers ('Thy kingdom come, thy will be done'), as a mark of a personal closeness to God.

That's really more due to the influence of the King James Version than anything else. For example, ESV uses you: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%206%3A5...

In French, however, God is always referred to with the informal tu, which surprises second language learners. But it makes sense when you realize that using plural for formal came about well after the Hebrew Bible, and because it was to implicitly refer to multiple people (sort of like the royal We), which obviously wouldn't be acceptable in Christianity.

Re: Did English ever have a formal version of "you"? (2011)

#148

Post by delduca »

simtel20 wrote: post #114
delduca wrote: post #34

The same happened with Portuguese in Brazil, 'Vós Mercês', which is formal, is used throughout the country as (simplified) 'você'. And the informal form, 'tu', is rarely used (only in the South).

Oh, interesting, is vosmicê a mispronouncing of vós mercês too?

I believe so, and tuh (or thu, don’t remember) linked in the article has the same sound

Re: Did English ever have a formal version of "you"? (2011)

#149

Post by rahen »

whynotmaybe wrote: post #51

There must be some links between French and English where in French, the formal version is "vous" which sounds like "you" and the informal is "toi" which maybe sounded like "thou" in the past. (The 'th' has no equivalent in French)

French and English coexisted as neighbor languages for more than a millenium, so there are a lot of both subtle and obvious similarities between the two.

Re: Did English ever have a formal version of "you"? (2011)

#150

Post by bigstrat2003 »

christophilus wrote: post #16
propter_hoc wrote: post #7

Second person pronouns are so fascinating! Not only is "you" the formal, polite plural form, but calling someone "thou" was also seen as so informal as to be rude (in verb form, to "thou" someone). This has a modern equivalent in the term "tutoyer" in French. https://www.etymonline.com/word/thou An interesting counterpoint is the usage in Japanese of sarcastically polite forms like お前 and 貴様, where you use a pronoun…

The US south still uses ma’am and sir as polite forms of address, but it’s also often used sarcastically (where the ma’am or sir is exaggerated: “Well, yes, MA’am!”)

That seems to be true across the country (it's been the case everywhere I've been, at least).
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