We're very happy with y'all here in Texas.
I thought in Texas it was all y'all .
Not so much. That's farther east, generally speaking.
Did English ever have a formal version of “you”?
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Re: Did English ever have a formal version of “you”?
#12Re: Did English ever have a formal version of “you”?
#13Re: Did English ever have a formal version of “you”?
#14In Portuguese and German there are still the formal and informal cases:
Formal : Você,
Informal: Tu
The same thing in German: Formal : Sie, Informal: Du
I am not a linguistics guy but I think that Thou, Du, Tu have all the same origin as they sound so similar.
Re: Did English ever have a formal version of “you”?
#15We're very happy with y'all here in Texas.
Fellow Texan here. "Y'all" is plural, but certainly not formal.
I hasten to add that "y'all" is clearly not used exclusively by Texans.
Re: Did English ever have a formal version of “you”?
#16As an aside note, italian has "two" formal versions of "you".
The informal one, "tu", is common on all the peninsula.
The formal version "voi" (2nd person plural) is more common in the south of the Italy (it's a reminiscent of the spanish invasions).
The formal version "lei" (3rd person singular) is more common in the north of the Italy.
Re: Did English ever have a formal version of “you”?
#17We're very happy with y'all here in Texas.
Similarly in Australia we're happy with 'youse'.
Re: Did English ever have a formal version of “you”?
#18In Portuguese and German there are still the formal and informal cases: Formal : Você, Informal: Tu The same thing in German: Formal : Sie, Informal: Du I am not a linguistics guy but I think that Thou, Du, Tu have all the same origin as they sound so similar.
The Roman empire spread latin far and wide.
Re: Did English ever have a formal version of “you”?
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
I thought in Texas it was all y'all .
Not so much. That's farther east, generally speaking.
It seems that where all y'all is used, you have the re-emergence of the distinction between the formal (y'all) and plural (all y'all). Which is pretty fascinating.
Re: Did English ever have a formal version of “you”?
#20In Polish, you don't use the plural vy as a formal singular. In Russian you do. I took Polish lessons at one point and my teacher would wince every time I accidentally called him vy. He told me the Russians used to force Poles to address each other that way in their own parliament. So sensitive was he to this long-past linguistic oppression that he couldn't help but be offended when an English speaker who happened to have studied Russian did it by mistake.