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Did English ever have a formal version of “you”?

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Re: Did English ever have a formal version of “you”?

#161

Post by JoeAltmaier »

untog wrote: post #160
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American English also has some written/spoken differences. I.e. telling a child to finish eating we say "Did ya eat your breakfast?" but write "Did you eat your breakfast". Hey maybe English speakers still use the archaic 'ye' - in phrases like 'didya' and 'doya'?

Isn't that just a pronunciation difference?

Or its a different word, and we say it but don't admit it. Lots of words we say but don't write down. My French friend says Americans don't speak, we just grunt. "Huh. Unh-uh. Uh-huh. Hunh-uh!" Never taught in school; we don't admit they are words but say them every day.

Re: Did English ever have a formal version of “you”?

#162

Post by hetman »

merkitt wrote: post #65

Greetings from a speaker of a linguistic oddity that doesn't have a universal form of the word "you". My native language -- Sinhalese -- has two forms: written and spoken. The written form, which has a grammar very similar to Latin, does have a universal "you", but the spoken form, which is largely grammer-less except for tense, does not. You literally cannot address someone without knowing their status/relationship…

There's a bit of similarity to Polish here. While a lot of other languages in the region (including ones that are closely related) use the plural "you" as a formal address, this sounds quite unrefined in Polish (or like a Soviet holdover). And addressing a superior/stranger with the singular "you" is completely out of the question.

That means, just life in Sinhalese, it is correct to address the individual in the third person with the most appropriate title (and falling back on Sir/Madam when the title isn't known). E.g. "Could Sir help me find the nearest bus stop", etc. (The Polish for Sir/Madam here is the same as Lord/Lady).

In other circumstances things tend not to be as strict. For example among equals of lower social rank (e.g. younger people), often singular grammatically implicit "you" can suffice. Or, when addressing one's closer superior kin, you would be only partially formal, for example: "Could [you] o mother, pass the salt". This example does not translate very well into English. It helps that Polish verbs carry the information about the pronoun of the person being addressed as part of their grammar (e.g. "I eat" = "jem", "you [singular] eat" = "jesz", "we eat" = "jemy", "they eat" = "jedzą", etc). The personal pronoun can be used explicitly for additional emphasis, but in some circumstances using an explicit singular "you" can be considered less polite (like pointing you finger).

There are other quirks when some level of familiarity is attained (and thus the formality can be reduced). In such a circumstance for example, to say "Could you pass the book?", one could say "Let it be that Sir passes the book", or even less formally, "Sir will pass the book." It sounds impolite when translated into English because in Polish, familiarity/closeness is expressed by an assumption of the other party's willingness to help.

Re: Did English ever have a formal version of “you”?

#163

Post by lupatus »

moskie wrote: post #39

This relates well to one of the fascinating things I realized while learning German: the fact that so many English and German words and sounds have phonetic connections, coming from their common Germanic ancestry. For example, the letter "d" in German corresponding to "th" in English: die/der/das -> the drei -> three Donner -> thunder Ding -> thing daher -> therefore and, most relevant to this discussion: du -> thou…

Part of the explanation is the convoluted history of the people who lived in the British isles.

Originally, it was inhabited by gaelic-speaking Celts. Some of their words that are still used today ():

plaide -> plaid

tàrmachan -> ptarmigan

triubhas -> trousers

peata -> pet

Then, it was conquered by the Romans. Latin words that found their way into English (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Latin_words_with_Engli...):

honor -> honor

imbecillus -> imbecile

inferus -> inferior

vulgus -> vulgar

Then, after the fall of the Romans, Britain was conquered by the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, who brought the old German words mentioned below.

After this, the area was Christianized, and the priests and proselytizers brought even more latin with them because that was the language of the Church.

After this, large portions of England were conquered by the Vikings, who introduced more Scandinavian-origin words that others have mentioned here. In fact, King Canute was once simultaneously king of England, Denmark, and Norway.

After the Vikings, England was conquered by the Normans by William the Conqueror in the Battle of Hastings. The Normans were Viking raiders who settled in northwestern France and who had turned in francophones. They introduce french-origin words like:

boef -> beef

mouton -> mutton

veal -> veal

porc -> pork

After which, all these language influences congealed, vaguely, into the English we know and love today.

For this graphed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Origins_of_English_PieCha...

Edited for formatting.

Re: Did English ever have a formal version of “you”?

#164

Post by GFK_of_xmaspast »

mattlutze wrote: post #92
sabbatic13 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you ever have studied comparative-historical linguistics, you know the abbreviation is frequent and necessary. So, the question is, what are the chances that someone familiar with it might use it and not even think about it? Your response assumed it was fully conscious. In any event, we're in the land of acronym pandemonium here, between CS, Data Science, Web terms, etc. PIE is a drop in a big bucket.

The point is that it's highly likely the subset of Hacker News that has studied comparitive-historical linguistics is small, and that the usage of field-specific jargon is exclusionary and obfuscatory. I studied rhetoric and technical communication for some time, and know quite well the usefulness of field-specific terminology for initiated readers. This, however, is not a comparitive-historical linguistics symposium…

I think recognition of "PIE" as "Proto Indo European" in this context is a reasonable thing to expect of moderately sharp people with a liberal education.

Re: Did English ever have a formal version of “you”?

#165

Post by GFK_of_xmaspast »

randallsquared wrote: post #141
userulluipeste wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's even more interesting when we remember that in western culture is rude to speak about a present participating person using third person pronouns (- "hey, I'm standing right here!").

Using "sir" everywhere you'd say "you" feels like the same sort of high respect that merkitt was describing in Sinhalese. I think the reason it comes across as rude is that the only context in which you'd be likely to hear someone do that in person is to mock. In the same way, some men become offended if you refer to them as "sir" at all, even upon first greeting, possibly out of a suspicion that they are being mocke…

You also get that kind of thing at snobby restaurants / hotels / other services that cater to the rich, "would sir like to see the wine list", etcetcetc.

Re: Did English ever have a formal version of “you”?

#166

Post by GFK_of_xmaspast »

merkitt wrote: post #158
eru wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [...] but the spoken form, which is largely grammer-less [...] No need to deprecate your mother-tongue. I bet there's plenty of grammar, it's just different from the written form. (I see a similar inferiority complex with speakers of Singlish here in Singapore. It's a great language, if you ask me.)

It is in fact a great language. For one thing, our alphabet is fully phonetic. And it's even arranged in a logical grid: http://www.omniglot.com/writing/sinhala.htm It's also a great language to tell jokes in. We have a lot of delivery-based humor that gets completely lost if only the meaning is translated (which is often the case when the destination language is English). Some of our original deficiencies: we didn't…

I think that's a "feature" of lots of writing systems, punctuation and spaces and lower case and other formatting is one of those things that's obvious only in retrospect.

Re: Did English ever have a formal version of “you”?

#167

Post by GFK_of_xmaspast »

vacri wrote: post #26
jjoe wrote: post #3

We're very happy with y'all here in Texas.

It confused me when I asked a native Texan something about what I should do next and she responded with "y'all could [foo]". But there's only one of me? I suppose that technically I am the 'all' of the 'you' that is being addressed?

And now we're back in the "use the plural when talking to a single person to be formal" that started this whole thing.

Re: Did English ever have a formal version of “you”?

#168

Post by VLM »

mattlutze wrote: post #62
tikwidd wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A couple of other English pronoun tidbits: - The third person plural set (they, their, them) was borrowed from Scandinavian (it's pretty uncommon for languages to borrow 'core' vocabulary such as pronouns). - Old English (Anglo-Saxon) also had dual forms of the pronoun. Those were lost by Chaucer's time though. Not sure if they are reflexes of early PIE dual forms or a more recent development from Proto-Germanic. [Sa…

What value does abbreviation "PIE" add to a discussion for relative laymen? I'm guessing it stands for "Proto-Indo-European", a phrase I'll bet nearly no one outside advanced degree word nerds (invoked lovingly) uses or has heard. Sorry for the soapbox.

I don't think its possible to discuss linguistics at any more than the most superficial level without encountering PIE. Or the history of Persian Empire-ish area where it developed. Or computer related linguistics. Or the history of linguistics or natural language processing, since this discovery was a "triumph" about a century or so ago. People living in indo-european geography with frankly weird languages not derived from PIE are usually inordinately proud of it and glad to tell you all about PIE and how their weird sounding language isn't related to PIE, even if simply don't care. Research results occasionally make it into popular journalism and invariably discuss PIE "This is what language sounded like 5000 years ago, it'll blow your mind" type stuff. There are also "easy read" popular science type books like the David Anthony Horse Wheel and Language. Those are all separate areas where I've independently run into it. It seems I'd have had to work hard to avoid it.

There are probably others. Archaeologists would probably run into it and people into old english lit are likely to roll the clock back, perhaps genetic analysis of migration would inadvertently discuss PIE.

Its like demanding we talk in detail about an obscure deep dark corner of the C programming language without confusing slang like "pointers" or "function". Well, good luck with that.

Even worse this isn't a discussion about lisp lambdas this is specifically a discussion about a weird corner of historical linguistics. Demanding that it be presented in "up goer 5" format isn't going to work.

Re: Did English ever have a formal version of “you”?

#169

Post by blafunke »

Todd wrote: post #77
tunesmith wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool. Singular: Thou would like Bob to give thee thy ball. It is thine, and then thou will feel good about thyself. Plural: Ye would like Bob to give you your ball. it is yours, and then ye will feel good about yourselves. Not really sure how to ask "Are you okay?" of a singular person, though...

Art thou okay?

Art thou of good contenance this day?

Re: Did English ever have a formal version of “you”?

#170

Post by rcruzeiro »

cesarbs wrote: post #32
rcruzeiro wrote: post #14

In 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.

But in the south of Brazil (RS) we just address everyone as "tu" :) Some Brazilians from other states seem to find that rude sometimes.

The "cariocas" I think, also use "tu" but they won't conjugate the verbs correctly. They say things like "Tu vai ao..." instead of "Tu vais ao..." or simply "Vais ao...". For me, hearing something like "Tu vai" is like being slapped in the ear ;)
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