Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

english.stackexchange.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 441 posts

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

#151

Post by softfalcon »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #111
snidane wrote: post #109

As someone coming from a culture with T-V distinction [1], I always wished we dropped one of the branches like English did in the past. The informal T vs formal V causes confusion in conversation with semi-strangers. Eg. At work you never really know which way to speak to someone at a watercooler. If you choose the informal T you make them your equal. Ehich might be perceived as insulting to them, since they might wa…

English became the dominant business language for reasons unrelated to the English language itself but because of the relative power of the people who spoke the language.

Yeah, I feel like people forget about that whole British Imperialism thing too easily.

We all speak English because at one point the English practically owned the entire planet.

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

#153

Post by bdw5204 »

denton-scratch wrote: post #10
sampo wrote: post #4

"You" is the formal version. But as the answers explain, English did also have the informal version.

Yes. We think of "thee" and "thou" as being formal, because nowadays they are mainly found in religious texts. But they used to be informal, used when addressing friends and children. As the top answer explains, "thee" and "thou" eventually came to be considered rude.

It isn't so much that they're mainly found in religious texts as that the most common English translation of the Bible is still the King James Version which is over 400 years old and "thou" was still part of the English language back then.

The other other English text most people are familiar with that is older than the KJV would be the works of Shakespeare which arguably need to be translated to modern English at this point. English language works older than Shakespeare such as Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and Beowulf are pretty much always read in translation.

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

#154

Post by madhadron »

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)

That's because they're very closely related languages. English is a mix of Anglo-Saxon and Norman French, after the Norman invasion of England in the 11th century. Norman French is how the Norse diaspora in Normandy mixed their Germanic tongue with the local dialects of Latin. And the Romance and Germanic languages are both pretty closely related branches of Indo-European, which is also a pretty narrow language family to start with. For example, 'tu' from French comes from mixing Norse 'du' with Latin 'tuus'...both of which come from deeper roots. Proto Indo-European reconstructs this as 'tuH'.

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

#155

Post by mkoubaa »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #111
snidane wrote: post #109

As someone coming from a culture with T-V distinction [1], I always wished we dropped one of the branches like English did in the past. The informal T vs formal V causes confusion in conversation with semi-strangers. Eg. At work you never really know which way to speak to someone at a watercooler. If you choose the informal T you make them your equal. Ehich might be perceived as insulting to them, since they might wa…

English became the dominant business language for reasons unrelated to the English language itself but because of the relative power of the people who spoke the language.

Yes. But then the English language got a _lot_ of reps as the lingua franca of commerce and science.

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

#156

Post by NewsyHacker »

ffgjgf1 wrote: post #137
NewsyHacker wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If negotiating the tu / vous distinction takes major mental effort, are you on the spectrum? Difficulty with understanding social cues and (these distinctions are also about creating distance) other people’s space is a typical trait of autism. These linguistic innovations wouldn't spread – and often quickly, within a couple of generations – if the neurotypical masses found them burdensome. I'm in a country with this…

> If negotiating the tu/vous distinction takes major mental effort, are you on the spectrum For me it’s the fact that these days it’s very inconsistent. The “rules” were pretty clear 20-30+ years ago. Now it’s a bit of a mess and there is a lot of overlap. > Saying people like myself aren't worth your time sounds like sour grapes I mean.. you’re somebody who just claimed that a random person is autistic because he do…

I didn’t claim that the person was autistic, I asked. And I asked because the way he described his difficulty is precisely what can finds in the literature on autism and sociolinguistics. And as you can see, I wasn’t far off the mark. I also specifically said that the rules of my environment might not apply to his.

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

#158

Post by FromTheSteppe »

snidane wrote: post #109

As someone coming from a culture with T-V distinction [1], I always wished we dropped one of the branches like English did in the past. The informal T vs formal V causes confusion in conversation with semi-strangers. Eg. At work you never really know which way to speak to someone at a watercooler. If you choose the informal T you make them your equal. Ehich might be perceived as insulting to them, since they might wa…

Is speaking to someone formally considered ending up in an inferior position in all cultures?

In Persian if someone expects to be spoken with formally, they have to speak formally themselves. So when you speak formally you're kinda bringing both parties up. You can even flirt by speaking formally.

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

#159

Post by jjtheblunt »

nicole_express wrote: post #123
jjtheblunt wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eth is the character you’re thinking if, not thorn. Eth has voice on and thorn voice off.

The eth/thorn distinction was fairly arbitrary in actual written Old English, with thorn being more common. The modern distinction between eth and thorn being based off of voice originated in Icelandic, I think? That's the only language that still uses them in its modern form, anyways.

Icelandic preserves old Norse so you’re accidentally implying Old Norse originated in its own derivative.

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

#160

Post by jccalhoun »

mewpmewp2 wrote: post #68

I'm from a country where there is a different version and I hate it because it makes me overthink every time about which one is appropriate to use now with people I don't know. Maybe I should completely ditch it, and use the informal one with everyone new, just with the hopes of building immediate rapport. I must not be the only one to hate it, and surely those people who would mind me using the informal one are not…

I got my phd in Communication and when I taught interpersonal communication, one of the articles we would have students read had an example of an American who was in Austria for a year or two. He was at a party talking to an Austrian friend when the Austrian's girlfriend came over. She stared using the informal "you." Later he asked her why she had decided to use the informal and she said, "I don't know. I just did it. You were talking with my boyfriend so I assumed I was on the same level as him." https://www.google.com/books/edition/Language_Shock/xOE4nPuW...
Post reply on HN