3 ms·
You're confusing two different things. Ye as a plural pronoun is a bone fide archaic English word, ultimately sharing an etymology with the still-extant "you".
by rgossiaux 6y ago
You're confusing two different things. Ye as a plural pronoun is a bone fide archaic English word, ultimately sharing an etymology with the still-extant "you". "Ye" as an article ("Ye olde...") has the history you reference, where the y comes from a stand-in for a thorn (th), and so was not supposed to be pronounced as "yee". But ye as a pronoun (by far the most common usage, I think, and the usage in the poem) is just a normal word and doesn't share that history.
- oneplane 6y agoAh yes, the thorn was the one I was looking for. I remember reading something about that when looking up the reason old pub signs in England sometimes had the thorn and often 'ye' but are always actually supposed to be 'the' in technically correct form.