3 ms·

I'm not at all a biblical scholar or anything but iirc there are two reasons one historical one theological. The hebrew and aramaic of the old testament had the

I'm not at all a biblical scholar or anything but iirc there are two reasons one historical one theological. The hebrew and aramaic of the old testament had the distinction between singular and plural second person pronouns but without the hierarchy/formality distinction. Later languages did have that, so translating into them using the singular also gave the connotation of familiarity that eventually became accepted. And then, in the gospels christ instructs his followers to pray to god intimately, when he gives them the lord's prayer. It's giving explicit permission to address god as a personal relation: you can call THE LORD daddy now. In that context it makes sense to use the informal/intimate form, basically reconciling what was probably the earlier usage anyway. It's unclear to me if pre-christian jews would have considered themselves to have this level of intimacy with god. Actually it's unclear to me whether contemporary jews or muslims do for that matter. In french it's a pretty subtle social practice to know which to use in any given situation. There are a lot of situations where it's pretty obvious or firm but others where it's flexible or depends on specifics of context. It's also a moving target since social norms like this are always changing.

082349872349872 4y ago
Yeah, I've read descriptions of parties where they say the tone was such that V was used to request that people not bogart the spliffs, but I'm pretty sure that was meant as an illustrative joke. We got a reply email from a boutique hotel that said "btw we use the T form with our guests" and were (a) surprised (that it was not the V default) at first, then (b) concluded it would make sense that they'd send a warning to people who would otherwise cancel if they'd only learned it upon checkin. Also, don't forget there's a wide conservative-progressive spread within both judaism and the muslim world, so I would not be surprised if the pronouns used in prayer turned out to differ and could be used as shibboleth. (One project on my backburner is to collect music videos that are faithful to the beliefs of various points, all along these spectra)
- 082349872349872 4y ago
  Hebrew as you mentioned doesn't have a T-V distinction, and neither does arabic. There appears to be some use of the 3rd person/titles in jewish prayer to contrast to the normal 2nd person, and islamic prayer does likewise (even though apparently "business arabic" has added the possibility of a marked 2nd person). So IIUC all the Abrahamic religions originally used an unmarked 2nd person, and have opted to translate this as the familiar-T in languages which do make the distinction. Lagniappe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4j55NKXeMk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4j55NKXeMk the Shamil Niggun, an orthodox jewish tune, whose denotation is the lament of a sunni muslim Caucasian Imam captured by orthodox christian Russian forces, and whose connotation is the ephemeral "captivity" of the soul in the body. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imam_Shamil#Musical_composition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imam_Shamil#Musical_compositio...

082349872349872 4y ago

Yeah, I've read descriptions of parties where they say the tone was such that V was used to request that people not bogart the spliffs, but I'm pretty sure that was meant as an illustrative joke. We got a reply email from a boutique hotel that said "btw we use the T form with our guests" and were (a) surprised (that it was not the V default) at first, then (b) concluded it would make sense that they'd send a warning to people who would otherwise cancel if they'd only learned it upon checkin. Also, don't forget there's a wide conservative-progressive spread within both judaism and the muslim world, so I would not be surprised if the pronouns used in prayer turned out to differ and could be used as shibboleth. (One project on my backburner is to collect music videos that are faithful to the beliefs of various points, all along these spectra)

082349872349872 4y ago
Hebrew as you mentioned doesn't have a T-V distinction, and neither does arabic. There appears to be some use of the 3rd person/titles in jewish prayer to contrast to the normal 2nd person, and islamic prayer does likewise (even though apparently "business arabic" has added the possibility of a marked 2nd person). So IIUC all the Abrahamic religions originally used an unmarked 2nd person, and have opted to translate this as the familiar-T in languages which do make the distinction. Lagniappe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4j55NKXeMk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4j55NKXeMk the Shamil Niggun, an orthodox jewish tune, whose denotation is the lament of a sunni muslim Caucasian Imam captured by orthodox christian Russian forces, and whose connotation is the ephemeral "captivity" of the soul in the body. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imam_Shamil#Musical_composition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imam_Shamil#Musical_compositio...