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Did English ever have a formal version of “you”?
- dhoulb 13y agoI was happy to be surprised by the answer!
- jjoe 13y agoWe're very happy with y'all here in Texas.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- js2 13y agoI thought in Texas it was all y'all.
- scarecrowbob 13y agoNot so much. That's farther east, generally speaking.
- gruseom 13y agoIt 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.
- scarecrowbob 13y agoI'm gonna upvote that just for you being a Texan and all.
- scarecrowbob 13y agoThough, to be honest, I think that the point of the op is formal, and not plural, 2-nd person address.
- sabbatic13 13y agoUnfortunately, y'all gets used as a singular pronoun as well.
- cobralibre 13y agoFellow Texan here. "Y'all" is plural, but certainly not formal. I hasten to add that "y'all" is clearly not used exclusively by Texans.
- jychang 13y agoY'all is singular. "All y'all" is plural.
- bane 13y agoIf the group being spoken to is exceptionally large, or it's clearly a group made of smaller groups (a group of groups), in some places "Alls y'all" is used. It's fascinating to note it when you hear it. edit also, if there's a possessive it gets pretty crazy, for example a tour guide, assembling several groups for a tour might say "Let's get together for alls y'all's tour".
- kjs3 13y agoNative of Georgia (US) here. We use "all y'all" as a possessive. I've never heard "alls y'all's" here, but have in the Southwest and thought it was linguistically slightly excessive. :-)
- kendalk 13y agoOklahoman here. We say "y'all" as plural. We also say "you all."
- kjs3 13y agoY'all is most certainly plural where I'm from (Southeast US).
- kjs3 13y agoY'all is most certainly plural where I'm from (Southeast US).
- sien 13y agoSimilarly in Australia we're happy with 'youse'.
- illumen 13y agoI wonder if a high percentage of illiteracy in each place coincides with a high amount of alternative language forms being used? 47% of Australians are functionally illiterate - http://www.abc.net.au/local/videos/2012/09/07/3585457.htm http://www.abc.net.au/local/videos/2012/09/07/3585457.htm Illiteracy in Texas (still ranked #1 in US?) - http://www.literacytexas.org/literacy_in_texas/facts_statistics.html http://www.literacytexas.org/literacy_in_texas/facts_statist...
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- vacri 13y agoIt 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?
- bunderbunder 13y agoIn some regional vernaculars, "y'all" is singular and "all y'all" is plural.
- groovy2shoes 13y agoInteresting. Here in North Carolina, "y'all" is generally plural, whereas "all y'all" is also plural but more emphatic, as in "I really do mean every last one of you", or sometimes simply to indicate a stronger emotional content, especially when angry.
- chiph 13y agoSouth Carolinian here that spent a lot of time in Raleigh & Charlotte and is now living in Austin. "y'all" can be both singular and plural, depending on the context. "All y'all" applies to larger groups (sometimes including people that aren't present), as well as with additional emphasis. "All y'all come by for supper" meaning you and your close family. And maybe even some other people as well, if there's room at the table for them.
- thro2 13y agoSounds like a slippery slope.
- Nicholas_C 13y agoNative Texan here. I've never really heard it being used as a form of "you" and that just seems silly to me. "Y'all" is definitely plural.
- GFK_of_xmaspast 13y agoAnd now we're back in the "use the plural when talking to a single person to be formal" that started this whole thing.
- samatman 13y agoI'm having trouble finding a reference, but it's my understanding that the Dissenter (later Quaker) habit of referring to everyone as 'thou' regardless of rank is precisely what lead to 'you' becoming universal. If one wasn't a Dissenter, one surely didn't want to be mistaken for such.
- lukeschlather 13y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T–V_distinction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T–V_distinction has some extensive discussion. The version I heard is roughly that, though I recall a professor blaming it on Cromwell's commonwealth rather than the Quakers (after the commonwealth fell thee/thou went completely out of favor.)
- saraid216 13y agoThere's a certain point in historical linguistics where plausibility becomes the main explanation. Usually when asking, "Why did everyone adopt this particular pattern?" Narrowing down a Patient Zero for the "and that's how my mom said it" effect is basically impossible even today, nevermind via combing through records.
- amw 13y agoI keep being surprised this isn't common knowledge, but then I remember I married a Quaker
- mnw21cam 13y agoI thought it was common knowledge. I mean, if it comes up at school at age 8, it's not exactly high learning.
- evincarofautumn 13y agoNice to see English on here. I’m one of the more active users there (Jon Purdy) and it’s a great resource. :)
- nmodu 13y agoha yea I was on english[dot]stackexchange this morning reading through that thread, and I come home and it's at the top of HN
- sabbatic13 13y agoIt's also the first time all the work that went into my doctoral exam in Proto-Indo-European Verbal Morphology has been relevant to, well, anything on HN. O.K., it's pronouns, but I had to study those too.
- bhickey 13y agoHemingway's abuse of language in For Whom the Bell Tolls always drove me. He uses you in place of tu and thou as usted.
- gruseom 13y agoDo you have an example? That seems like a howler that surely his editor would have caught if he didn't.
- andyjohnson0 13y agoIt was intentional. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_Whom_the_Bell_Tolls#Language http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_Whom_the_Bell_Tolls#Languag...
- maaku 13y agoThat's how the words are typically understood among modern English speakers...
- rcruzeiro 13y agoIn 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.
- mixmastamyk 13y agoThe Roman empire spread latin far and wide.
- maaku 13y agoyes, that completely explains a phenomenon that arose in the early middle ages.
- digisign 13y agoMore helpful, less of an ass, please.
- davidw 13y ago> I think that Thou, Du, Tu have all the same origin as they sound so similar. I think they're all Indo-European in origin, not a result of the Roman empire: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-European_languages http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-European_languages
- cesarbs 13y agoBut in the south of Brazil (RS) we just address everyone as "tu" :) Some Brazilians from other states seem to find that rude sometimes.
- rcruzeiro 13y agoThe "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 ;)
- _ZeD_ 13y agoAs 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.
- davidw 13y agoI live in the north, but when learning Italian, we were taught that 'lei' is the correct one, while 'voi' is sort of archaic. You see/hear it in, say, comic books like this one, set in the 1800's: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tex_Willer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tex_Willer
- slurry 13y agoI remember Massimo d'Alema (a former prime minister and minister) using "ella" which is some kind of regional/archaic form of "lei".
- gruseom 13y agoIn 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.
- mjolk 13y agoI don't understand - why would it be offensive to have to use the formal case with each other in a parliament? Is the idea that вы ('vih'/'vy') implies formality/lack of familiarity and the Polish wanted a more conversational tone in their governance?
- pessimizer 13y agoI think the point was that it was Russian, not Polish.
- mjolk 13y ago....ohhhh (I feel dumb now). Thanks!
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- fsck--off 13y agoSecond person used to be: Singular----|----Plural Thou Ye, You Thee You Thine Yours Thy Your Which correspond to the nominative, objective, and possessive cases accordingly. By the way, the "Ye" is not related to the "Ye" in store signs that say "Ye Olde...". Y was sometimes used by typographers instead of the Old English letter Þ(Thorn), which makes a "Th" sound, so those store signs should be pronounced as "The Old..." The usage of "You" instead of "Thou" began in the 14th century. It was originally used in token of respect when addressing a superior, and eventually began to be used when addressing equals. EDIT: Removed part about "you all", because some things I said were wrong and others I will have to look up.
- ghayes 13y agoAccording to Merriam-Webster, "you all" is very clearly related to "y'all" [1][2] [1] http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/y'all http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/y'all [2] http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/you_all http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/you_all
- groovy2shoes 13y ago"Y'all" is a contraction of "you all" [1], but let's not forget about "you guys" or "yous guys". [1] http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=y%27all http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=y%27all
- tikwidd 13y agoA 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. [Sara Malton] [1] has some interesting ideas about how the you/thee distinction developed in the semantic dimensions of power as well as familiarity in Early Modern English. There are many new 2p. plural forms developing in English that vary regionally and socially, e.g y'all, you guys, yous, you'uns (-> yinz), all y'all. [1]: http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~cpercy/courses/6361Malton.htm http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~cpercy/courses/6361Malton.ht...
- friendzis 13y agoIn languages I know formal version of "you" (local version of singular second person) is plural form of the same word. Historical explanation is rather simple. Remember history lessons: kings used to say "we, the king, think..." meaning that the king is a representative of some group. Due to this language quirk when addressing such a person formally you actually address whole group the person represents, hence the plural form of "you". In informal environment one usually addresses the same person directly, hence the singular form being not so much formal. Simple as that :)
- kevinpet 13y agoThis isn't universal. German is a counter example -- the formal Sie derives from the third person plural, while it still preserves Du and Ihr for informal second person with singular and plural. I don't know Spanish well, but it probably contradicts this as well. Usted and Ustedes are not related to vosotros (informal second person informal, not used in the Americas) and take the verbs for third person like German. It's not anything so specific as a group. It's about distancing or impersonalizing the speech. It's too direct to say "Do you want something to drink?" and instead the phrasing could be "Does the gentleman want something to drink?" We do something similar with phrasing like "if you would like" or in German using subjunctive forms of many verbs like "I would like" / "Ich möchte" / "quisiera" instead of "I want" / "Ich mag" / "quiero".
- jacquesgt 13y agoIn Italian, the third person feminine is formal. The first person plural is also formal, but (I believe) it's archaic. So, when speaking formally, one would say "can she help me?" to mean "can you help me?"
- jejones3141 13y agoI read long ago in a book by Mario Pei that "usted" was originally "vuestra merced" (your grace).
- gdwatson 13y ago
- moskie 13y agoThis 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 I'm sure this connection can be better explained than I'm able to, but it was a mini-epiphany for me while studying the language.
- joshbetz 13y agoDu isn't formal though?
- moskie 13y agoRight, and neither is thou.
- tikwidd 13y agoThis is the result of the High German Consonant Shift [1]. English - many accents, at least - retain the dental fricatives (th-sounds) that were shifted to alveolar stops (d and t sounds) in High German. Dental fricatives are relatively rare sounds among the world's languages. Icelandic and European Spanish are the only languages I can think of that have dental fricative phonemes. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_German_consonant_shift http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_German_consonant_shift
- 13y ago
- VaedaStrike 13y agoThis makes me want to see a poll HN to see how many have read any amount of The KJV, and how much they've read.
- gdwatson 13y agoDoesn't the KJV avoid the formal-plural convention entirely? Most of my reading has been in newer versions, but I seem to recall that it used thou for singular and ye for plural very consistently; I sometimes wish for that distinction in modern Bible translations.
- nolanpro 13y agoI know a guy who got to meet Queen Elizabeth. He was required to go through a royal customs seminar before meeting her. Apparently, you NEVER use "you" when talking to the queen. You can't say "Would you like some tea?". You must say "Would Your Majesty like some tea?". Hows that for formal.
- hangonhn 13y agoIsn't that what you do with most royalties and other archaic classes? Your Holy Grace for bishops, etc.?
- RamiK 13y agoOlder English man still use indirect speech when referring to themselves and the person they're talking to if there's a significant class difference or even gender. Sometimes they'll even avoid posing questions altogether: "One would like to request your company for tea if it not too inconvenient...". Makes everyone sound like a wedding invitation. :)
- henderson101 13y agoI still use "One" quite a lot in writing (especially forums) when I need to discuss your personal opinion without implying that I'm speaking for the other parties in the conversation. i.e. "You often see cars speeding along this road" <- perfectly valid and the context can be taken from the way it is delivered in speach, but could be misread to imply that the writer thinks the person they are addressing sees the cars. "One often sees cars speeding along this road" <- unambiguous.
- nisse72 13y agoSwedish has du (singular) and ni (plural). Prior to the "du-reform" in the late 1960's however, ni was also used as a formal singular form, but for the last 40 or so years the formal form has been dropped, leaving ni for plural only. In fact many older people would find it mildly insulting to be addressed singular ni today. Of course there are a few exceptions, most notably when addressing members of the royal family. If you ever get to speak with one of them, the correct way is to address them by title, in third person ("would her majesty like fries with that?"). Around 8 or 10 years ago I started to notice a trend, particularly among younger people (in their late teens maybe), typically working in shops and cafes, who started once again to use singular ni with customers, but I haven't lived in Sweden for several years now and don't know if that's continued. I hope not!
- ptr 13y agoCould this be dialectal? Because I hear "ni" now and then, and I've also found myself using it a couple of times -- not through intent, but rather automatically. Maybe it's the "new trend" you're talking about.
- nisse72 13y agoMaybe it's a central Stockholm thing, I don't really know. And I certainly didn't mean to imply that it was common, I only noticed it now and then and vaguely recall some mention of it on P1 Språket or in the newspaper, that it seemed to be making a return. I've only ever known du, would never use ni except for a group, and feel odd being called ni myself. Not insulted mind you, closest I can describe it is like when a small child refers to you as "that man" but you're only 16 or 17. :) Ok, did some googling... This from P1 Språket says that it wasn't a trend in 2004 (but then why were they asking?): http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=411&artikel=390269 http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=411&arti... And this blog from 2008, in response to a column in DN that I can't find in their archive: http://lingvistbloggen.ling.su.se/?p=352 http://lingvistbloggen.ling.su.se/?p=352 And finally this in DN from 2013: http://www.dn.se/insidan/fjask-eller-respekt-ar-du-pa-vag-att-bli-ni-igen/ http://www.dn.se/insidan/fjask-eller-respekt-ar-du-pa-vag-at... So trend or not, it certainly seems to be a recurring topic of discussion in Sweden!
- hangonhn 13y agoThe original asker made a minor error. Chinese isn't in the Proto-Indo-European language family. It is in the Sino-Tibetan family.
- Gigablah 13y agoRegarding the comment on the Chinese character 您 at the bottom of that page: it's still very much in use (formal letters, ceremony speeches, etc). I can't add a reply though, because apparently I need 50 reputation. I can't upvote, because I need 10 reputation. You know what, StackExchange? I'll just stay away from your site with all the barriers to participation that you throw up.
- eridius 13y agoYou say barriers to participation, I say anti-spam measures. Have you really never used any StackExchange site, though? Once you've used one, you get 100 free rep when signing up on any other StackExchange site, which is enough to perform all the basic actions (posting, commenting, voting, etc).
- Gigablah 13y agoI have an account on StackOverflow and I linked it to my new english.stackexchange.com account, but I didn't get any free rep.
- ciupicri 13y agoI'm in the same situation as you, except I got my 100 points. Perhaps you should report this on one of the meta sites.
- eridius 13y agoDo you have any StackOverflow rep? I would assume it only gives you MIN(100, otherAccountRep), so if your SO rep is 0 I'm guessing your new account also gets 0.
- Gigablah 13y agoI do, 131 rep on my SO account.
- astrobe_ 13y agoAbout the top answer: Latin as no pronouns, but it has 2 distinct forms for singular and plural second person in conjugation. I don't remember, though, if the plural form was used as a polite form at least in the texts we have.
- ghayes 13y agoLatin certainly has pronouns, e.g. `ego` for 'I'. They are not strictly required as a subject nominative, but they come up in a variety of circumstances (mihi nomen est...) See declensions in Wiktionary: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ego#Latin http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ego#Latin
- sabbatic13 13y agoWhat I think you meant to say is that Latin does not use pronouns in its verbal conjugations. That's a feature of most ancient Indo-European languages. It did, of course, have a full suite of pronouns used in other contexts.
- sabbatic13 13y agoOh, and no, the plural wasn't used as a formal singular. It was idiomatic to occasionally use the first person plural to refer to oneself (you can see this in Cicero's letters), but it had nothing to do with formality or some sort of "royal we."
- ghayes 13y agoWait, I definitely learned of the royal "we" in Latin. Specifically, this came up in Apollo and Daphne[1], with much of Apollo's first speech in the first-person plural referring exclusively to himself. We were taught in class that it was related to his arrogance to use a royal "we", which is a large theme of the story. [1] http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Daphne_and_Apollo http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Daphne_and_Apollo
- lexcorvus 13y agoIn case you're wondering, the "PIE" referred to in some of the answers is "proto-Indo-European" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo-European_language http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo-European_language).
- kubiiii 13y agoI learned this while playing Ultima 7, serpent isle. I literally learned english as a teenager while playing that game. Thanks Origin for that.
- merkitt 13y agoGreetings 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 to you. This leads to some difficult and sometimes hilarious situations: - Children, family members and lovers are often addressed "oya". Using this on your boss or teacher could lead to problems. More acceptable when used by women and girls than by men. - There's no way to informally address a superior without a salutation or a name. This leads to people repeatedly using a person's name or salutation in the same sentence. E.g. "Sir, should I have that report sir asked for on sir's desk before sir leaves for sir's doctor's appointment?" - Some old fashioned couples have entire conversations (and sometimes marriages) without using second person pronouns because they don't have a single version they feel comfortable with. - Male friends of roughly equal age tend to call each other "machang" -- a term that is well known to those who have known Sri Lankans, and roughly translates to "dude". - There's no safe version of "you" that a young man can use on another that he has just met. Most risk using "machang", but could result in offense if addressing someone of higher social standing. This is solved by constructing sentences that avoid the word entirely. - Most children, especially from my generation, do not feel comfortable using second person pronouns on their parents. They just repeat "mother/father" wherever the word "you" is supposed to appear. - Sometimes the sentences are spoken with the word entirely omitted (like in Latin) -- "Can come over here?", "Did lock the door?"
- StavrosK 13y agoThat's extremely interesting! So people speak in the third person ("did mother want me to get mother's groceries"), or is this a second person still?
- userulluipeste 13y agoIt'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!").
- saltysugar 13y agoWe Vietnamese don't even have anything equivalent to "you". We use "friend/friends" (we don't distinguish between plural and singular) for a generic "you". Otherwise, in social situation, we have to figure out the relative social order to address the other person, i.e. calling them by titles/roles such as aunt/uncle/mom/dad etc. It's a big headache cause it can be very awkward to use one pronoun (for example, calling a woman was "younger sis") and she turns out to be older - it can be impolite, but then some women will be offended if you call them as "older sister" right away, because, ugh, you consider them older. God, it's a convoluted mess of pronouns :(
- Grue3 13y agoI'm not even a native English speaker and I knew that. Is this really news to people here?
- hvfl3 13y agoTake a random word. The proportion of people who know its etymology will be low. Is that really news to you? This is Hacker News, not Linguist News. I don't really understand this attitude. I once made a joke about the Swedish word for sandwich - which is literally "butter goose" - and a humorless immigrant got all pissy about how Swedes are so ignorant, they don't even know that "butter goose" doesn't refer to actual geese etc etc. (Coincidentally, I did know the etymology but knowing it would not detract from the joke.)
- hugofirth 13y agoTrust the British to settle on the formal version.
- jwmoz 13y agoIn the West Midlands we have 'ya'.
- nraynaud 13y agoActually there is another form of formal addressing that is more like the spanish and german: "her majesty", "his holiness" (with the equivalents in French, "son altesse", "sa sainteté"). This closes some gap between those languages, and show that there is also a remaining formal address in modern English and there are 2 in modern french. (next time, examples of present continuous in modern french)
- JoeAltmaier 13y agoI thought 'ye' was a corruption, a misinterpretation of the rune for 'th' combined with 'e'; on a sign 'Ye olde boars head' was really 'The old boars head'. So there was really a 'ye'? Explains the confusion I guess.
- random_number 13y agoYou, sir, are expecting too much from your audience. It's interesting in that the assumption of formality in 'you, sir,' suggests the speaker is about to be rather discourteous in the following clause.
- rootbear 13y agoAs a former Southerner, who grew up with "y'all", and a fan of Shakespearean English, I have to say that I've always been sorry that English lost its distinct second person singular pronouns. We've had to come up with all sorts of work-arounds as a result. I always thought it odd that Esperanto adopted this "feature", presumably from English: Singular Plural first person mi (I) ni (we) second person vi (you) third person masculine li (he) ili (they) feminine ŝi (she) epicene ĝi (it, s/he) Not one of Zamenhof's better choices, in my opinion. There is an informal second person singular pronoun, ci (thou), but as I recall it was only used in certain circumstances. If any Esperantists reading this know why Zamenhof used vi for both singular and plural, I'd love to know.
- ohearb 13y agoI think that by now, you is pretty commonly accepted as both formal and informal.