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About 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 p
by astrobe_ 13y ago
About 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