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.<p>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 want to keep a perception of superiority to you for eg. being older, more tenured, etc. Often you'd rather choose not to even engage in a conversation and just keep your thoughts to yourself. Better than ending up in a inferior position when choosing the safe V, or risking insulting someone when using the informal T form.<p>This felt to me like one of the reasons why English became the dominant language for business over time. Together with simplified morphology (you only need to learn the plural by adding 's' at the end, vs. 5+ other tenses of each word) it just ended up being much easier to pick up and less risky to engage in conversations and therefore higher chances of adoption by non-speakers.<p>[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%E2%80%93V_distinction" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%E2%80%93V_distinction</a>
I had never until just now considered the possibility that “you” might be the thorn misprint of “thou”, just like how in “ye olde shoppe” was (according to legend) pronounced “the old shop” because Y got used in printing presses as a stand-in for the thorn “Þ” character they didn’t have, that looks kinda-sorta like a Y.<p>Seems like the answers suggest I’m just imagining something that didn’t happen, but it was a fun thought.
In my native Texan English, "y'all" can certainly act as a singular polite "you" (EDIT: though it is not terribly common). I often use "Howdy, how y'all doin?" as a polite greeting to people I don't know regardless of the number of people I am addressing, though switch to just "you" after making acquaintance. Funny enough, "howdy" is a contraction of the older "how do ye" and some people still consider it both a greeting _and_ an inquiry, so in some cases it's redundant, and others it isn't, depending on the listener.
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.<p>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 worth my time in the first place.<p>Luckily we don't have gendered pronouns though, so we can avoid that problem altogether.<p>I think in the end best and most scalable language is the one that avoids having any implications in the "you" or "pronouns". We are all humans after all.
> This explains a peculiarity of traditional Quaker speech, which one often hears in films set in the early Americas. The Quakers opposed making any distinctions of rank, so they insisted on addressing everyone as thou, not as you. The irony is that today we perceive thou to be archaic and formal, while the original intent is to be more informal.<p>In german, the distinction between formal and informal address is disappearing into the informal address. It's interesting that the Quakers also tried this, but that in english (the first language were this distinction disappeared?) it ultimatly disappeared into the formal address.
The same happened with Portuguese in Brazil, 'Vós Mercês', which is formal, is used throughout the country as (simplified) 'você'. And the informal form, 'tu', is rarely used (only in the South).
<i>Afterthought: the post below illustrates the paucity of modern English in that nowadays in modern English no distinction is made between the second and third person 'you' whereas in other languages such as German it still is.</i><p>__<p>I've mentioned on HN previously when discussing languages that when my father was learning German his old textbook had the English <i>thee, thou,</i> and <i>thine/thy</i> as the second person for the German second person <i>du.</i><p>One of the faux pas for English speakers when learning German is the incorrect usage of <i>du.</i> They mistakenly use <i>du</i> instead of <i>sie</i> because it's more informal than <i>sie</i> not realizing that in German it is reserved for the closest of relationships such as family, lovers etc.<p>Essentially, in German <i>du</i> — the equivalent form of the second person English <i>thou</i> — is still a part of the living language whereas in English <i>thou</i> is now archaic.<p>The correct usage of <i>du</i> became immediately obvious to me after seeing my father's textbook. For the life of me I cannot understand why modern English textbooks simply substitute <i>you</i> for <i>du,</i> it's just crazy as it leads to much confusion.<p><i>Thou</i> and variants are understood by most native English speakers even if the term is now archaic so it makes sense to use it instead of <i>you</i> in textbooks for learning German. Just one additional paragraph would be needed to explain and clean up the <i>you/du</i> mess.<p>I have been trying for years to find out why the authors of modern (current) textbooks now use <i>you</i> instead of <i>thou.</i> I'd be most grateful if someone who knows the rationale behind it would post the reason.<p>Incidentally, my father's textbook was published sometime around 1930, so this <i>you</i> substitution is a relatively recent phenomena.
For flowery speech we escalate to sentence fragments. Your Grace, Your Eminence, Madam President, Your Honor. Or honorifics in front of or around proper names, like Mister Rogers, Doctor House, Nurse Ratched (anarchic now, the doctors have one that PR campaign) or “General Granger, Sir”. There are some parliamentary ones that pretty much only show on in Congress and on CSPAN.
"Thou" sounds very similar to german "du" which is the current informal form.
In older german the second person plural ('Ihr', similar to "vous" french from which "you" may come) was also the formal form, but it's out of fashion for a few centuries now.
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)
It’s just like Southwestern Brazilian Portuguese uses “você” as the informal second person singular, while ironically the origin of this word is the formal version of this pronoun. Currently the formal second person singular is actually a third-person pronoun, “o senhor” or “a senhora” depending on the gender. Although there is incredible differences in how the formal/informal pronouns are applied: in my family we were taught to only use the informal with everybody no matter what, and in some of my friends’ families the practice is to use the formal even when addressing one’s parents.
Also interesting: Apparently, "they" started being used as singular long "you" for singular: <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/singular-nonbinary-they" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/singular-nonbinary-...</a>
I am learning European Portuguese, which very much still has formal vs informal and interestingly, using Você (formal singular second person) can actually be insulting, as I think it means you think the other person is old.<p>So they drop the Você but still use the formal verb conjugation.<p>Navigating cultural language rules can be hard...
There is no you. It's just an illusion in consciousness. Disagree?<p>Try to find and locate the you in the next 5 mins.<p>There are only sensations, images, thoughts and sound which rises and go in consciousness. No you.<p>Unless a thought comes and says thats you. But it's again just a thought.
The page also gets into the plural form being used for the singular over time (as is increasingly the case with English, at least in the US, when you want to avoid specifying a masculine or feminine third-person singular).
In German, we have the formal "Sie" and the informal "du". The formal means of address is dying incredibly fast. It's been a huge change just in the past 10 years or so. I'm not a linguist, but I'm pretty sure this is due to the influence of English, which is everywhere.<p>Just as an example: as a gray-haired professor, I use "du" and my first name with my students. I may be an outlier in my generation, but that is entirely normal for younger colleagues. 10 years ago, that would have been...strange. 20 years ago, it was unheard of.
Second person pronouns are so fascinating!<p>Not only is "you" the formal, polite plural form, but calling someone "thou" was also seen as so informal as to be rude (in verb form, to "thou" someone). This has a modern equivalent in the term "tutoyer" in French.<p><a href="https://www.etymonline.com/word/thou" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.etymonline.com/word/thou</a><p>An interesting counterpoint is the usage in Japanese of sarcastically polite forms like お前 and 貴様, where you use a pronoun with a surface meaning of extreme respect, as a form of insult.
I think about what’s discussed often as it relates to euphemisms. For example, exonyms for minorities or disabled people changes all the time. My theory is that euphemisms are “disposable” in that they start “clean” with no external meaning or definition and therefore can’t be perceived as negative. Over time, it absorbs meaning and context and eventually it becomes as “dirty” as word it supplanted and the cycle continues.
In German, we use "sie" the German equivalent of "they".<p>Thus, to be polite, you address someone as many people that aren't part of the conversation.
On a side note, I always thought the absence of "formal you" made english-speaking countries more laid-back. This is usually a good thing, because it makes ideas and information circulate more smoothly.<p>But like everything, it has some drawbacks : the constant need to level everything and to some kind of hypocrisy.<p>I have nothing to back my intuition on, just some Sapir-Whorfish reasoning...
I'm trying to learn German and though it's probably frowned upon, I would prefer to just use "Sie" for everything because it's less to remember and just simplifies so many things. I wonder if my ancestors had the same thoughts, which is how the formal "You" just took over as the only thing we really use in English.
It's weird how plural form is seen as polite.<p>Maybe it was because if you were meeting unknown person you might verbally assume they are a part of some group. Either to put them at ease so they know they are not perceived as lonely prey or to safeguard yourself by communicating that you are aware and prepared that more of them might be hiding in the bushes.
There’s a part in Hamlet where Claudius (Hamlet’s uncle, the one who killed Hamlet’s father and married his mother Gertrude and became king) tells Gertrude, “go talk to <i>your</i> son” after Hamlet angers him. Note that it’s not “our son” or even “thy son”—the choice of “you” here is really biting once you know the distinction.
The Goblin Emperor by Sarah Monette (writing as Katherine Addison) is a secondary world fantasy that uses you/thou as a way of incorporating formality. It's interesting way of helping understand the whole manner/formality system of the setting.
'Thou' was used to refer to someone of a lower social rank and also to indicate intimacy or familiarity. AFAIK 'thee' was used in a similar way.<p>In some parts of the UK, thou is still used. Certainly I have been addressed in this way in the past.
I grew up in the Soviet Union, and once when I was being particularly terrible my mom informed me that English-speaking children are probably much better, and that they even address their parents as вы (you-polite).
Related:<p><i>Did English ever have a formal version of “you”?</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7215834">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7215834</a> - Feb 2014 (193 comments)
The more complex a language is the easier is to express complex ideas.<p>Imagine a language with just two words. Can you think or say anything in it? Sure, but it isn't going to be easy.
Knowing that "you" is the formal and "thou" is the informal is hard to grasp. I can't imagine saying "f--- thou, buddy!"
The formal thing is the lesser issue in my view.<p>The larger issue, is the lack of distinction between the singular and plural - 'you' stands in for both.
I thought "you" <i>was</i> the formal version and "thou" was informal. Didn't read the article though. No time right now but I'll do so later.<p>I'm happy more languages drop this formal stuff though. In Dutch it's also pretty uncommon now to say "U". And I like it.<p>In fact it used to be much worse, when I was young every agenda came with a whole page of formal verbiage for people of different roles (like ministers, judges and other officials). I don't think anyone uses that stuff anymore.
This is kind of interesting when you think of what would happen if someone decided to "impose" the use of "you" instead of "thou".
In English it happened organically.
Take communist Poland, for example. The ruling party was all about changing how people talked, pushing words like "comrade" and all. But their attempt to make people use the plural form for a single person totally backfired (as did the use of "comrade"). It felt so out of place that when communism fell, the old way of speaking came roaring back and the distinction between "thou" and "you" is now stronger than ever before. Just goes to show, some things you just shouldn't be forced. Language change is definitely one of those things.<p>Makes me wonder in what interesting ways the current wave of English language manipulation (neo-pronouns, "blocklists" etc.) will backfire.
There is a scene in The Lord of the Rings (Book) where Éowyn switches to using "thou" and "thee" when begging Aragorn to take her with him when he takes the Paths of the Dead.<p>If you don't know (as I didn't for a long time) that she has switched to intimate/informal language then the scene has less impact. Especially since Aragorn keeps things formal in his reply.<p><a href="http://coco.raceme.org/literature/lordoftherings/returnking/quotes/eowyn.php" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://coco.raceme.org/literature/lordoftherings/returnking/...</a>
More info:
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thou" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thou</a><p>This should be common knowledge for native English speakers. It's hard to read Shakespeare without knowing this. But for non-native speaker, this would be mysterious.