Second person used to be:<p>Singular----|----Plural<p><pre><code> Thou Ye, You
Thee You
Thine Yours
Thy Your
</code></pre>
Which correspond to the nominative, objective, and possessive cases accordingly.<p>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 "<i>The</i> Old..."<p>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.<p>EDIT: Removed part about "you all", because some things I said were wrong and others I will have to look up.
Greetings from a speaker of a linguistic oddity that <i>doesn't</i> have a universal form of the word "you".<p>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:<p>- 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.<p>- 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?"<p>- 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.<p>- 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".<p>- 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.<p>- 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.<p>- Sometimes the sentences are spoken with the word entirely omitted (like in Latin) -- "Can come over here?", "Did lock the door?"
This 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.<p>For example, the letter "d" in German corresponding to "th" in English:<p><pre><code> die/der/das -> the
drei -> three
Donner -> thunder
Ding -> thing
daher -> therefore
</code></pre>
and, most relevant to this discussion:<p><pre><code> du -> thou
</code></pre>
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.
Swedish has <i>du</i> (singular) and <i>ni</i> (plural). Prior to the "du-reform" in the late 1960's however, <i>ni</i> was also used as a formal singular form, but for the last 40 or so years the formal form has been dropped, leaving <i>ni</i> for plural only. In fact many older people would find it mildly insulting to be addressed singular <i>ni</i> today.<p>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?").<p>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 <i>ni</i> with customers, but I haven't lived in Sweden for several years now and don't know if that's continued. I hope not!
In Polish, you don't use the plural <i>vy</i> 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 <i>vy</i>. 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.
Regarding 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).<p>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.
As an aside note, italian has "two" formal versions of "you".<p>The informal one, "tu", is common on all the peninsula.<p>The formal version "voi" (2nd person plural) is more common in the south of the Italy (it's a reminiscent of the spanish invasions).<p>The formal version "lei" (3rd person singular) is more common in the north of the Italy.
I'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.
I 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.
In case you're wondering, the "PIE" referred to in some of the answers is "proto-Indo-European" (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo-European_language" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo-European_language</a>).
Hemingway's abuse of language in <i>For Whom the Bell Tolls</i> always drove me. He uses <i>you</i> in place of <i>tu</i> and <i>thou</i> as <i>usted</i>.
We Vietnamese don't even have anything equivalent to "you".<p>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.<p>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 :(
As 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.<p>I always thought it odd that Esperanto adopted this "feature", presumably from English:<p><pre><code> 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)
</code></pre>
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.
In 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 :)
In Portuguese and German there are still the formal and informal cases:
Formal : Você,
Informal: Tu<p>The same thing in German:
Formal : Sie,
Informal: Du<p>I am not a linguistics guy but I think that Thou, Du, Tu have all the same origin as they sound so similar.
Actually 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.<p>(next time, examples of present continuous in modern french)
I 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'.<p>So there was really a 'ye'? Explains the confusion I guess.
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.
You, sir, are expecting too much from your audience.<p>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.