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Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

Here's a bit of my experience to back up how hard it is to separate out the cultural aspect: The English singular 'you' has two words for it in German, 'sie' and 'du'.

The first one is used in situations where there is some distance between the speakers, the second when they are (much) more familiar. It used to be fairly unheard of to hear a German 'subordinate' use 'du' to their superior, whereas in English it would be impossible to even express the difference.

So in Germany workplace relationships tend to have a sense of distance between the various strata. Even if you didn't want to change your personality the simple fact that you'd address your superior in this way would make you behave differently (and so you would show a more deferential personality), because associated with that distance are a whole pile of other personal traits.

It's not as strict as it used to be, but the difference is definitely still there.

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Korean and Japanese have several levels of deference, which go beyond a simple dual 2nd person pronoun. There are, for example, different 1st person pronouns which are used for self-reference when the listener is of various social ranks, or under different social circumstances.

In Japanese, for example, a man will say "watashi" for "I" under formal circumstances, and "ore" while getting a beer with the mates.

Same in Spanish ('usted' and 'tu', respectively).

And in most Indian languages.

And French, "tu" (familiar singular) and "vous" (formal singular, or plural).

English used to have "thou", but of course that's long since extinct.

Trivia, "thou" was actually the informal pronoun.

On the other hand in Mexican Spanish, "usted" is fading away. It's curious how different cultures get rid of different options.

"Usted" is alive and well in Argentinian Spanish. Divided by a common language indeed...

In Italian is almost like that: "tu" (familiar) and "voi" (very formal) or "lei" (less formal)

And Russian.

And Czech. And Dutch

And Afrikaans: jy (familiar), u (ever so formal), but u is (or seems to be) falling out of common use.

And in Turkish. "Sen" ve "Siz".

And Spanish, "Tu" vs "Usted" vs "Vos"

Hindi has three - tu, tum and aap. I explained some of this on my Hindi lessons site - http://hindipedia.com/hindi-video-lesson-04-pronouns.

The problem with the German version is that "Sie" also means "she" and "they". Usted at least does not mean "she."

So, are you talking about your sister… or are you talking to your superior? (My 2nd most hated thing about German.)

Italian also has "Lei" which means both she and you (in the formal sense).

But English has rules too. Not as clear cut as German, but you wouldn't say 'sup mate?' to you boss, you use a different vocabulary when talking to a superior.

As it used to be in English: "thou" and "you".

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