Did English ever have a formal version of "you"? (2011)
english.stackexchange.com
english.stackexchange.com
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.
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.
We all speak English because at one point the English practically owned the entire planet.
In the 19th and early 20th century the British owned the seas, a post 1945 another English speaking country has - the United States.
Ironically the one biggest thing which presents an ideological advantage for Esperanto is that it's native to no nation, so all the people who speak it are closer to being equals in that regard; yet it is the imperialism and a large number of native speakers which has helped to make English so prevalent. So just being technically and morally superior doesn't win you adoption by a long shot, even if you try.
And it may be of note for this post that the original author of Esperanto was very conscious of this whole formal/informal issue, which is why he opted to introduce only the plural second person pronoun into practice.
But as an international language? I think having everyone learn something that is comparatively easy to learn is certainly more fair than having most people learn something that is comparatively hard to learn and understood by others from the get-go, thereby giving the latter an unfair advantage. And I feel that being more fair in this regard is indeed morally superior.
(Then again, that might just boil down to one's own idea of morality. But I feel like this one shouldn't be all too uncommon, and the claim is entirely reasonable in its terms.)
Not saying that this is it's main problem, and other constructed languages like Lojban are probably even less relevant despite trying to be more "culturally neutral".
Even then, it's a very big jump from ‘people in some countries already know this and don’t need to learn at all’ to ‘people in some countries will have an easier time learning since they’ll recognise a lot of the words’; making this jump would already be a great improvement upon the status quo. Out of the languages which make the jump, Esperanto is by far the most widely spoken and otherwise used in practice.
ETA: They lost WW1 too, but German remained our #1 foreign language.
Which in our case is false. We stopped learning German as a second language because of the Nazi aggression and atrocities during WW2, and started learning English as a second language due to their aid and closer relations during the war.
But yes, it's obviously not because of any linguistic merit.
No significant minority of ethnic Germans, and I think trade with Germany and the UK was roughly comparable.
When my dad did his chemistry degrees (a bachelors and a masters by research) in the late 1960s / early 1970s (Australia), they made him do a unit on how to read German, because that is the language of a lot of the older chemistry literature. I don’t think they care anywhere near as much about German in chemistry nowadays, although (from what I understand) learning to read German is still an expectation for some humanities PhDs (such as Egyptology)
Seems a bit quaint now - but at least it got me to learn German and even spend six months studying at the University of Heidelberg.
So still not really due to some intrinsic merits of the language.
It's not coincidence, it's causal :D
In Persian if someone expects to be spoken with formally, they have to speak formally themselves. So when you speak formally you're kinda bringing both parties up. You can even flirt by speaking formally.
Sorry for all the questions. I just found it fascinating.
But I could relate it, as it was a "chic" thing to do in my parts too back in the day (until around the 1970s), for upper class folks (using the polite forms of address, and so on).
A good analogy in English terms might be the flirting with all the speaking formalities in period movies live "Room with a view" or "Pride and Prejudice".
On the other hand you can't dirty talk with a straight face in Persian, since nobody has ever heard or read about it, it sounds super funny.
I recall the One-Thousand-and-One Nights being quite bawdy (talking about lusting after well-endowed servants, IIRC); maybe that's not authentic Persian literature though?
Maybe I misunderstood "nobody has ever read or heard about it"?
Can you help me better understand your comment, thanks.
New Persian literature starts around Rudaki (9th century). Since Islam made sex and showing affection taboo, the tiny fraction of explicit erotica are not studied/known by the general public. Because of the taboo, majority of Persians have not ever heard their parents speak affectionately. And when we study affectionate literature in school the teachers tell us it's about the love for God, and the exams will question us about such love.
The V is gradually being dropped in Spain and in the last few decades the process seems to have accelerated, though, definitely it seems faster than in French (although I don't know that much about French). I don't think my 4-year-old son will have much use for the V in his life. And like your parent comment, I also think that's probably for the best in our case, although it does sound like it's probably different in Persian.
vos is not really formal in Argentinian Spanish, although it does share an etymologocal root with vuestro merced/Usted.
Argentinian Spanish is itself pretty different from other Latin American dialects, but in general vos is used interchangeably with tú, to the point where the accusative form of "vos" is also te - ie, "Vos te levantás" instead of "tú te levantas" (note the location of the accents in each example).
The connotations of formality (or lack thereof) are subtle and vary much more widely than you might imagine - far more than the comment limit on HN would permit - but by and large it's better to think of vos as the informal pronoun, and the only question is whether it's used alongside tú, in place of it, or in some weird combination that has its own subtle connotations.
I own a Spanish textbook printed (in English) in 1958 that says about «usted»: ‘It is the universal respectful address of society, and the only one the foreigner is ever likely to employ or hear addressed to him, unless he marries a native or forms intimate friendships.’ How times have changed!
E.g.,
Formal polite: military, business email, public announcement
Formal non-polite: textbooks, novels
Informal polite: kids' books, between coworkers, between customer and clerk
Informal non-polite: siblings, childhood friends, mom to kids
Quebec french is standardised by the OQLF (Office Québécois de la Langue Française) and the formal/informal distinction is as important in our french as it is in other cultures. The reason it might seem less common is because most conversations people have are informal. In formal settings, it is still expected of people to use "vous" rather than "tu". It is seen as polite and some people might even take offence to the informal being used when they do not know their interlocutor personally.
I don't know where you got that from.
In spoken French, in cases of unfamiliarity it would be more common in France to use the formal “vous” than in a place like Montreal where you’ll see “tu” still used.
When I say it “seems to be in the process” it’s because of how I’ve heard the language spoken. (Admittedly in Montreal and French Ontario and not other parts of Quebec).
Popular French (from France!) YouTuber Loïc Suberville actually notes this difference in a video a couple weeks ago (jump to 1:25 ish).
It’s something he noticed as a “metro French” speaker. And he’s made a career now out of looking at the absurdities of spoken language.
(https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PzNHyk2JAas&t=83s)
Yes there is an official “language board” but that’s aspirational and not a law. Language is a reflection of how people use it.
I agree that in a formal conversation people will use “vous” (and we see similar splits of language in English “on the news” vs what people actually use), but there’s way less use of “vous” in Quebec for a lot of situations.
When I was in high school (10y ago) we were forced to use "vous" when speaking to an adult.
That is why OP said your statement was false.
Not quite what I said.
> That is why OP said your statement was false.
There's something ironic here when the nuance of language is lost. Saying something "seems" a certain way is a personal observation. "It seems colder in this room" isn't a false statement if the room is measured and it wasn't actually colder.
> Quebec French seems to be in the process of dropping the formal.
I stand by it. It's an observation from speaking to people. They use 'vous' much less. And it's a comment on the process -- the shift.
> I positively hate it. I can't count the number of times where I heard (roughly): Can I continue speaking with you using "tu"?
I think you're agreeing with me? If situations where the question of whether or not the "formal" is required is becoming less and less inherently obvious, then that's an indicator of the shift. People want to use the comfortable form.
> When I was in high school (10y ago) we were forced to use "vous" when speaking to an adult.
Do you think that younger persons use the form "vous" less and less? Or do you think that they use it just as much as your age group? That's literally the "process" of language -- the younger dictate the rules. Language shifts. And I suspect the high school curriculum is an attempt to 'standardise' and for the 'proper' ways -- but things like the internet and casual speak will work against it. And formal forms may get relegated to professional situations. And, contrary to the poster that said it can seem impolite, I'd argue that one can see the use of the 'formal' forms as "stuck up".
> It’s way less common there than metro/france French.
I think this is actually the statement that could be empirically analyzed if desired. I'm basing it on what metropolitan French speakers say about Quebec French. (eg in the language video).
And since we're talking about "observations of the language" the anecdotes there may be useful.
I noticed a comment that criticized the assertion regarding tu/vous: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzNHyk2JAas&lc=UgzgxoXEIhDXa...) "Wow je suis honnêtement surpris par la fidélité de cette vidéo! Malgré quelques erreurs (notamment qu'on utilise aussi le vous pour parler aux inconnus et parfois même à ses parents/grand-parents, et que tous les Canadiens Français ne sont pas Québécois) tout est véridique, bravo! En plus c'était très divertissant de voir ma culture exposée par un représentant Français qui a fait ses recherches. Il faudrait juste revoir l'imitation de l'accent"
A response: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzNHyk2JAas&lc=UgzgxoXEIhDXa...) "Va en France et tu vas voir que le "vous" est beaucoup plus présent qu'ici. Le vouvoiement est quasi institutionalisé là-bas alors qu'ici c'est un peu laissé chacun pour soi"
And a response to that: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzNHyk2JAas&lc=UgzgxoXEIhDXa...) "En effet, cela dépend beaucoup de la génération et de l'éducation de chacun. Les jeunes ont tendance à tutoyer davantage que les plus âgés. Mes parents (nés dans les années 1920) vouvoyaient leurs parents qui eux se vouvoyaient entre eux. Ma génération (année 60) va tutoyer plus souvent. Je tutoie les plus jeunes mais je vouvoie les plus vieux. Dans les écoles, souvent à l'école primaire les enfants apprennent à tutoyer leurs enseignants. Au secondaire, le vous est habituellement de rigueur. Je suis commis dans un magasin et je vouvoie les clients jeunes ou vieux. Avant d'être commis, j'étais enseignant... maintenant à la retraite. Les jeunes nous approchent souvent en tutoyant... cela me dérange beaucoup. De même, quand je suis client et qu'un commis me tutoie ça m'énerve."
They essentially say that they observe it being used less and less for younger people. That's my observation as well.
So yes, it does seem to me like quebec french is in the process of dropping it. The reduction in usage and relegation to certain settings will be a part of that process. I don't think the "official" language boards get to decide.
We can check back in ...50 years or so?
I very much welcome this development.
We are all equal.
We are not equal.
No one is equal to no one. I do not see how this can be taken badly at all : absence of equality does not equate to lack of intrinsic merit.
As to the main topic : I think some degree of deference to some people, represented by some specific words, is a good thing, as long as it does not fall into some Byzantine rules that make communication less efficient.
If you'd phrase an email differently to a high-level exec vs your coworker, you've experienced it. Same with dressing differently to meet a new client vs an old friendly one. Both cases where you'd probably use the formal and informal depending on who you're talking to.
Imagine a foreigner learning English and asking "Why do I have to care if people are male or female? What a sexist language! Nobody cares about genitals in my culture!" And they start to refer to everybody as "he", regardless of, well, genitals.
They won't come across as more enlightened, transcending the shackles of sexist English grammar.
They will simply sound like a poor English speaker.
Explaining all the details of how to distinguish e.g. a butch lesbian from a trans man to someone from a different cultural tradition is, of course, an incredible pain.
The number of people, particularly women, who don't adhere to gendered fashion greatly exceeds the number of transgender people.
PS: even in English, you're probably not using as many F-bombs and S-bombs when you talk to powerful people.
In Norway it's now rare to come across the equivalent "Herr" other than as an insult (implying you're stuck up), outside of very limited cases, such as instead of "Mr", but that use too is in steep decline.
English is full of ways to express implied hierarchy through different wording / tone without the T-V distinction.
Native speakers at least are capable of picking up on all sorts of nuance in word choice and tone
Give it a couple hundred years, all the subtle or not-so-subtle nuances will standardize and settle into grammar constructs.
I don't think that has much to do with it. I think it has more to do with the dominant political and economic position of the United States. French served a similar role in the past despite having all the features you describe.
France was, and to a greatly diminished extent still is, a global power.
French has T-V distinction.
French has arbitrary noun gendering.
The noun gendering alone makes it significantly easier to embarrass yourself speaking French than English.
If France had won the Seven Years War or the Napoleonic Wars, French would probably still be the global lingua franca, because people didn't choose which language to learn, they learned the language of whichever colonial power controlled their lands.
The US was the largest economy in the world by 1890.
It should be obvious that it wasn't an economic backwater even before that.
By 1850 it bigger than Russia, Italy, Spain, Germany, or France.
The US stopped being an economy backwater sometime in the early 1800s. Well over a century earlier than your claim.
Google is refusing to turn up anything useful when I try to find information on when the US became a top importer/exporter.
By the 1850s US cotton accounted for 77% of the cotton used in Britain, 90% used in France, 60% used in Germany, and 92% used in Russia.
That seems like a stretch.
My understanding is that plantation cash crops grown in the South like Cotton were a major export in the early-mid 19th Century.
And then of course Standard Oil was incorporated in 1870.
Maybe the effect of American industrialization didn't have a big effect internationally until the ~1890s and onward, but I'd hardly say the USA was a backwater throughout the industrial revolution.
The US had a huge effect on industrialized Europe before that. The British textile revolution would never have happened if the US hadn't supplied a large chunk of the cotton (from plantations in the South) and if the British hadn't physically destroyed the the-dominant textile industry in India.
The US was the largest economy in the world in 1890. That would suggest it wasn't a backwater until at least the early 1800's.
English has more than enough of ways to easily embarrass yourself without the need for arbitrary noun gendering.
I’m genuinely asking for examples. I’ve embarrassed myself quite often in French, yet haven’t much in English.
* neither are my mother tongue
Other European languages may have this to, but explaining it to people who speak unrelated languages usual results in a wail of "but why?!"
Many English speakers don't themselves realise it - in the UK, at least, we are not carefully taught English piece by piece after a very young age. Most grammatical understanding comes when (if!) you study a foreign language and then you find out that "find out" is a thing called a "phrasal verb".
little kids often mess up on irregular verbs ("I eated supper") because they (subconsciously?) learn the grammar, they aren't memorizing the past tense of every word
They do, and just like in your other example, they internalize it, they just don't realize they do it automatically because it "sounds good".
> Most grammatical understanding comes when (if!) you study a foreign language and then you find out that "find out" is a thing called a "phrasal verb".
That's super funny, isn't this taught in middle school or something? In Romania you study Romanian grammar from 5th to 8th grade (11/12 to 14/15), and you learn syntax, morphology, etc.
Does the average English speaker really not know about the term "phrasal verb"? :-)
Yes.
Furthermore, I didn't know the English word for it, despite being a native speaker, but do know the German "Verben mit Präpositional-Ergänzung", from having learnt German.
Speakers of English as a foreign language will know more about English grammar than English native speakers.
The brain will remember the term while it’s useful — to get a good grade on a test. After that, for most (almost all?) people it is useless to remember.
Phrasal verbs are not typically mentioned when Norwegian kids learn English, because not only do we have them, we typically use them in exactly the same way (e.g "eat up" is the same as "spis opp", "find out" is the same as "finne ut"). No reason to explain an obscure and odd concept if kids do the right thing by default anyway.
"Modal particles", small words that subtly indicate the speaker's certainty or degree of concern, likewise is another strange little grammatical quirk that German has, but Norwegian kids generally don't need a name for since Norwegian has them too and they can mostly just be translated directly.
Interesting. As a native English speaker (from the US), I'd say that "good small old" felt a little awkward for me to say out loud. Personally, I'd probably say "good old small ...", but to your point, there isn't exactly a "right" answer, just one that sounds right. I'm assuming you're also a native English speaker from the UK, so maybe we've discovered a funky difference between the English in our two countries. It would be a fun study to give native English speakers a list of those adjectives, and the noun "book", and tell them to order them.
I suppose a comma might disambiguate, within a list of qualities, but I think my point stands.
As a foreigner that observed a lot of other foreigners speaking English: it is not an easy language to master.
Let me go take a sheet.
I really like that beach.
But I don't think English particularly stands out, and I can think of languages that are much worse than it in that regard (especially for an outsider). Mandarin / Cantonese / Japanese / French / Korean are all pretty notorious examples for homophone collisions.
>At its height in the 19th and early 20th century, it was the largest empire in history and, for a century, was the foremost global power. (wikipedia)
It was said the sun never set on the British empire as it had bits in most time zones which led to a joke from the Indians that it was because God didn't trust the British in the dark.
This... greatly underestimates the number of ways you can make a mistake while speaking a foreign language.
If you're a non-Francophone trying to speak French, you have a 100% of making obvious mistakes while you try, and some of those mistakes will probably relate to noun gendering.
If you're a non-Anglophone trying to speak English, you have the same - 100% - chance of making obvious mistakes while you try to do that. Depending on what languages you do speak, you may or may not make mistakes in noun gendering. (English noun gendering is a huge problem for Chinese speakers, and boy does it make them sound unnatural.)
But that doesn't matter; that's just one way to make a mistake. Your odds of making no mistakes of any kind are zero. Why worry about one particular subclass? You're foreign and everyone who hears you will recognize that.
The French colonial empire was much larger, but in the 19th century they were not really present in the Americas anymore, and Vietnam was their only major colony in Asia.
Both had limited reach outside Europe. Germany had that colonial push to grab what was left in Africa and in Oceania at the end of the 19th century. Losing WW1 ended it all.
Some legacy still remains: for economic reasons, German is one of the most frequently learned languages in Eastern Europe.
For example, a family member who you would address as "sir" (at least in the Southern U.S.), maybe a parent or grandparent, might be taken aback if you addressed them with the formal "usted" in Spanish, because it didn't imply respect, but that you didn't consider the person close. Another example would be prayer, where God is definitely superior to us, but you would address Him with the less formal "tu", because the love He has for us makes that a close and personal relationship. (I'm not even sure that the word "formal" is the right one to use here, as like I say, it's not quite the same as in English.)
You could also have a business conversation where you'd use "usted" without necessarily implying respect, because "tu" sounds out of place for a distant relationship like that. (I.e. using "tu" wouldn't be disrespectful, so much as it would just be weird or akward.)
Am I misunderstanding the usage of the two forms, or could someone enlighten me a bit more on the subject? Is the dynamic similar in other T-V languages, or is it used more to denote social status/tiers?
There are actually three forms if we're completely exact: singular 2nd person, plural 2nd person, and plural 3rd person. German uses the first and last, Slavic languages have all three but the third is very dated and practically unused by now.
Also, am I correct in my understanding that prayer is done nearly universally in "tu"? (I know some Argentinos who use "vos" for informal circumstances, but still use "tu" for prayer, but rarely anywhere else.) Could you help me to better understand the reasons behind this?
Thank you again for your response! It's a beautiful thing to have the opportunity to learn about other cultures from the people who live them.
But what is weird is that the V is used in BOTH contexts. The T is used in the Netherlands but slowly more and more people in Flanders are adopting the T version in written language.
And it irks me. Companies sending you a letter addressing you with the T version, like we're friends.
I don't want to be addressed by V for reasons of respect. I don't want to be addressed with T for reasons of not wanting to be infantilized.
The T form (jij/je) sounds infantile in Flemish because it is infantile. The real T form in Flemish is gij/ge. But it's somewhat archaic and some people look down on it, so it's rarely used in written conversation. In many cases, the jij/je-form is used when talking to children or used by children. Once they grow up a bit, they tend to use the gij/ge form for informal conversation, and jij/je for slightly more polite conversation.
It's a bit different in the Netherlands, where the archaic forms are more rare outside of Brabant, and where reality more closely matches the textbook T-forms.
Companies addressing me using the infantile form doesn't bother me. What I find much more annoying is companies trying to be cutesy, with random slang thrown in their communications It always gives me "How do you do, fellow kids"-vibes.
I only very rarely encounter anyone talking in the V-forms. It's more common in the written form.
Being a bit of a contrarian, I refuse to write in the jij/je T-form, and consistently stick to the archaic gij/ge.
TL;DR: Flemish has 2 T-forms and one V-form, but the newer T-form is sometimes a V-form. Languages are fun.
When I was growing up people did not address me with je/jij. My mom was a teacher. Ge/gij all the time.
And if you want to be polite you would switch to u/u.
And I get the same vibes as you do. But since ge/gij is not suitable for formal communication I insist on using u/u. This also increases the barrier to use any kind of infantile cosy language.
'Wees gerust' just irks me.
Do you know why education is trying to do this? I find that as it infiltrates business communication that it encourages a language that sounds like we're friends. We're not. I'm a person. You're a company who is overcharging me for basic things like internet. No need for informal cosy language.
There are some inflectional elements in Chinese.
Speaking for Mandarin:
- Verbs may be inflected into one of three aspects, with the suffixes 着 (progressive), 了 (perfective), or 过 (experiential).
- Certain verbs may be inflected for possibility or impossibility, with the infix 得 (for possibility) or 不 (for impossibility). If the verb is not naturally part of the category that participates in this construction, the dummy particle 了 (which shares spelling, but not pronunciation, with the perfect suffix mentioned above) must be supplied, to convert it into that category.
- Nouns may be inflected for plurality with the suffix 们. As I understand it, this is only really appropriate where the noun refers to a collection of people (broadly defined), but any such noun may receive the suffix.
In your example about work, I'd just always use "ты" without giving it a second thought, and wouldn't mind others using it to address me. Maybe it's just our culture that has a more lax attitude towards it, I don't know.
The only case that I find kinda cringy is when people (rarely) call bartenders and waiters "ты". For me it's very clear that when a person you don't know serves you, it should be "вы".
> This felt to me like one of the reasons why English became the dominant language for business over time.
Probably not. English is messy when it comes to pronunciation and irregular verbs, not exactly the easiest language to learn.
Today that would be completely unimaginable.
So, T-V distinction is also very cultural in a sense where the line between the two is.
Thanks for the answer btw, it was enlightening. I can't help but remember the first lines in my mind each time I get the upvote notification ("Drumroll... !").
Seems like the answers suggest I’m just imagining something that didn’t happen, but it was a fun thought.
Eth has voice on and thorn voice off.
Ð/ð (eth) certainly is the voiced th in Old English and modern Icelandic. I’m not sure why thorn was being used for ‘the’.
It’s a very old reference and may not be online, but what my germanic linguistics professor used with us Germanic linguistics grad students. He was a world renowned expert on the various futhark versions.
Note modern English collapsed the distinction into simpler orthography, “th” for both eth and thorn, so simplicity in spelling certainly happens.
þ?
I can see it is LATIN SMALL LETTER Y + COMBINING LATIN SMALL LETTER S .. not sure what that ligature is, though. My knowledge of old English is very lacking :)
edit: it shows up in the "descendants" list on the side of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorn_(letter)
From Middle English you, yow, ȝow (object case of ye), from Old English ēow (“you”, dative case of ġē), from Proto-Germanic iwwiz (“you”, dative case of jīz), Western form of izwiz (“you”, dative case of jūz), from Proto-Indo-European yūs (“you”, plural), yū́.
Gutenbergs printing press was the mid 15th century, well into the Middle English era.
Old Yorkshire phrase for telling children to mind who they address as 'thee / tha': "Don't thee tha them as thas thee" - kind of a similar sense as 'mind your Ps and Qs'.
> English dialects are hyper localized
On a vaguely related note, has anyone else (particularly in Yorkshire) use "seef"/"seefing" to mean "see if"/"seeing if" (as in "I was seefing/seeing if it was in the car")? I hear it all the time from my immediate family, but I've never been able to find it referenced beyond that.
'What about ye?' - would be a friendly way of asking 'how do you do?'
"Y'all" = plural you
"All y'all" = "all of [plural] you" as distinct from "some of you/y'all"
Don't think I've ever heard a singular y'all. "How ya doin'" would be the singular version of "How y'all doin"
"y'all" - explicitly addressing >1 person
"y'all" - explicitly addressing 1 person while implicitly addressing >1 people. I might say "how y'all doin" to a friend, implying "how are you and your family doing"
"all y'all" - >>1 person or addressing >1 person that was not included in the previous "y'all"
"y'all" - explicitly and implicitly addressing 1 person whom I have not made acquaintance with. If I were working as a server in a restaurant and had a single person come in, I may address them with "y'all". "What can I get y'all?" is the same as "what can I get you?" but the "y'all" gives it some extra politeness or an "emphatic southern accent"
"You" implicitly means "thou and thine underlings" when used in singular. Which makes in polite.
"y'all" will probably share the same fate in English.
While we Texans might find it polite or friendly, in the corporate world I’ve been told to avoid using it in emails.
The singular polite "y'all" I'm referring to is generally used when the other party is not known. F.ex. I regularly, though certainly not always, hear clerks, waiters, or other service industry workers using "y'all" singularly when asking "what can I get y'all to eat" or "y'all need anything else" when speaking to exactly one person, and I use it that way myself.
I think this is the formal singular "y'all" that people keep referring to. It can sometimes be short for "you and your family," which is why you would see it in greetings and goodbyes e.g. "How are y'all doing today" or "I hope to see y'all again soon."
For signs of formality, it has the indirection of not addressing the person directly (like "your grace" "your honor" or "your mercy"), and is usually used as an stylized expression of concern. To my ear, "How was y'all's holidays?" sounds really professional, like how your lawyer would start a meeting.
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.
Luckily we don't have gendered pronouns though, so we can avoid that problem altogether.
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.
I'm in a country with this distinction, too, and I don't like strangers addressing me with the informal just like that. Every sociolinguistic setting is different, but using just the informal might not automatically create rapport but the opposite. Saying people like myself aren't worth your time sounds like sour grapes, and it might rob you of some opportunities.
Joking aside: theres the school version of pioitesse, and the actual version.
Naturally, both are ultimately evolved into appearance, not substance (because of courae this difference isnt substantial).
For me it’s the fact that these days it’s very inconsistent. The “rules” were pretty clear 20-30+ years ago. Now it’s a bit of a mess and there is a lot of overlap.
> Saying people like myself aren't worth your time sounds like sour grapes
I mean.. you’re somebody who just claimed that a random person is autistic because he doesn’t conform with some social norm you find to be somehow extremely important (specifically) in your environment. So it might not be such a bad heuristic.
there is never a question what to use when i am talking to cashiers, clerks, etc. but when i am at a tech meetup or an informal gathering of people from different companies then the way to address people is very much in question. you never know how people like to be addressed. and while using the formal option may seem like the safe choice, it really isn't because it forces others to be formal with me too, and when i am the only one doing that it puts me into an odd position. the only safe option is to avoid any choice until the other makes their choice.
The issue still comes up, but in different ways. To a friend I might say "Where's the nearest cashpoint?", but to a stranger I'd say "Excuse me, but would you happen to know where I could find the nearest cashpoint, please".
The translation of "bad language" is very tricky.
English is my mother tongue but I live in a German (sort-of, it's complicated) speaking country. I've learned that "scheisse" is not a very good translation for the English word "sh*t". It seems to me that the English word is much stronger/more offensive than the common German translation at least where I'm from.
German "scheisse" seems more at the level of "damn" in my experience (maybe it varies according to region?) and so is acceptable to be used in many more situations than the common English translation - i.e. by young kids or with strangers.
I think German speakers, as a result, don't realize how strong the English word is and use it a bit more liberally than would be expected. For example, I was very surprised that broadsheet (respectable) newspapers will casually drop an expression like "sh*tstorm" into a German sentence in a serious article.
This must vary hugely from place to place.
I’ve know people here (builders and Australians) to use ‘c*t’ as a sort of endearment, and there aren’t a ton of scenarios where ‘shit’ would cause anyone problems.
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.
What I mean to say is, if the language is on the whole not the language of the nobility, even the formal pronouns would not be perceived as elevated, really. If you really wanted to impress, you'd switch to French (or even Latin, etc.)
The other other English text most people are familiar with that is older than the KJV would be the works of Shakespeare which arguably need to be translated to modern English at this point. English language works older than Shakespeare such as Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and Beowulf are pretty much always read in translation.
E.g Icelandic and Faroese aren't really mutually intelligible with Norwegian today, despite both being evolved directly from Old Norwegian, because both places were originally settled by Norwegian vikings.
Shakepeare is essentially just very old school, yet still Modern English. This still feels within the realm of understanding of current day native speakers equipped with a good dictionary.
I was raised with the KJV and Shakespeare. To me, that language is definitely "modern english"; it doesn't need translating, any more than Scouse needs translating.
I have a completely different relationship with Chaucer. But it's like reading a foreign language that I know, but not idiomatically; I can't be sure whether X is supposed to be sarcastic, or Y is meant to be as funny as it seems.
Beowulf is some thing else again. That definitely seems to me like a foreign language.
Our language has been heavily heavily influenced in the interim first by Old Norse/Danish and then (a huge amount) by Norman French.
I actually have an easier time with Anglo-Saxon than Chaucer, personally. Middle English has bizarre inconsistent orthography, and is full of French loans. While written Anglo-Saxon is pretty consistent and some of the vocabulary and grammar makes sense to me as someone who studied German a bit. Old English is a really beautiful language.
But in general what we have in written records is what was written by the literate elites, not regular folk. So it's really hard to say what it would be like to be dropped into the villages of 15th century England.
even in places and situations where 'tu' is used it's mostly still conjugated as if it were second person singular.
'EU BEM QUE TE AVISEI - TU EMPINOU ELE PEI'
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I've mentioned on HN previously when discussing languages that when my father was learning German his old textbook had the English thee, thou, and thine/thy as the second person for the German second person du.
One of the faux pas for English speakers when learning German is the incorrect usage of du. They mistakenly use du instead of sie because it's more informal than sie not realizing that in German it is reserved for the closest of relationships such as family, lovers etc.
Essentially, in German du — the equivalent form of the second person English thou — is still a part of the living language whereas in English thou is now archaic.
The correct usage of du 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 you for du, it's just crazy as it leads to much confusion.
Thou 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 you in textbooks for learning German. Just one additional paragraph would be needed to explain and clean up the you/du mess.
I have been trying for years to find out why the authors of modern (current) textbooks now use you instead of thou. I'd be most grateful if someone who knows the rationale behind it would post the reason.
Incidentally, my father's textbook was published sometime around 1930, so this you substitution is a relatively recent phenomena.
1. has enough manners to not call people you don't know "du" (and you are not letting emotionality override those manners)
2. yet you know that person well enough to judge their behaviour and call them out as an asshole
It is a bit like punching someone with velvet gloves.
You use du for your friends, your classmates, people your own age up through about college, and anyone you think you are or should be on informal terms with. Such as shop workers (sometimes), bartenders (usually), waiters (depending on location), random people in the street (in places like Berlin, if they're not senior citizens), and anyone -- regardless of age or station -- who has said du to you first, unless you want to very specifically snub them. You use du with people you play Fußball against even if you've never met them before and they're ten years older than you. Same with drinking. It would, perhaps counterintuitively, be rude to use Sie in many social situations involving complete strangers. Unless they're old.
Then there is the ritual, rarely followed anymore, of actually formally suggesting that you and someone else -- usually a work colleague -- use du with each other... and refusing that request is giving a very cold shoulder, there normally would not be another offer in one lifetime. (An "inferior" should not suggest it to his/her "superior," that would also be inappropriate.)
Du does enough work in German as she is spoke, I don't think it makes sense for foreigners to learn the Sie form before having proper facility with all the du grammar. Given the immigration trends of the last 20 years, people will just be happy to hear German in the first place. Then learn to properly siezen when you're already conversational. My zwo Pfennig anyway.
_
Thanks for the info. My German is far from perfect so I don't claim any authority on the matter.
Most of my time in a German-speaking environment was in Austria (Wien) and that was now some years ago. Back when I was learning the language it was always stressed to me not to use du even with friends as it would be deemed as unwanted or excessive familiarity and could be taken as an offense.
That said, from my limited experience there's are significant cultural differences between, say, Berlin and Wien with the latter being more formal and reserved (or it was so when I was living there two decades ago). Thus I find your observation interesting, so I'm now quite curious to see what cultural shifts if any have taken place in Wien since then.
My first time there was in the early 1980s whilst Communism was still in place, so back then there was essentially no movement of people between Czechoslovakia, Hungary, etc. and Austria. When I went back in the early 1990 and lived there at various times for about a decade I noticed a definite cultural shift which the locals put down to the movement of people from ex-communist counties such as Slovenia. However I can't say I noticed any shift in the language, but then that's not surprising as most people I worked or dealt with were better at English than I was in German.
No doubt things have become more informal almost everywhere these days so I'm not surprised that there has been a shift in German usage just as there has been in English—even in my lifetime it's been very noticeable.
English is a dog of language, it's slipshod, inconsistent and all over the place (it beats me how anyone who is not a native speaker ever learns it). The point I was making about thou/du illustrates the problem with English quite well, English-speakers are notoriously bad at learning second languages so why make, say, learning German even more complex by not explaining actual parallels between the two languages? It seems no one cares much about the details these days.
As an aside, in English you goes for everything—friends, relatives, one's dog, even inanimate objects. Thus it's interesting to note slang has picked up the cudgels and fought back with a colloquial use of the second person with youse. Many wince at this word and consider it uncouth and uneducated, but when one thinks about it, it makes sense when talking to a small group of friends. Seems funny really, we English speakers chucked out the perfectly good second-person (and respectable) word thou and at least in some circles have replaced it with the uncouth youse. Clearly, modern English is missing something important by using you for the singular and plural forms of the second person.
You may or may not consider these better than "youse", though I will say "yous" before "y'all" (quaint American import) regardless of context to the day I die.
My experience of learning German is that Germans would prefer to speak with you in English, as they want to practise their language skills with a native speaker.
English speakers aren't bad at learning new languages, rather there is little incentive to do so, given everyone speaks or wants to speak English.
Trying to speak a foreign language is sometimes met with confusion "why are you bothering to learn another language? Everyone speaks English" or downright hostility "if you're English just speak English".
That's often true, and usually they're much more competent in English than the English-speaker is in the foreign language.
From my observations many European countries pay much more attention to teaching foreign languages at a young age when it's easier to learn them than does the anglophone world. Seems to me if one speaks English then there's much less imperative to do so.
I know I'm the 'victim' of this attitude, I should have been trained in at least one foreign language from kindergarten onwards but wasn't. Back then I'd have likely whinged about it but I'd have been damn grateful decades later.
I think there's a certain level of cultural arrogance amongst English-speakers in that they don't have to put in the effort of learning a language when English is essentially a lingua franca. Reverse the situation you posed above about Germans preferring to speak in English. How many people in anglophone countries would prefer to speak to a visitor in say German? I think the answer proves my point.
I’m wondering if some weird looks I sometimes get in Germany might be because of that. Is “sie” used more commonly there?
Not sure if any native German speakers that had that reaction.
That being said, I'm young enough to have not really experienced a time when it was unheard of to call someone you don't know really well "du". I'm only learning from this thread that it seems to be a fairly recent development.
It is weird getting a balance update with "Hi" as the leader and emoticons throughout. We're not chums, just give me the news in the most emotionless manner possible.
And don't get me started on the direction Microsoft went with Windows 10/11. "We're just getting things ready!" "Working on it..." "Something went wrong :(".... Eugh!
Duh! I ought to read what I write before posing. Obviously what I said is garbage, what I meant was '...in modern English no distinction is made between the second person singular and plural forms in that both use the pronoun'you.'
* ti (second person singular)
* vi (second person plural)
* oni (third person plural) -- archaic
* tu (second person singular, informal)
* dumneata (second person singular, semi-formal)
* dumneavoastră (second person plural, formal)
"dumne" comes "domn" aka "sir".
In French, however, God is always referred to with the informal tu, which surprises second language learners. But it makes sense when you realize that using plural for formal came about well after the Hebrew Bible, and because it was to implicitly refer to multiple people (sort of like the royal We), which obviously wouldn't be acceptable in Christianity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Germanic_languages#Validi...
Pronouns tend to be some of the most fixed words in a language, up there with numbers and basic words like for "water" or "mother". They undergo sound change, and shifts like how English lost thou, but they are almost never replaced wholesale.
All those languages are in fact descended from a common language spoken several thousand years ago. About half of the world today speaks a language in the Indo-European language family.
(Or maybe I’m being whooshed)
So they drop the Você but still use the formal verb conjugation.
Navigating cultural language rules can be hard...
Try to find and locate the you in the next 5 mins.
There are only sensations, images, thoughts and sound which rises and go in consciousness. No you.
Unless a thought comes and says thats you. But it's again just a thought.
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.
That was in 2008, and was, from what I gather, already rather old-fashioned. It was common enough in the past that there’s a verb for it that my mother-in-law used when making the offer: duzen.
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.
https://www.etymonline.com/word/thou
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.
(Useless trivia bit… Apparently Emperor Charles V invented the styling of “His Majesty”. Before him, kings and emperors were addressed as highnesses, but he wanted something fancier after being crowned as the Holy Roman Emperor in addition to the kingships he already held.)
It's more of a social distance, with V-form for people outside the personal sphere, and T-form for people outside the public sphere.
So, as an atheist, I'd use V-form* with the Christian God, but His Believers really ought to be using T-form with Him.
* Si vous plaît, j'aimerais bien savior comment fonctionne la turbulence ... mais ne vous inquiétez pas si l'explication serait trop compliqué !
see also https://www.newscientist.com/letter/mg12416936-800-letter-la...
(but the way I heard the joke is that the scientist has planned to ask Him how to resolve gravitation with quantum mechanics, and only then the bystanders inquire, why not ask about turbulence?)
So I guess "the royal 'We'" falls under "believing your own marketing".
We somehow make do - it helps that Korean allows just omitting pronoun when the context is clear (same as Japanese).
I think the reason for the rotation of pronouns is because people start using them sarcastically which means it's no longer seen as respectful, and so new pronouns become necessary.
Thus, to be polite, you address someone as many people that aren't part of the conversation.
This has been interesting as an English speaker learning Dutch! Luckily I never really latched on to sms-speak but I can imagine some cohorts of English speakers have to break the habit of reading “u” as shorthand for the the full word.
Apparently Dutch originally had "du" as 2nd person singular and "gij" as 2nd person plural. From the 16th century, "gij" started being used as singular polite form. (Possibly under the influence of Latin and French.) Later, "du" disappeared. Up to this point, the progression is similar to English.
"gij" then transformed to "jij" in the northern part of the Dutch language area and in written language; while it remained "gij" in Flemish spoken language.
However, then in the 17th century people started using "Uwe Edelheit" ("Your Nobility") as a new formal form in letters. This evolved into the current formal pronoun "u".
(Note also that the accusative form of "gij" is also "u", but is not related to the formal "u".)
Sources: https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gij, https://etymologiebank.nl/trefwoord/gij, https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/U_(voornaamwoord), https://etymologiebank.nl/trefwoord/u
As for sms-speak, I'd be flabbergasted if you encountered the u-form anywhere in text messages except maybe in automated OTP messages from your bank. So I would guess that's something you needn't worry about :).
Good luck in your language-learning journey. Assuming you're living in the Netherlands, I'm curious as to how your integration is going? My observation is that Dutch culture can be insanely hard for foreigners to get a foothold in, partly because of the "polite" tendency of most locals to insist on speaking English around non-native Dutch. I feel like that gesture, which may seem accommodating on the surface level, can almost be an exclusionary dynamic in itself.
Appreciate the spelling tip. I make a lot of mistakes writing in Dutch as it is. I would likely keep doing that by instinct until someone told me.
I am in the Netherlands for just over a year now. I live in a small village near the Belgian border and work in Eindhoven. I've actually found my neighbors and coworkers very accommodating towards my efforts to learn your language. I've taken 90 hours of lessons in about 9 months, which made me more confident to push people more and challenge myself. At my job, I try not to speak English for social situations, although all of our work is done in English due to remote workers in other countries.
Although I've had a good experience, I can see how some less assertive immigrants might not feel empowered to ask others honor their social requests. There have been times that I asked for something in Dutch, and without any hesitation, the attendant or store worker responded to my request in English. That stings a bit, but it stings for my ego because it doesn't usually happen. Many Dutch people in my daily life ask me to repeat myself, but they don't automatically make an assumption about my preferences and instead rely on the clues of the conversation to guide their responses. All of this is also dependent on the situation, eg. for work tasks, I speak English, because miscommunication is not an option.
If someone is reading this also as a new NL immigrant, I would say you should be assertive and ask a little on your path to find friends. It's okay to make friends in one language and transition to another if you both speak it. Shopping should be done in Dutch, read the Dutch newspaper, etc etc. Put in the effort and many Dutchmen will respect that. Habit might let their tongue slip, but kindly and firmly remind them, and they'll go back.
For Dutchies, I would say that that it's probably worth the effort to make a friend. If not, consider it the new normal for politeness. Just try to keep going in the same language until visible confusion or a blocking of progress in the conversation.
If you don't mind, I'd love if you reached out and sent me an email! I'd love to keep chatting about it. Address is in my profile.
Incidentally, in Norwegian the formal form is now so archaic that short of communicating very formally with a very old person, in most cases it will come across as rude and sarcastic (you're implying someone is seriously up themselves)
There is a wide literature on Latin forms of address. Eleanor Dickey's monograph published by Oxford University Press is a good survey.
https://www.elisamotterle.com/galateo-del-tu-del-lei-e-del-v...
https://www.treccani.it/magazine/atlante/cultura/Diamoci_del...
Beware the treccani is the most used/influential encyclopaedia in italy, so I’d tend to say that i trust them a lot
> In antichità, quando si parlava latino, le formule di cortesia non esistevano … L’usanza del Voi nasce insieme a una nuova formula politica: la tetrarchia introdotta nel 293 da Diocleziano.
It was an innovation in Romance that took place centuries after Caesar and most of the Imperial era. Again, there is ample scholarly literature on this, so no need to resort to popular references like encyclopedias.
Or the plague and the subsequent Arab invasions. The empire was rebounded several times from near collapse after the 300s
(note that english aristocrats were often spoken of, not by given [or if they had one, family] name, but by the geographical entity that was the basis of their nobility)
Interesting to see the use of “Er” as a put down.
But like everything, it has some drawbacks : the constant need to level everything and to some kind of hypocrisy.
I have nothing to back my intuition on, just some Sapir-Whorfish reasoning...
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.
In some parts of the UK, thou is still used. Certainly I have been addressed in this way in the past.
Makes you wonder what kind of wires must get crossed in the human id for intimate pronouns to function this way.
Did English ever have a formal version of “you”? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7215834 - Feb 2014 (193 comments)
Imagine a language with just two words. Can you think or say anything in it? Sure, but it isn't going to be easy.
The larger issue, is the lack of distinction between the singular and plural - 'you' stands in for both.
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.
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.
Makes me wonder in what interesting ways the current wave of English language manipulation (neo-pronouns, "blocklists" etc.) will backfire.
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.
http://coco.raceme.org/literature/lordoftherings/returnking/...
He uses "thee" and "thou" to simulate the informal Spanish "tú".
> Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.
Tolkien also talks in Appendix F of The Return of the King about how hobbits had largely lost the distinction between "you" and "thou" - so when Pippin speaks to Denethor in Minas Tirith and addresses him with the familial term, people assume that he must be royalty himself to address the Steward in such an informal manner.
Technically I guess he was about as close to royalty as you can get in the Shire.
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.
single plural used in contexts of
thou ye nominative (subject), vocative (preceded by the word "O"). For the singular, this implies that the relevant verb takes the "-[e]st" suffix.
thee you all object forms (direct object, indirect object, object of preposition)
thy your possessive determiner, before consonant sounds - thy will, thy God
thine your possessive determiner, before vowel sounds (including 'h') - thine enemy, thine head
thine yours possessive pronoun - not my will but thine, all that I have is thine
Why would that need to be common knowledge 3-400 years later then?
It just seemed so silly to think that God only understands archaic English.
Now it turns out these people I despised were only being respectful, and trying to use the formal forms?
However, since it seems that "thee" and "thou" were actually the informal forms of "you" in 17th century English, now I'm really confused why they suddenly started talking this way the moment they crossed the threshold of the church.
Unnecessary reverence of the King James Bible translation, probably.
As noted in Wikipedia:
> As William Tyndale translated the Bible into English in the early 16th century, he preserved the singular and plural distinctions that he found in his Hebrew and Greek originals. He used thou for the singular and ye for the plural regardless of the relative status of the speaker and the addressee. Tyndale's usage was standard for the period and mirrored that found in the earlier Wycliffe's Bible and the later King James Bible.
Later, presumably due to French influence, "thou" became informal and "you" formal.
Finally "thou" was dropped from everyday speech, though it still shows up in various old phrases.
Another pattern is that religious language tends to be archaic. For example, Jews pray in ancient Hebrew, Muslims in classical Arabic, some Catholics in classical Latin, and so on. I don't know whether this is done to create a sense of awe and mystery, or because religions try to appear unchanging.
As non-native speaker I had learned early that 'you' so I thought that there was probably some other form no longer used.