Comment by davedx | Hacker News Reader

Comment by davedx | Hacker News Reader

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Interesting. So the way we learned the Lord's Prayer, it seems to use the informal: "Thy will be done". But that doesn't correlate with addressing God as "LORD", does it?

Edit: I looked this up and found this page: http://brandplucked.webs.com/theeandye.htm

It seems to infer that "thou, thee" etc. are only about distinguishing between singular and plural. There's no mention of them being an informal form, at least not in the King James Bible.

Even more:

"As William Tyndale translated the Bible into English in the early 16th century, he sought to preserve the singular and plural distinctions that he found in his Hebrew and Greek originals. Therefore, he consistently used thou for the singular and ye for the plural regardless of the relative status of the speaker and the addressee. By doing so, he probably saved thou from utter obscurity and gave it an air of solemnity that sharply distinguished it from its original meaning. Tyndale's usage was imitated in the King James Bible, and remained familiar because of that translation."

Then more from Wikipedia - the plot thickens!

"Early English translations of the Bible used thou and never you as the singular second-person pronoun, with the double effect of maintaining thou in usage and also imbuing it with an air of religious solemnity that is antithetical to its former sense of familiarity or disrespect."

Also, apparently French uses the informal (see "toi" in the Lord's Prayer), whereas Dutch uses formal (U/uw).

Korean has many grades of "you" that can manipulate politeness and formality somewhat independently. Most younger people in Seoul today would speak to a stranger using a grammatical register that is both informal and polite. It communicates the idea that we can be "at ease" instead of at attention with each other, but we're not going to be presumptuous about being old buddies. We'll be casual, yet polite.

But I was surprised to hear people addressing God in a Christian prayer using a form of you that is both more formal than the form I described above (no surprise so far), yet less polite (there's the surprise.) It's not an impolite form, just a form that makes it clear in a formal ("at attention") setting that you are speaking to a peer, not a superior.

Korean honorifics were puzzling enough to me without this mystery, and it was only later that I discovered that Western languages that still distinguish between a simple formal and informal you seem to always choose the latter.

I've always speculated that the Korean pronoun choice is a result of translating the Western practice to Korean. I've never been able to test that, though, because older Korean religions such as Buddhism don't talk directly to any deities (that I've ever witnesses, anyway), so there isn't any form of "you" used at all.

How about Mugyo?

The "our Father" part (in English) is the problem. The consensus is that the Aramaic word used in the original (whether or not one believes that the original ever issued from the mouth of a particular person; this is linguistic rather than religious) would have been abba (transliterated, of course), which is more like "Papa" or "Dad" than "Father", at least in relatively modern usage. A familiar form of address, in other words. (Not so familiar that a little bit of flattery wouldn't be in order before asking for your allowance, etc.) How that relationship translates into pronouns varies by culture; some would maintain the more formal or respectful form even within the intimacy of the household.

When that translation was made, father was not considered formal. Words like papa weren't in use and dad was considered baby talk.

Any formalness ascribed is due solely to changes in the vernacular.

> [The page] seems to infer

You mean, it seems to imply. You're suffering from the common confusion between "infer" and "imply". Generally, a writer or speaker implies, while a reader or listener, or an observer of a situation, infers something about what was said or observed.

The confusion stems, I suspect, from the fact that there are contexts in which either word could make sense. Consider:

   (1) Are you inferring that layoffs are coming?
   (2) Are you implying that layoffs are coming?

It's easy to imagine a situation in which either of these questions could sensibly be asked. They are different questions, however. "Are you inferring" asks whether you have seen or heard clues that lead you to strongly suspect that layoffs are coming. "Are you implying", on the other hand, asks whether you have intentionally said something from which I might reasonably conclude that layoffs are coming.

Maybe addressing God informally is a sign of trust and spiritual intimacy.

By the way in the Hungarian language the informal 'te' is used to address not just friends, family and God, but also the king/queen. (Well, was used when there was a Hungarian monarch.)

Apparently almost every language has its own way: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T–V_distinction

In German, the informal is used and I was told it's because it is "God the father."

And in parts of America, people call their father Sir.

In Italian, the informal 'tu' is used. No idea why, or what the history of that is.

Same in french, in this case I think it implies that God is "part of the family" so to speak, someone very close, not a stranger.

"Vous" is formal but it doesn't necessarily mean that "tu" is informal, it just implies a certain form of intimacy.

Also, I'd like to point out that using the plural "you" as polite/formal also kind of works with plural "we" as in the "royal we": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_we

I'm not sure if both are directly related though.

Biblical Greek has no formal, only singular/plural. Same with vulgar Latin. Latin and Greek are rude languages and the our father is a rude prayer, so tu/toi/thou are perfectly appropriate.

Curiously, unlike Dutch, German uses informal. "Dein Wille geschehe..."

French also uses informal. "... c'est à toi qu'appartiennent le règne"

I was always under the impression that it was meant to be the more personal/intimate form in the Lords Prayer to reflect the use of Abba for 'father'

That seems fair, and actualy logical from the persective that `god` is above all and with that has his own introductionary terms of reference. That said the English language has many logical traps and pitfalls with its exceptions to rules. You can even say religion defies logic in many ways. So to have a logical reference to religion via `lord` not only makes logical sense, in a language with logical exceptions in reference to a subject with logical exceptions. Guess two negatives do make a positive. That all said "praise be" still seems odd as no reference towards what is praised is indicated.

But I do love the thy, thee,thine olde English, has period character and if you use those terms, or indeed any term that is out of fashion in todays evolving languages. Well you either seem educated or odd by others in general. Though word racisim comes in many forms.

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