tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Feb 13 09:18:08 1995

Back to archive top level

To this year's listing

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]

2p pronouns (was: Re: "Bon appetit")

In Classical Latin `tu' was one and `vos' was more than 1 regardless of rank,
and even Caesar was `tu': as the gladiators used to say, `Ave Caesar,
morituri <te> salutamus'. But sometimes one man called himself `nos' = "we",
as if it = "I and my advisors" or the like, as if he was important enough to
have attendants or be treated as being as important as several ordinary
people. Thus in late Latin and the Romance languages `vos' for `tu', and
spreading to English. There was a time when in English calling someone `thou'
was treated like it is in French. In some British English regional dialects
(e.g. Lancashire and Yorkshire) `thou' (often pronounced `tha') persists in
popular speech to this day. That is why `thou' in modern English is treated as
religious / poetic / dialectal. This is complicated by German and Italian
usage of `She' sg, `They (fem)' pl., as polite for `you': it stands for
grammatically feminine phrases meaning `Your Majesty', `Your Excellence', etc.
I saw an old case of that in French: in a version of the fable of the wolf
suing the lamb for polluting the stream, the wolf always called the lamb
`tu', and the lamb called the wolf first time `vostre Majeste'' and thereafter
`elle'. (The wolf won, and his victory feast was lamb.) (Thereby in an older
version, the one time the wolf said `vous', it must have been a genuine
plural: `you sheep' in the plural.)

Spanish polite sg. `usted', polite pl. `ustedes' < Arabic `ustaadh' = "lord" <
Persian, from when Arabs ruled much of Spain. Probably not from `Vuestra
Merced' as commonly supposed.

This is more complicated in Dutch. There, plural `jij' drove `du' out long
ago, and by the 16th century `du' was a literary rarity. (But I have seen
Frisian `dou wilde se' = "thou wild sea" in a modern Frisian poem.) The
possessive of `jij' may have varied between `jouw' and `uw'. As a new polite
form, (perhaps due to influence from Spanish `usted' when Spain ruled the
Netherlands) `Uwe Edelheid' = "Your Nobility" was written short as `U E' and
then pronounced as `U'. Likely the possessive `uwe' was apportioned to `U',
leaving `jouw' with `jij'. Later again, a new familiar plural `jullie' arose:
its second part is related to German `Leute': `you people', and `jij' is
familiar singular. There is also Dutch `gij' which is biblical / dialectal /
ppoetic like English `thou'. This gave Dutch translaters of Tolkien a choice
of pronouns that Tolkien in English would have given his right arm for: e.g.
when Eowyn (a member of the Rohan people come to aid in time of war) is
confronting the Nazguul, Eowyn uses `gij' and the Nazguul uses `jij'.

Likely the Americanisms `youse' and `you-all' were made up by non-English
immigrants who wanted a distinction as in their own languages between `you one
only' and `you and you others'.

Back to archive top level