Talk:T–V distinction/Archive 1

Thee and thou

"Thee" and "thou" are still used in some English dialects. Is it worth mentioning these? -- user:Heron

Which dialects? --Tb 04:31, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I believe they still use those words in the Yorkshire dialect. --Goododa 04:37, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I believe you're correct. See here: [1] Marnanel 05:14, Apr 7, 2004 (UTC)

Still found in Cornwall. For example, the baker says: "I'll get 'ee [that is thee] a pasty." The Lawless One (talk) 15:32, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

With all that being said, is it appropriate to put "ye" on the list if we are not mentioning "cases". Aren't thee/ye accusative for thou/you (compare Spanish tu vs. ti)? 98.249.209.39 (talk) 23:50, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Ni & Monty Python

Someone should add a reference to Monty Python's Holy Grail, given the discussion of Swedish Ni (which is, after all, where the Knights Who Say Ni get their humor from). --Tb 04:31, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Formal to Informal in German

I rememeber hearing back in my high school German class that going from the formal to informal form was a significant milestone in romantic relationships. I was thinking maybe this should be added to the article, especially if it applies to other languages. I also recall that there was a special verb for the transition, but it may have just been duzen --Ckape 21:33, 6 Dec 2003 (UTC)

The romantic movment thought that the Sie/ Ihr (which was also used in that time like in french) was a latin introduction and thous regarded inferior. They thought it is more GERMAN if you use Du (a kind of nationalism). But finally that didn't last, today Du/ Sie are still in use.

Is there something missing from this sentence in the German section: "Street and similar social workers will usually, sports clubs trainers will sometimes tell children and teens to address them with Sie." Should it say that social workers will usually use "du"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.172.19.20 (talk) 10:24, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I should think that most German couples find together in settings that include thouing from the beginning. --91.34.228.200 (talk) 12:32, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

"Historical predecessors: Ihr and Er/Sie" -- I found most of this section confusing !!! They are too telegraphic and seem to contradict each other. I realize they don't, really, because there are several overlapping "conflicting" historical developments at different times or contexts, but the discussion of the various developments is so brief that it's nearly incomprehensible.

Just as one example : the introduction of "Er/Sie" is quickly followed by "Sie" without even mentioning that the first Sie is 3d pers sing fem and the second one is 2nd pers plural. This is obvious if you have a good knowledge of German and an instinct for old-fashioned usages, impenetrable otherwise. This is only one example; the section is full of difficulties like this, it needs to be more fully explained, de-macaronied. 84.226.149.194 (talk) 10:23, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Vos in some Spanish-speaking countries

Maybe there should be a reference on the use of "vos" in some Spanish-speaking countries (where it replaces "tú"), as well as the historical use of "vos" (a formal use that was replaced by "vuestra merced" and later on by "usted"). Sabbut 22:04, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Y'all

Isn't y'all used as an informal second person plural pronoun in English? Kpalion 12:43, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Y'all is generally considered slang, but could conceivably be used either in a familiar or a formal setting. Matt gies 06:17, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)

It's really more a regionalism than anything else, and not subject to the same distinctions as the T-V divide. The only decision about whether to use it or not is the decision about how much local flavor should color your speech. In situations where "proper" Standard English is preferred, it would be avoided (a news broadcast, a wedding invitation, etc). However, as a southerner, I have no problem using it in reference to people I would normally address formally, or in situations where, speaking French, I would use the "Vous" form. "I just wanted to let y'all know that I've really enjoyed my meal in your five star restaurant" is perfectly acceptable to me, for instance. geeksquad (talk) 17:29, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Y'all follows regular T-V rules: yuh, y'all, y'all, y'alls

what about the more informal "ya"?

168.251.194.18 (talk) 14:53, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Southern American dialects generally observe the T-V distinction in the 2nd pers. pl. through contracting or not contracting the 2nd pers. pl. pronoun, "you all". Just as speakers of English generally tend to use fewer contractions in formal or polite speech and writing, so Southerners tend to say "y'all" in informal settings, but "you all" in formal ones.

As geeksquad suggests, some Southerners feel that their native dialect is somehow not "proper" to formal occasions, and will substitute (or make a sometimes-grotesque attempt to substitute) the phonology and usage of the American broadcast dialect, an artificial hybrid of Northeastern, Midland, and Western U.S. dialects, which has become, since about the 1930s, the prestige dialect of the United States, and which has no 2nd pers. pl. pronoun. Matt gies should know better than to disparage "y'all" as "slang".

The people of the Southern Appalachians (and the descendants of migrants from that vast region) often use "you ones" (generally, if not universally, contracted to "you'ns" and variously spelt) in place of, or as an alternative to, "you all". As far as I am aware, there is no T-V distinction in their dialects, reflecting the generally egalitarian and democratic spirit of those communities. ("You ones", often spelt "yinz", is found in Appalachian speech outside the South, at least as far north as Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; but there, I suppose, it may not be an alternative to "you all".)

Jdcrutch (talk) 18:41, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Order of the table

The table doesn't appear (to me) to be in any sort of order. Perhaps it would be appropriate to order it alphabetically?

I think the whole page needs to be better organized. I am especially confused by the fact that constructed/artificial languages (with all due respect) were plopped down between Indic and Finno-Ugric. There should be some sort of rhyme or reason to the category organization. Also, why do Romance languages (especially Canadian French, being a regional variant of French?) merit individual mention in the TOC while other languages are organized by group? Furthermore, there seems to be a random Dutch/walloon(?) section right below the first table, and why is there no section on French French itself when other languages are covered? Ullpianissimo (talk) 02:12, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Ye in Newfoundland

In some parts of Newfoundland, Canada people have re-analysed "ye" as the second person plural and treat "you" as being expressly singular. This is still being transmitted to young people - I remember a friend of mine, a young university student in St. John's, he related to me that the first time he left the province on a trip, for a youth group, people would react strangely when he said "ye" and finally someone asked, "what are you saying?" And he said, "ye, the plural of you" like she was asking a stupid question, until it dawned on him that this was an unexpected regionalism.

To my knowledge this anecdote actually doesn't have any relevance to the present discussion, however, because while you/ye expresses a singular/plural distinction, it does not express a T-V distinction - it is ungrammatical in these dialects to refer to a singular person as "ye", as I understand it, and referring to a single person as "ye" never conveys distance or respect distinct from "you". Steve D 14:11, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Clarification on T-V distinctions in Portuguese

The information on T-V distinctions in Portuguese needs some clarification:

1. "Vós" is archaic, both in Brazil AND in Portugal; it is used only in religious services (e.g. to address God) or in very formal literary language.
2. "Tu" is widely used in Portugal as the informal 2nd person singular form of address. In Brazil, "tu" is used only in poetry/music, or in regional varieties of the language (e.g., "gaúcho"), in the latter case often with the incorrect verb conjugation (e.g. "tu falou" instead of the standard "tu falaste"). Otherwise, "você" followed by the appropriate 3rd person verb form is the standard form of saying "you" in almost all situations in Brazil and, in the case of formal address (when talking to a stranger for example) in Portugal. To make things more complicated, one can also say "you (sing.)" in Portuguese using the construction "o senhor/ a senhora" (e.g. "A senhora precisa de ajuda ? ", lit. "The lady needs help?"). Generally, this form of address is reserved both in Brazil and in Portugal to formal situations, e.g. to address someone who is much older than you (in Brazil, sometimes to address your parents) or to talk to someone who is hierarchically superior to you like your boss, a public authority, or, in the case of students, sometimes your teachers or professors. In Portugal specifically and, to lesser extent, in some parts of Brazil (e.g. the Northeast), in addition to "o senhor/a senhora", there is a large array of similar expressions that may also mean "you (formal, sing.)", e.g. "o pai"/"a mãe" when addressing your parents; "o engenheiro"/"o doutor" when addressing someone who has those respective titles; "a menina" when addressing a young lady, etc...
3. Since "vós" is archaic, "vocês" is now the quasi-universal way of saying "you (pl.)" in both European and Brazilian Portuguese. Otherwise, "os senhores/as senhoras" is used instead of "vocês", more or less in the same context in which "o senhor/a senhora" would be used instead of "você".
4. Since "você" requires third person verb forms, it is somewhat natural that it should be replaced by third person oblique pronouns ("o"/"a" or "lhe") when used respectively as a direct or indirect object. That is actually the rule in standard Portuguese and the most common usage in Portugal. If you watched for example the British movie "Love Actually", you might recall that Sr. Barros, Aurélia's father, addresses Jamie (Colin Firth), by "você" (e.g. "Você quer casar com a minha filha ?") and, at same point, when Jamie asks Sr. Barros to take him to the restaurant where Aurélia works, he replies: "Levo-o lá" ("I will take you there"). That construction however, although perfectly correct in standard Portuguese, sounds odd to Brazilians who would prefer, in that context, to say "Eu levo o senhor lá". On the other hand, in informal address ,when talking to a friend or an equal addressed by "você", Brazilians would normally say "Eu levo você lá" or "Eu te levo lá". The latter construction with "te", normally the oblique pronoun associated with "tu", reveals one interesting contrast between standard Portuguese and spoken (southeastern) Brazilian Portuguese, i.e. the use of "te" with "você" instead of "o" or "lhe" (e.g. Braz. "Você trouxe aquele casaco que eu te dei no Natal ?" = standard Port. " Trouxeste aquele casaco que te dei no Natal ?" or "Você trouxe aquele casaco que (eu) lhe dei no Natal ?"). The você/te usage, although incorrect according to "school grammar" is actually VERY common both in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, and is widely accepted in colloquial language among the educated middle class. As far as I can tell, the only situation when Brazilians routinely use the standard "o" for "você" in the spoken language is when "o" follows an infinitive and changes to "-lo", e.g. "Prazer em conhecê-lo" (="Nice to meet you") or "Não preciso lembrá-lo da importância dessa reunião" (="I don't have/need to remind you of the importance of this meeting").

In Portugal, "vós" is actually still used for the second-person plural (familiar and respectful). It's probably used more in rural areas and by older people, but I wouldn't say that it is "archaic"! It is indeed archaic for second-person singular respectful, but not for second-person plural. When addressing a group of people, one could say "Pudeis fazer assim." (vós implied) instead of "Podem fazer assim." (vocês implied).

Also, in Portugal (unlike in Brazil), você is *never* used in a familiar context. 188.83.90.99 (talk) 15:36, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Finnish section

Nouns, not adverbs.
The Finnish words "sinuttelu" and "teitittely" are nouns, not adverbs. They are derived directly from the corresponding verbs, thanks to the incredibly flexible word derivation scheme of the Finnish language. — JIP | Talk 15:23, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

In my opinion, the information about the use of the formal form Te is misleading and I'm going to edit it soon. --Pxos (talk) 12:19, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

The edit you made is totally original research and is not backed up citations. (The trend that teitittely is coming back.) Other Finnish language editors see that diff, please. The original was closer to the current situation, ofcourse that also would need to cite a study or research paper.--80.10.46.53 (talk) 11:16, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

The claim "Occasionally in written language the formal singular pronoun capitalized (Te) to distinguish it from a plural (te)." is incorrect. I took it out. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.114.252.79 (talk) 12:23, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Norwegian formal "De"

I am a native Norwegian speaker, and I noticed that "De" was listed as formal 2.person singular in Norwegian. This should really be marked as archaic. I have never heard anybody use it in normal speech. In newer written Norwegian I've only seen it where the author/translator is obviously not a native speaker or it’s deliberately used to sound archaic. Encountering the word “De/Dere” in singular in Norwegian gives me exactly the same associations as “thou/thee” in English.

Please mark it as archaic. Are they always capitalized like the English I? - TAKASUGI Shinji 00:35, 2005 Apr 18 (UTC)

Yes, they're always capitalized to separate them from the "informal" pronouns which are homograph.

More on Norwegian. It says in the article that "De is still used in formal situations or when talking to elderly people". I disagree with this. De is practically obsolete, and it is certainly not the case that these pronouns are used when talking to elderly people. It also says that "A popular saying is that "De" is reserved for the king". Which 'popular saying'? I have never heard such a saying. And in fact, the king (and the royal family) is supposed to be addressed in the 3rd person ('his majesty' etc.). This is only done by experienced court journalists and court representatives. Everybody else (most journalists, most politicians, and most people) would only use the informal du to the king. The claim that "De can also be found in written works, business letters, theatrical plays and translations where an impression of formality must be retained." is entirely correct, on the other hand. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 140.247.103.35 (talk) 00:00, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

More on Portuguese

Also for Portuguese, there are a few dialectiual/sociolectual/regional/whatever pronouns that are pretty widely spread, but sound poor or non-standard, or what have you. I've heard 'vossemecê' even from middle class brazilians who were trying to suck up to someone. I understand that it's used amongst the very poor in some regions. I know 'Vossa Exelência' is used from time to time, but sounds a little stale, or whatever. I've never been to Portugal, but I've noticed in a few novels frases like 'o tio' 'o professor' and countless others used as prounouns, but I'm not sure if these are really that common, or what situation would call for them, or what. I've been curious about those odd pronouns for a while, but it seems like I get a different answear out of everybody I ask. Kyle543 03:52, Apr 21, 2005 (UTC)

I've been watching quite a lot of European Portuguese TV soaps lately (out of pure linguistic curiosity!) and I have noticed that EP speakers frequently tend to use "article + noun" constructions with the same semantic value as "you (sing)". For example, "o pai"/"a mãe" seems to be the universal way of addressing one's parents in Portugal. Likewise, "a menina" is a common way for older people and domestic workers to address young ladies. Moreover, people with whom you have no intimacy are frequently addressed by their professional titles like e.g. "o engenheiro", "o arquite(c)to", "o delegado", etc... In Brazil, except for the widespread "o senhor/a senhora", those "article + noun = you" constructions are never used, at least not in the Southeast (I heard "o pai"/"a mãe" also occurs in Northeastern Brazilian speech, but I'm not sure). As for "vosmecê", I believe it is mostly archaic and used only in isolated rural areas of Brazil (if used at all). Otherwise, everybody I know uses "você" instead. "Vossa Excelência" on the other hand is used in parliamentary debates to address a congressman or a senator. It is also customary to use the deferential "Vossa Senhoria" to address a person who is not an elected representative, but is testifying before the Brazilian Congress. Mbruno 13:28, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

English Pronoun

You is singular, Ye is plural.

What about Yall, Youse, You-uns, You Guys, You Lot, and such from other dialects? Or if you want to be archaic, You and Ye are both plural (like We and Us), Thee and Thou are the singular versions.

In standard modern English, You covers both singular and plural and both nominative and objective.

It depends on your definition of "standard modern English". In spoken American English, at least where I lived (southwestern Pennsylvania) and particularly (but not exclusively) among young people, "you guys" seems to be the quasi-universal informal 2nd person plural form of address.

You is just a modernised form of ye. Ye was the plural and sing. inf. 2nd person pronoun, which has now been replaced with You. MHDIV ɪŋglɪʃnɜː(r)d(Suggestion?|wanna chat?) 14:36, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, but not modernised - you is the old 2nd p. pl. objective form (even earlier on, accusative and dative), like me, him, her, us; ye the old 2nd p. pl. nominative, like I, he, she, we. The modernisation lies in the demise of yet another inflectional distinction. Keinstein 22:51, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Online use

I'm pretty sure that in most online channels like IRC T-forms are used. Does anyone think this would be a good thing to add to the "hints" section?

In general, formality isn't used in online contexts. —Casey J. Morris 22:22, September 11, 2005 (UTC)

I confirm for French. Please note that, at least for this language, while right for IRC, this may not be true of e-mail (even out of professional context). Granted, the switch from formality to unformality is still faster than offline. —Reply to David Latapie 11:30, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

online use follows spoken use WRT the T-V distinction in my experience, sir. 168.251.194.18 (talk) 14:58, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Esperanto

Since when is "ci" considered archaic. Esperanto was invented in the 19th Century. The purpose of "ci" is a poetical "you" (singular only), similar to "thou" in English. It was deliberately created this way, it is not archaic.

Are you sure? I haven't read the Fundamentoj de Esperanto recently, but AFAIR, it used "ci" for you-singular-informal. If you're right, it was created to mimic an archaic feature of English, but Zamenhof did not speak very good English, and is more likely to have used French (which has both T-V and plural/singular distinctions) as a model (and his pronouns generally have french roots (mi-moi, vi-vous, ci [tsi]-tu, ni-nous, etc.))--Taejo | Talk]] 18:09, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

It's only archaic if it became archaic between Unua Libro (which I haven't read) and Fundamento de Esperanto. In the grammar rules, he writes:

The personal pronouns are: mi, „I”; vi, „thou”, „you”; li, „he”; ŝi, „she”; ĝi, „it”; si, „self”; ni, „we”; ili, „they”; oni, „one”, „people”

And in exercise 16:

Mi legas. ― Ci skribas (anstataŭ „ci” oni uzas ordinare „vi”).

Translation: I read. ― You write (you usually use "vi" instead of "ci").

Furthermore, in Lingvaj Respondoj (in an entry dated February 1908):

La neuzado de “ci” tute ne estas senkonscia imitado de la ekzistantaj lingvoj, — kontraŭe, ĝi estas specialaĵo de la lingvo Esperanto, specialaĵo bazita sur pure praktikaj konsideroj kaj esploroj. La plej bona maniero kompreneble estus, se ni al pli-ol-unu personoj dirus “vi” kaj al unu persono ĉiam “ci” sed ĉiuj nuntempaj kulturaj popoloj tiel alkutimiĝis al la ideo, ke “ci” enhavas en si ion senrespektan (in a nutshell, don't use "ci" because it's rude; always use "vi" regardless of number). [2005-12-11; I would sign this if Wikipedia would keep me signed in long enough]

T-V adverb

I read neither German nor Hungarian, but I assume you are speaking of the Your version for T and V. Tell me if it is You. I added French and Slovene: ton/votre, and tvoj/vaš'. —Reply to David Latapie 11:26, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Norwegian

To my generation it seems that polite De is only used by people being impolite these days: social services clerks to clients (the poor, druggies, the sick, refugees etc.), judges/police to accused etc. If you're not there as a "client" suddenly the person switches to "du" :) Basically, you can expect to be treated like shit if you're "De"d. I therefore recommend that non-Norwegians attempting the language avoid "De" as the plague, as it might get you a bloody nose in the wrong part of town. Kaleissin 21:33, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

First of all, I just want to clarify the various forms in Norwegian. You have De/Dem (subject/object), used for both 2nd person singular and plural, and Deres, which is 2nd person possessive. There doesn't exist a word Dere (though dere is the regular 2nd person plural), though many seem to think so (including the poster above (not Kaleissin, the other one)).
FWIW, I've never heard any cops/social services persons use the formal form; I don't even think it sounds rude, just bizarre (I'd get thoughts of an Ibsen play if a cop said De to me).
Finally, there exists a phrase, å være dus (med noen) which literally means "to be 'saying du' (to someone)", or perhaps "to be on familiar terms (with someone)", which means the same as the French tutoyer, but has ditched the meaning of using the informal pronoun and kept the connotion of being on a confidential/familiar level with someone. Ilmarinen 22:14, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Norwegian Nynorsk

From the article: "However, other dialects (and written Nynorsk), also have a T-V distinction in the plural."
What is meant by this? In nynorsk, you use De/Dykk just as De/Dem in bokmål, i.e. as subject/object. According to Norsk Språkråd:

"Og har vi først valt desse formene i for eksempel eit brev, bør vi halde fast ved dei gjennom heile brevet og ikkje veksle mellom du og De eller mellom de og De."

I removed that sentence, but if I've interpreted it wrongly just readd it (and please write why as well). Ilmarinen 22:29, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Greek section is odd

I'm confused by what the Greek section is tryign to say. That adding an epsilon onto the front of su to make it esu made it honoriffic? That's certainly not true in modern Greek. The way to make an address honoriffic in modern Greek is to address a person as if they were plural, including conjugation. I'll change shortly, but wanted to see if I was completely missing something first. --Delirium 11:27, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Hungarian is getting huge

So, um. That Hungarian section? Kind of huge. I don't think it necessarily needs its own article, but maybe some of the information would be more at home on a page of Hungarian grammar, but I know no Hungarian and thus am utterly unqualified to summarize. UnDeadGoat 23:48, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps something like a set of articles “Politeness”/“Distance in [Language name]” would be nice, with only links to those articles (everything could be made a category instead of a main article if we do that) and perhaps really short summaries here in the main article. Compare the article on Romanization which I think is supposed to be that way. Wikipeditor

Related verbs, nouns and pronouns

The two columns labeled "T possessive" and "V possessive" should be removed from this table. The rest of the table lists the verbs and nouns that relate to the act of addressing someone as T or V. The last two columns list the T/V word itself, in just one of its cases, and that's unrelated and not needed. --ABehrens 17:54, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

I've removed it...it was totally misplaced in the table. To explain what the table is about, the "verb" form describes the verb used to "say tu" to someone - in French, "tutoyer". The "noun" form describes the act of "saying tu" - in French, "tutoiement". The "possessive form"...has no meaning (that I can think of). Someone can go back in the history and dig out the relevant bits and stick them in the table of pronouns if worthwhile. Stevage 14:26, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

I think it was an mportant piece of information, since its used when you talk to someoneeither using the T or the V (What's your name?). Mariano(t/c) 14:33, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Italian

The words "lei" and "loro" are usually capitalised when used to mean "you" in order to distinguish them (in written content) from their uses as "she" and "they". This distinction is not made in the article; indeed, it suggests that the words for "she" and "they" are "Lei" and "Loro", which is incorrect. I would change this myself, but I'm not clear how I can do this without changing the content significantly. — Paul G 10:38, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

As a native Italian speaker I would like to note that the forms "Il Signore/La Signora" with third person are perfectly understandable and are often used in the specific setting of addressing a customer in a shop, restaurant, hotel and similar. — Salvatore F

Origins

Do we know anything about the historical origins of these forms? Given that the use of the plural pronoun as a polite singular seems to be found in all Indo-European language sub-groups, and given that many non-Indo-Europoean languages have even more sophisticated systems of honorifics, it would seem to be very old. I once heard my school French teacher say it went back to the feudal system, but my hunch is that it is much older than that. I would guess it goes right back to PIE. That would mean that Latin and Greek dropped it, and that the romance languages and modern Greek reintroduced it (as a borrowing?) which is an oddity but not necessarily a problem. Does anyone know if there is research on this from historical linguistics? (At any rate, sociolinguistics and psycholinguistics have things to say about it, and it would be great if someone can add a paragraph about that.) --Doric Loon 11:53, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you that, due the presence of formal speech in non-latinate languages, and even in non-indoeuropean languages, there is basically no way that this is as recent as the middle ages, or as localized as the Western Roman empire. For instance, Hindi and other Sanskrit-derived languages use an almost identical syntactic formal system to the Romance languages (the informal second person pronoun, "tum", even being a cognate for "tu"). This is problematic, because this wikipedia article seems to indicate that formal vs. informal pronouns emerged in the late Roman empire. This should be changed, as even a lay person like myself knows it can't possibly be so. I'm not sure if the late Roman derivation is a misunderstanding, or outdated research, or what, but it's clearly incorrect and should be replaced. I don't feel qualified to do this, but someone with a stronger footing in historical linguistics should probably come forward. geeksquad (talk) 17:18, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

References

I just made some edits in the French section, and I admit that they are totally unverified for the moment, but judging by the ridiculous References section, I am not the only guilty party! Does anyone know the sociolinguistic literature on this general topic? And let's try to make the different language sections at least appear to be less anecdotal? CapnPrep 02:24, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Can we remove case forms from table?

I don't think the table listing T-V forms should include different case forms (e.g. thou/thee and tu/toi/te). The fact that 'thou' and 'tu' have object forms isn't relevant to their sociolinguistic use. Plus, they could be confused with alternate pronouns as some languages have more than one pronoun in a category. Does anyone else agree? Tocharianne 22:24, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I just opened this discussion page because i was going to ask the same question. If everybody else disagrees then case forms has to added for a lot of languages. --Orri Tómasson 02:54, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Shouldn't there be two separate words for the second-person-singular-formal table entry for the English language? It looks like only the accusative/dative ("objective") case is given (the word 'you'). Is not the word for the nominative case in that table entry 'ye'? I think that it is a good idea to retain both the nominative and accusative cases for all of the English table entries. (Maybe it even would be a good idea to add the genitive and possessive cases, but I don't want to ask for too much all at once!) Table entries for the languages other than English can stay as they are or be updated as people feel might be helpful. Also, table entries with only a single word should indicate which case is being given. -RobertBlacknut 05:35, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Y as typesetters' substitute for Th

I've read somewhere that the letter "y" was used by early typesetters as a substitute for "th". This would explain the popularity of "you" (instead of thou) rising in the 15th cent. concurrently with printing (London printers were horrid spellers anyway) and constructions as "ye olde shoppe", etc. Has anyone heard of this or is this complete urban legend? István 14:46, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

See Thorn (letter) ... AnonMoos 15:13, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

French

I believe that the statement in this section regarding automatically using 'vous' to address someone you do not know is a bit out of date. I lived and traveled through much of France from 1999 to 2001 in my early 20's and doubt I was ever (except in a business setting) addressed as 'vous' by a French man in his 20's. Perhaps this is inferred in the phrase regarding 'abnormal' circumstances, however if this is still the case, I think the initial sentence is too strong. Ce n'est que mon avis. Brykupono 19:10, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Usually young people address eachother with tu. Also if you meet someone in a very informal place, i.e. a pub. But If I were to meet a man more than 7 or 8 years my senior and ask him for directions, I would use vous. -- Île flottɑnte~Floɑting islɑnd ^Talk 13:09, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

What about the "si monsieur veux bien se donner la peine...", or "Madame est servie" 3rd person form? A bit archaic, but still in use in certain families. (only when there are servants of course.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.234.110.81 (talk) 06:11, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

The "dubious-discuss" tag in "German"

I don't know which of these influences you were dubious about. The Italian I just deleted after reading "Italian: History" and finding what it said in accordance with a general Romance pattern; as for Danish and Norwegian, I know they have both been heavily influenced by German, and it would surprise me if this isn't part of it - I even think I've read it more than once. But: I am in no position to search books for the foreseeable future, so can anybody else help out? -Keinstein 21:33, 13 September 2007 (UTC) And now I undeleted the "Italian influence" after realizing what the editor meant was probably something more subtle than a simple calque. Need for an expert here. -Keinstein 21:40, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

In dubiis, abstine 62.94.130.93 (talk) 02:09, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Danish De/du

I recently recieved a letter from Tax-office, demanding that I pay extra for last year, and, interestingly, they did write 'du' to me, even when taking 500 $ from me! On the other hand, when recieving a notification from the postal office, e.g. that there's a parcel waiting, they write De. Really it's that inconsistent. 83.90.233.226 09:27, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Translating to English

In Serbian (as I suspect it in many other languages) we have a verb (persirati) for addressing people in plural as a sign of respect. Question is how to I translate the verb itself to English when it appears in a sentence. 213.198.233.80 10:47, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

There is the same problem for Czech "tykat" and "vykat". English has no corresponding verbs. Looking at a dictionary, I can find phrases like "call/address sb as ty/vy", or "be on familiar terms with" (for "tykat"), etc. --Pajast 11:03, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

The general practice is to translate it more generally, such as to "speak (in)formally with". You could do as Mr. Pajast's dictionary suggests, but unless the audience is familiar with Serb/Czech grammar the point will be lost on them anyway. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.238.237.248 (talk) 21:24, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

metoo somehow work "respectfully" into the sentence —Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.251.194.18 (talk) 15:05, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Czech Section

The article includes this text: In grammar, plural forms are used in personal and possessive pronouns (vy – you, váš – your) and in verbs, but not in participles and adjectives, they are used in singular forms (when addressing a single person). This is a difference from some other Slavic languages (Slovak, Russian, etc.)

Slovak is not different to Czech in this regard. One possible source of confusion is that the equivalent to přijat in Slovak is prijatý - so the you were accepted line would read bol si prijatý, boli ste prijatý, boli ste prijatí. The form with y is exclusively for masculine singular and the for with i is exclusively for virile plural - but I can see why boli ste prijatý might appear to a Czech as the use of the plural form. Am new to wikipedia so I am not going to edit the article directly - if no one disagrees with this please someone else do it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.212.20.122 (talk) 17:39, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Swedish section

Important ! Nothing about "du reform" !! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jmak (talk • contribs) 06:37, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Polish

Is the verb tykać really used by anybody? I'm a native speaker from southern Poland and I've never encountered it in Polish, even as a joke. One usually says być (z kimś) na ty, more rarely the mentioned Latinate per ty. Pittmirg 11:16, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Knock, knock

Who's there?

tykać

tykać who?

tykać a long time to key this in —Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.251.194.18 (talk) 15:06, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Dutch

I feel the part about je/jij/gij in Dutch is not entirely correct or at least missing some information.

Firstly, the Brabantian or Flemish "gij" is very informal, but the Dutch "Gij" is archaic and very formal ("Thou" in English), thus used to refer to God and such. This is also reflected in the way the verb is used in the sentence. If you say "Ziet gij die boom" ("Does thou see that tree" in English), it's the formal, archaic "gij". If you speak Brabantian or Flemish dialect and say "Ziede gij die boom" ("Do ya see that tree" in English), it's informal.

Secondly, in the Netherlands the "u" form is always polite and formal. In Belgium however "u" is used in an informal way as well, for instance among friends and peers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Himalaja (talk • contribs) 16:14, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

In standard Dutch 'gij' is only heard in solemn texts (just like 'thou'). Therefore the Dutch often think that it is very formal, but originally it is not so.

The accusative of 'gij' is also 'u'. This leads to confusion. The Dutch think that the Flemish say 'u' in an informal setting, but they did not listen well. The Flemish do not say 'u' but they use the accusative of 'gij'. They will not say 'u' in the nominative. Handige Harrie (talk) 10:05, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

I have revised the Dutch section of the table & hope it's an improvement. I don't understand Handige Harrie's statement, "The Flemish do not say 'u' but they use the accusative of 'gij' . . ." unless he means that the Flemings use 'u' as the accusative of 'gij', which I understand to be the case.

I have deleted the reference to addressing the deity, because, as Himalaja suggests above, it's not clearly an example of the T-V distinction. The point, that in very formal writing the pronoun gets a capital letter, doesn't depend on whether or not it's the deity being addressed.

Addressing the deity as "gij" (or "Gij") in Christian worship reflects (I gather) Hebrew and Greek usage in the Bible, where God is always addressed in the familiar or intimate form. When Dutch translations of the Bible first appeared, "gij" and its accusative form "u" were in general use throughout the Low Countries as familiar forms, and their use in worship would have been obviously familiar, not formal. I would expect that to be still the case in Flanders and Brabant, though I have no information on that.

In most of the North-Netherlands taalgebied, however, "gij" has disappeared, except in very old texts and formal or ceremonial (and primarily, if not exclusively, religious) usage; so that it paradoxically seems to be a formal or polite (i.e., a V) form of address, even though it strictly is a T form. Exactly the same thing has happened in English with "thou / thee", and I'll be revising the English section accordingly when I get time.

Jdcrutch (talk) 17:51, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, the accusative of "gij" is "u" and has always been "u" (cf Old English ge and eower, or less clearly German ihr and euch). In fact, both "jij" and "u" (as nominative) are linguistically much younger and are derived from the much older gij-u-uw (you-you-your). Flanders has retained this older ge-form. F.e.: "Ik heb u gebeld, maar ge naamt niet op" (I have called you, but you did not pick up the phone.) The polite form would be: "Ik heb u gebeld, maar u nam niet op." As a Belgian, I often notice Dutch people - that are visiting Belgium - switching to the polite form u-u-uw, as they are under the wrong impression that they are spoken to in the polite form. In fact however, they are still spoken to in the informal form which is in Belgium gij-u-uw 193.190.253.146 (talk) 22:28, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Speaking as someone who has read the New Testament, I can tell you that Dutch's use of the informal second person for God does not parallel the Koine Greek of the New Testament, which has no formal–informal distinction in second-person pronouns, but only a singular–plural distinction. This is explained in the article. Koine naturally uses the singular for God, since "God" refers to a single being, with no informal implication. I can't tell on Biblical Hebrew, since I don't know it; it has singular and plural forms, like Greek, but that does not mean they could not be used to express a formal–informal distinction as well. — Eru·tuon 13:34, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Farsi - absence of

My Farsi is rudimentary and my recent use has been in Dari (the dialect of Afghanistan), but I have been taught to distinguish between 'to' (familiar) and 'shoma' (polite). Cooke (talk) 15:22, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Lack of citations

The lack of citations in the article is atrocious. I'm going to tag the article for this problem. Cpryby (talk) 12:54, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Article length --- separation suggestions

I have tagged the article for its excessive length. Some of the language-specific sections should be separate articles. Moreover, it seems this article is more a "List of T-V distinctions" than an overview of T-V distinction in general. The lengthy tables also do not belong on this page. Only a few examples ought to be given on this page; there might then be a link to the table of the distinctions for all the languages included here. Cpryby (talk) 13:11, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Summer 2011: Not much shorter, valuable information deleted at random

The above makes sense. But unfortunately, as far as I can see, the article has been shortened by just deleting valuable information (taggable for sources or not) without moving it anywhere else. And obviously not authorized by any discussion here. See for example this diff: [2]. Nor can I even now [3] see any attempt at balance in choosing the "examples" to remain or even at properly deleting the text on French.

So this seems to me a proper mess. Unfortunately I can't spare the time to do anything about it, so feel free anyone who agrees. --Keinstein (talk) 20:55, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Spanish

The Spanish part is a maess and barely understandable. Can any Spanish speaker make it clearer?83.59.148.68 (talk) 07:18, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

English use of 'you' for God

Are we sure the page is correct on this point? It currently states that the English use of 'you' to refer to God, as in the Bible, "is not an indication of familiarity but retention of the original distinction between singular "thou/thee/thy" and plural." But is that true? No citation is given. The claim seems doubtful, as in the closely-related German language, the informal "Du" is used for God. I have always understood that this is because God counts as familiar (a member of the family). Although I do not have any scholarly source for this notion, it seems more plausible than the current language on the page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.192.124.94 (talk) 23:49, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm looking at the English section of the article, and it says that when a "thou"/"you" distinction is made, "thou" is used to address God (which was overwhelmingly the case in English-speaking Bible translations and liturgy books published before ca. 1950). AnonMoos (talk) 06:45, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

No one seems to have come up with any support for this claim in almost two years. I'm going to remove it. --Trovatore (talk) 09:46, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Alternate theory

"Manuela Cook's N-V-T Theory covers these gaps." What is this theory? There are no links about it, no citations, and it's only mentioned in one sentence. There's no page on it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.201.209.230 (talk) 16:34, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Slovene

I have just read the part of the article about the slovene system. The text is highly speculative about the meaning of each of the forms. As I do not find a good reference for the "official" slovene version, I will just shorten the text to omit the the unproven meanings. Dedekmraz (talk) 18:53, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Why?

That is the question. Why have two forms of "you"? This article fails to provide a reason. English has two forms of "you" (you and one), but one is only used in that generic sense rather than adressing a person directly. But, other languages require you to adress your "superiors" by a separate form of "you"? Why must it be reciprocal? (the equivalent English is having to say "what are we consuming for dinner on this night", a formal statement, to your parents, but they may use the simpler term "eat") I have nothing against it, I just want to know why. Ticklewickleukulele (talk) 06:49, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Bulgarian

The section on the T-V distinction in Bulgarian appears to be a little amateurish and not entirely correct, does not cite any sources and the way in which it's written is rather confusing. I'll attempt an edit. Please, add sources and proofread if reverting it to the older version.93.152.188.175 (talk) 19:53, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Singular/plural distinction? In Korean?

"There are at least seven honorific speech levels, each with a singular and plural distinction, creating 14 basic verb stems..."

What? As a native Korean speaker I find this extremely unlikely. Korean has no notion of grammatical plurality (other than separate pronouns, but pronouns certainly don't have 7 different levels). Well, maybe Middle Age Korean had some such distinction (if that's the case, the claim need to be clarified and have a reference), but I never heard about such a thing, and it sounds quite unlikely. 24.6.173.129 (talk) 04:17, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

No, it’s not the case. I have deleted it. — TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 09:43, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Chinese

However, as almost all native Chinese speakers (including overseas Chinese) understand the rudimentary rules with regard to the agglutination-cum-contextual rules in Chinese languages, this is merely a minor set-back at the beginning of the Mandarin-learning stage – the addition of a 心 (xīn) to 你 in 您 speaks for itself. Nevertheless, many southern Chinese often see 您 as a form of expressing (formal) affections only and do not make the subtle distinction that 您 may be used in various formal communications. This simple linguistic faux pas has earned many southern migrants in Beijing and other northern cities a reputation for being rude and uncouth.

Remove this. No one I know of outside of Beijing (including myself) uses Nin when speaking Mandarin even though it's part of the formal standard, and no one that I know of has every gotten into trouble for not using it. Roadrunner (talk) 05:39, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Similarly removing this

...sometimes going so far as to employ archaic forms no longer used in speech such as writing 閣下 (simp. 阁下, géxià, lit. "From below the pagoda") to express "Your Excellency". Although rarely, formal settings may still employ 前輩 (simp. 前辈, qiánbèi, lit. "earlier generation") to mean "elder(s)".

pending any evidence that these terms are commonly used in writing – i.e. by people other than China's equivalents of Nabokov – but not used by anyone in speech.

I'm sure written Chinese is formal and conservative in a way English isn't, if only because of the years of 古文 the high school kids are forced to learn. All the same, these examples don't seem to cut it: one is self-admittedly rare and the other is hard impossible to think of as non-ironic when used to address Communist Party leaders. We should be looking for things that are different in kind from the ironic or self-consciously situational use you see with things like "your humble servant" and "ye olde gift shoppe" in English. — LlywelynII 05:50, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

Let's start again

I was puzzled and disturbed to read a reference to "Brown and Gilman's V-T theory". Surely this misses the point entirely. What Brown and Gilman gave us was taxonomy and a tool to categorise the actual use of T and V forms. The article seems to have drifted into a general discussion of modes of address, simplified to the gross level of 'honorific' and 'familiar'. The beauty of Brown & Gilman's paper is that it superseded those glib and unhelpful terms.

There's an understandable desire to use the T-V framework to classify a wider range of terms of address than second person pronouns, determiners, verb forms etc. But let's start by establishing what T-V originally meant. I'm working on a draft, and hope to post within a day or two. If you're as critical as I am of the start of the article, give me some suggestions. DavidCrosbie (talk) 02:00, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Forgetten (thou seemest) the meaning of "Tū-Vōs Distinction." The T-V distinction does not refer to a distinction between separate second-person-singular and second-person-plural pronouns. It refers to whether or not a language has some kind of informal and formal second person pronouns.

The T-V distinction refers to words, not languages. DavidCrosbie (talk) 04:34, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

It most certainly refers to a distinction found within a language. Tharthandorf Aquanashi (talk) 14:25, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes and no. It refers to a single type of distinction found within many languages. DavidCrosbie (talk) 17:50, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Exactly. Furthermore, my point is that it centres around whether a language has or does not have a marked seperation between informal and formal second-person pronouns. Tharthandorf Aquanashi (talk) 18:10, 17 November

2013 (UTC)

I don't understand at all. What is the 'it' that centres around that question? DavidCrosbie (talk) 23:08, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Furthermore, the introductory paragraph should not contain the fact that most (if not all) distinctive informal and formal second-person pronouns originated from what were historically neutral second-person or third-person pronouns. Such information is already present in the History section of the article. Tharthandorf Aquanashi (talk) 19:55, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

I wasn't so concerned with the introductory paragraph, as you can see from my rewrite of much of the History section. DavidCrosbie (talk) 04:34, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Circular self-reference

Apparently the page somewhere somehow refers to itself – possibly a form of quasi-diambiguation. Does somebody have the technical knowledge to fix the problem? DavidCrosbie (talk) 17:55, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

It seems now to have been fixed by a robot. I wonder why we were ever told of the problem. DavidCrosbie (talk) 02:56, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

German "Ihr" as a singular?

Watching a Japanese movie subtitled in German ("Lady Snowblood") I was puzzled as a native English speaker to see individual characters addressing each other as "ihr" rather than "du" or "Sie". Is this a one-off, or is it found elsewhere in German or German translations of Japanese? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.58.152.7 (talk • contribs) 22:04, 1 September 2005

"Ihr" is plural "you". "Du" is informal singular, "Sie" is formal singular. I would say the movie erred. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rt66lt (talk • contribs) 05:39, 18 September 2005

"Ihr" is an archaic formal form of the singular, since replaced by "Sie". When "Ihr" and "Sie" coexisted as singular forms "Ihr" used to be used in more-than-formal contexts, e.g. in poetry, lofty speech and in addressing very high-ranking persons. "Ihr" in the context of this movie might have been meant to indicate an archaic mode of speech. Tschild 13:47, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Not quite so. Using "Ihr" is still consistently used in movie dubbing when addressing royalty and the like. Since we have no "active" royalty in Germany, I couldn't say if it would acutally be used in real life situations. Thinking about it, Prince Phillip (The British Queen's husband) speaks German and I vaguely remember a TV interview where he was addressed with "Ihr". But that is very vague ... --Vertigo-1 19:00, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Being German myself, I'm quite sure they would not address Prince Phillip as Ihr. That would sound way too submissive. --92.225.46.8 (talk) 17:51, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

It is the way I'd probably address the Holy Father should some unforseen circumstance put me in a situation to do so. And that rather as a matter of boldness, feeling myself humbly entitled as a Catholic to leave the more formal "Euer Heiligkeit" with 3rdPPl out. In an interview with HRH the Duke of Edinburgh it does sound submissive (and rather an error in tradition), but it sounds way less submissive compared to inserting "Euer Königliche Hoheit" for every personal pronoun, as usual custom in addressing royalty would in fact demand. - That being said, the "ihrzing" can, with decreasing frequency, still be heard, though rarely, in some mostly rural regions of Bavaria, without oversubmissiveness; and some 40 years ago an unskilled worker could still be "erzed" by his master. In fact, in regions where the plural "ihr" is not uncommon even to those that individually are called "Sie", it is common to call waitresses "ihr", though with a thought-along miniscule, to be explained as: "you in representation of the guest house/ hotel/ etc.", if one doesn't dare to thou but doesn't either wish to use that impersonality a "Sie" brings along with.--91.34.228.200 (talk) 12:54, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Japanese has many different pronouns. Maybe this was a way to try to translate the specific type of pronoun used in the original, Japanese script. This is even more likely when the story is taking place in history and therefor more old-fashioned or formal pronouns are used.Jb (talk) 10:17, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

As Prince Charles is part of a ruling nobility the correct german (formal, what esle?) addres is "Königliche Hohheit" (Royal Highness) and 3rd person plural.German Federal Ministry of the Interior, Protocol Office — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.129.18.220 (talk) 12:49, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

y'all

It was my understanding that y'all, as a contraction of "you all", was in fact used as an indication of the use of "you" as a plural vs. use of you as a singular. When addressing a group as a whole, one would use "y'all", but when addressing just one person. one would use "you". And I believe that I did in fact hear this idea expressed on a radio program. This type of use is not a T-V distinction, but just simply an attempt to introduce a singular vs. plural second person pronoun, which is basically otherwise absent in current English. Wschart (talk) 12:05, 26 June 2014 (UTC) \\9

Quenya

In High Elvish, self-named Quenya, the T-V-Distinction is present and very usual. Most commonly, in second-person, të (or verbal desinences -t and -tye-) is used to singular and lë (or desinences -l and -lye- is used to plural. However, there are three variations of use: the common, that we described above; the familiar; and the formal.

There's almost no content here. Absent some sourced evidence that Elvish usage is not at least broadly analogous to that of some European language, I say delete this paragraph, as well as the related row of the table. —Tamfang (talk) 07:07, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Usage in the Canary Islands

The section on Spanish gives conflicting information on the use of plural pronouns in the Canary Islands. In the third paragraph one sentence tells us that the islanders use 'vosotros' like most mainland Spaniards; the next sentence tells us they only use 'ustedes' like Latin Americans. I've no idea what the truth of the matter is, but both sentences can't be right.188.203.49.105 (talk) 15:04, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Cleanup

This article could do with a good pruning. To start, anything unreferenced should go. Any objections? --John (talk) 18:49, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

I think that, rather than blanketly removing all uncited things, we should check first to make sure that there truly aren't any references to something that exist out there that would be usable in the article. Just my tuppence worth. Tharthandorf Aquanashi (talk) 19:18, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

Mmm. Well sure but on the other hand we should not have articles like this one that are largely a collection of random things that people have added, an unknown proportion of which will be hoaxes, jokes, mistakes or misunderstandings. I can give you a week to find sources before I start to remove material. Is that ok? --John (talk) 19:23, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

I'm just a passerby editor. I don't have any particular attachment to the unreferenced material. I was merely giving general advice based on what I felt after reading the article. You should probably wait for other editors to comment on this before you do anything, though.

I'm a WikiPlatypus, not a WikiMercenary nor a WikiWizard. I act closer to a WikiPuma than anything else. Tharthandorf Aquanashi (talk) 20:15, 8 November 2014 (UTC) Tharthandorf Aquanashi (talk) 20:03, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

I have no thing to say of the references, but what comes to the length of the article, one might have an introduction about T–V distinction in general, and then links to more specific articles, like "T–V distinction in Germanic languages". Or maybe it would be better to simply delete unnecessary material, this is just an idea. K9re11 (talk) 21:45, 15 March 2015 (UTC)