Ye (pronoun)

This article is about the Middle English personal pronoun. For other uses, see Ye (disambiguation).

Ye (IPA: /jiː/) was the second-person, plural, personal pronoun (nominative), spelled in Old English as "ge". In Middle English and Early Modern English, it was used to direct an equal or superior person. It is also common today in Ireland's Hiberno-English to distinguish from the singular "you".

The use of the term "Ye" to represent an Early Modern English form of the word "the" (traditionally pronounced /ðiː/), such as in "Ye Olde Shoppe", is incorrect. This mistaken attribution is due to the medieval usage of the letter thorn (þ) the predecessor to the modern digraph "th". The word "The" was thus written Þe. Medieval printing presses did not contain the letter thorn, so the letter y was substituted owing to its similarity with some medieval scripts, especially later ones.

Etymology

In Old English, ye was governed by a simple rule: thou addressed one person, and ye addressed more than one. After the Norman Conquest, which marks the beginning of the French vocabulary influence that characterised the Middle English period, thou was gradually replaced by the plural ye as the form of address for a superior and later for an equal. The practice of matching singular and plural forms with informal and formal connotations is called the T-V distinction, and in English is largely due to the influence of French. This began with the practice of addressing kings and other aristocrats in the plural. Eventually, this was generalised, as in French, to address any social superior or stranger with a plural pronoun, which was believed to be more polite. In French, tu was eventually considered either intimate or condescending (and, to a stranger, potentially insulting), while the plural form vous was reserved and formal. In Early Modern English, ye functioned as both an informal plural and formal singular second-person nominative pronoun. "ye" is still commonly used as an informal plural in Hiberno English.

Old English pronouns

			Nominative	IPA	Accusative	Dative	Genitive
1st	Singular		iċ	[ɪtʃ]	mec / mē	mē	mīn
	Dual		wit	[wɪt]	uncit	unc	uncer
	Plural		wē	[weː]	ūsic	ūs	ūser / ūre
2nd	Singular		þū	[θuː]	þec / þē	þē	þīn
	Dual		ġit	[jɪt]	incit	inc	incer
	Plural		ġē	[jeː]	ēowic	ēow	ēower
3rd	Singular	Masculine	hē	[heː]	hine	him	his
		Neuter	hit	[hɪt]	hit	him	his
		Feminine	hēo	[heːo]	hīe	hiere	hiere
	Plural		hīe	[hiːə]	hīe	heom	heora

Personal pronouns in Middle English

		Singular			Plural
		Subject	Object	Possessive	Subject	Object	Possessive
First		ik / ich / I	me	my(n)	we	us	oure
Second		þou / thou	þee / thee	þy(n) / thy(n)	ȝe / ye	ȝow / you	ȝower / your
Third	Impersonal	hit	hit / him	his	he þei / they	hem þem / them	her þeir / their
	Masculine	he	him	his
	Feminine	ȝho / scho / sche	hire	hire

Personal pronouns in Early Modern English

		Nominative	Objective	Genitive	Possessive
1st Person	singular	I	me	my/mine	mine
	plural	we	us	our	ours
2nd Person	singular informal	thou	thee	thy/thine	thine
	plural or formal singular	ye	you	your	yours
3rd Person	singular	he/she/it	him/her/it	his/her/his (it)	his/hers/his
	plural	they	them	their	theirs

See also

• Y'all
• Yinz