Talk:T–V distinction

ó"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)

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)

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.

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)

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)

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

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)

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").

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)

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)

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)

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.

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)[reply]

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?

"Ihr" is plural "you". "Du" is informal singular, "Sie" is formal singular. I would say the movie erred.

"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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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

Hindi informal plural

I'm pretty sure that the informal Hindi plural is tum rather than aap. Aside from that, plural informal tum and formal aap often get -log added to distinguish from singular forms, thus the Hindi paradigm would look like this:

very informal singular: tū informal singular: tum formal singular: āp informal plural: tum(log) formal plural: āp(log)