Lasting Informal "You" in English

Is there a way to keep the informal/singular you (thou/thee/thy/thine) as a general part of English grammar and not just relocated to Bible-speak or was it destined to be overcome by the formal/plural ye/you?
 
Oh please, thou is my favorite lost word. Plus it would make Spanish and other languages with an informal you easier to learn.
 
Because having two versions of the same word is redundant?

Maybe there was a change in society that made them more formal in England.

Well, you was also the plural. So, maybe just keeping you plural and dropping its formality would work to keep thou as the singular
 
Is there a way to keep the informal/singular you (thou/thee/thy/thine) as a general part of English grammar and not just relocated to Bible-speak or was it destined to be overcome by the formal/plural ye/you?

I'm curious, is there a particular reason English dropped the distinct second person singular pronoun ?

Because having two versions of the same word is redundant?

Maybe there was a change in society that made them more formal in England.

It's just a quirk of the London dialect that became the basis for the formal "standard" English which became the main basis for most World Englishes. A number of Northern dialects retain variants of "thou". I can't find a clear reason for why thou was dropped, though.
 
Well, you was also the plural. So, maybe just keeping you plural and dropping its formality would work to keep thou as the singular

That's possible- "you" denoting formality was a relatively late development (15th C) so could be butterflied in during the transition from Middle to Early Modern English "you" becomes more strongly associated with plurality.
 
I use 'you guys' just as much as 'you' in the plural, and probably more often.

I'm not sure about keeping it as informal, but keeping these pronouns in English is definitely possible.

Somehow you could keep the T-V distinction from entering English from French influence, but I'm not sure how likely that is without radically changing English's evolution,
 
Because having two versions of the same word is redundant?

I'm not talking about formal vs informal, I'm talking about singular vs plural of the second person. English has kept it's distinction for the 1st and 3rd so why not the second ?

For that matter, how many other languages that do not make that distinction ?
 
I'm curious, is there a particular reason English dropped the distinct second person singular pronoun ?

I heard a theory it was because the French speaking old aristocracy use vous (the French formal you) in the legal codes and when they translated it to English it was always translated to "you" no matter the context, I don't know how valid the theory is though.
 
Have an English printing press that can actually type the letter thorn...

How would that prevent the demise of thou and related pronouns? It's not like it fell out of use because we had to write two letters for a digraph rather than just one.

It's not like 'þou' is any more compelling than 'thou'.
 
Ye is just a form of you isn't it?

Not really. Like SlideAway said, it's historically the second-person plural but not often used today. Some dialects still use it, but neither Received Pronunciation or General American (or any American dialect I've heard) use it, obviously.
 
Not really. Like SlideAway said, it's historically the second-person plural but not often used today. Some dialects still use it, but neither Received Pronunciation or General American (or any American dialect I've heard) use it, obviously.

That link actually says that you was the oblique form while ye was the nominative
 
How would that prevent the demise of thou and related pronouns? It's not like it fell out of use because we had to write two letters for a digraph rather than just one.

It's not like 'þou' is any more compelling than 'thou'.

plus, if you look at history, you have a high chance of people ending up writing it "pou" which would create a whole different problem.
 
plus, if you look at history, you have a high chance of people ending up writing it "pou" which would create a whole different problem.

"Ye Olde NO SHUT UP IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE ÞE, ÞE!"

I don't know, did people have trouble with P versus Þ before? I may be wrong, but I don't believe so.

That link actually says that you was the oblique form while ye was the nominative

It also says:

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 it 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.

Forgive the Wikipedia copy-paste.
 
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