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.
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.
Well, you was also the plural. So, maybe just keeping you plural and dropping its formality would work to keep thou as the singular
Because having two versions of the same word is redundant?
I'm curious, is there a particular reason English dropped the distinct second person singular pronoun ?
Have an English printing press that can actually type the letter thorn...
I thought "ye" had been the second-person plural personal pronoun.
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.
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.
That link actually says that you was the oblique form while ye was the nominative