WI/AHC: Usage of "thou" as major difference between modern British and American English

oberdada

"thou" fell out of use during the 17th in the standard language, so this is a bit tricky.

So I see basically two ways to get that result:

1. "thou" stays common enough in the English language ( like "du" in German to the present day ) and the use declines later only on one side of the Atlantic

2. "thou" makes a comeback in the USA, maybe because of the large amount of pious people who want to speak in style of the (King James) bible or as a political statement of being equal citizens of a republic, probably both

What do you think?

This could be used to add a bit of AH flavor in a story, especially with conflict between Americans and Brits having to work together (defeating Nazis or whatever). Or it could be totally annoying ...


This idea was partially inspired by an article from Thande on Sea Lion Press: https://www.sealionpress.co.uk/post...uKkZ62t5Byd6esslCQCSZMc3Coc9vuzBwcoLz9XtTIrIU (So you know what to do ;-)
 

TRH

I was given to understand part of the reason for thou falling out of usage was precisely because it requires you to know where you and the other person stand on the social hierarchy, so a more egalitarian society would eschew it even sooner.
 

oberdada

TRH said:
I was given to understand part of the reason for thou falling out of usage was precisely because it requires you to know where you and the other person stand on the social hierarchy, so a more egalitarian society would eschew it even sooner.
Click to expand...

In the case of it making a comeback in the US, "you " would fall out of use instead.
 

Kaiko

Funnily enough, "thou" was used to indicate familiarity, intimacy, and even disrespect while "you" was formal but nowadays most people assume that "thou" was the fancy and old-timey one.

I think that the first scenario seems the more likely, where English (and later, British) custom for speaking to the king or to your lord using the formal "you" is made mandatory and then customary while "thou" is kept to people within the same class or standing.

If you want "thou" to remain popular in the US, then you could explain it away with the colonials being resentful of being spoken down to by the home islands. Imagine colonial administrators, imperial regulars (red coats), and all decrees from Parliament talk down to the colonists using "thou".

After the revolution, American simification of English could be seen as a type of linguistic expansion of the American Revolution where nobility is not recognizes and "thou" is made the standard way of addressing another. Where we are all commoners with no one being held as above them.

Moving on to modern(ish) times, the use of "you" becomes a lot less prominent in the British Isles. "You" ends up being used only when speaking to the British monarch, "Your Majesty", or during church, "You [God] are my Lord", and sometimes your boss if you feel like sucking ass. "Thou" would eventually become common place for everyday use like in the US.

Edit:

A scene, taking place in this version of the United States, a boy speaking with his mother.

"Billy! Hast thou called thy grandmother for her birthday yet?"
"Not yet, mom. Thank thee for reminding me"

And everyone considered this to be the normal way to talk.
 
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JennyB

TRH said:
I was given to understand part of the reason for thou falling out of usage was precisely because it requires you to know where you and the other person stand on the social hierarchy, so a more egalitarian society would eschew it even sooner.
Click to expand...
Unless of course thou art a Quaker.
 

galanx

Kaiser Kolovos said:
Moving on to modern(ish) times, the use of "you" becomes a lot less prominent in the British Isles. "You" ends up being used only when speaking to the British monarch, "Your Majesty", or during church, "You [God] are my Lord", and sometimes your boss if you feel like sucking ass. "Thou" would eventually become common place for everyday use like in the US.

Edit:

A scene, taking place in this version of the United States, a boy speaking with his mother.

"Billy! Hast thou called thy grandmother for her birthday yet?"
"Not yet, mom. Thank thee for reminding me"

And everyone considered this to be the normal way to talk.
Click to expand...
Would make Tolkien's description of Pippin being a great lord by using the second person familiar to Denethor more understandable.
"You know, like the time Britain and the United States almost went to war when the American ambassador used "thou" when talking to the King."
 

Kaiko

The thing I find interesting about retaining the use of thou is how it would affect how we conjugate verbs.

In modern English, it goes "I have, You have, He/She/It has, We have, You have, They have".
In Old English, it goes "I have, Thou hast, He/She/It hath, We have, You have, They have".

And then there's past tense, where "I will, I would" and "You will, You would" become "I will, I would" and "Thou wilt, Thou wouldst".

Children would have to learn more about verb conjugation to get it right, but on the plus side it gives us a clear difference between the You (singular) and the You (plural).

You would definitely see the similarities that English has to German.

Hey OP, do you also want to keep the My/Mine and Thy/Thine distinction as well? It's basically the same rules as using A/An, you use the second form before vowel sounds.
 
BELFAST

BELFAST

The Professor said:
I know I'm being incredibly pedantic but that's not Old English but Early Modern English, the language Shakespeare wrote in.
Click to expand...
Indeed. Old English is more like
Beowulf
Hwæt. We Gardena in geardagum,
þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.
Oft Scyld Scefing sceaþena þreatum,
monegum mægþum, meodosetla ofteah,
egsode eorlas. Syððan ærest wearð
feasceaft funden, he þæs frofre gebad,
weox under wolcnum, weorðmyndum þah,
oðþæt him æghwylc þara ymbsittendra
ofer hronrade hyran scolde,
gomban gyldan. þæt wæs god cyning.
ðæm eafera wæs æfter cenned,
geong in geardum, þone god sende
folce to frofre; fyrenðearfe ongeat
þe hie ær drugon aldorlease
lange hwile. Him þæs liffrea,
wuldres wealdend, woroldare forgeaf;
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43521/beowulf-old-english-version
Click to expand...
 

Peppe

Wasn't the printing press the reason why "thou" fell out of style?

If I remember it correctly, originally to write the the "th" of "thou" the letter "þ" was used. Said letter by the Late Middle Ages was only used in England and Iceland (and maybe Scandinavia, I'm not sure. In Iceland it is still used), and so, when the printing press came, since it was a german invention, it lacked the "þ", causing the printers to write it as a "y" because it looked similar enough (that's the reason for the writing where there is "y" replacing the "th", at the time it would be read as "th").

Over time, people got tired of having to always remind themselves that "you" actually was read as "thou", and so the world evolved into being actually pronounced "you".
 

AnonymousSauce

BELFAST said:
In the part of Ireland where I live you plural, ye is still used.
en.wikipedia.org

Ye (pronoun) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
In Dublin you plural is yous.
ell.stackexchange.com

How common is the usage of "yous" as a plural of "you"?

Yesterday I was exposed to the fact the "yous" is a plural form of the pronoun you. while historically I know that "you" is actually the second person plural pronoun while the singular form is "tho...
ell.stackexchange.com ell.stackexchange.com
Click to expand...
My stepfather who was from Michigan said yous.
 
BELFAST

BELFAST

Peppe said:
Wasn't the printing press the reason why "thou" fell out of style?

If I remember it correctly, originally to write the the "th" of "thou" the letter "þ" was used. Said letter by the Late Middle Ages was only used in England and Iceland (and maybe Scandinavia, I'm not sure. In Iceland it is still used), and so, when the printing press came, since it was a german invention, it lacked the "þ", causing the printers to write it as a "y" because it looked similar enough (that's the reason for the writing where there is "y" replacing the "th", at the time it would be read as "th").

Over time, people got tired of having to always remind themselves that "you" actually was read as "thou", and so the world evolved into being actually pronounced "you".
Click to expand...
Even the letter U was not commonly used until the printing press.

The letters begin to look different in the Gothic alphabet in 1386; however the use of the u was not widespread. When scribes did use a u, it was in the middle of words, e.g. save was saue, but upon was vpon. It wasn’t until printing standardized letter shapes in the 1600s that the letter U became regularly used. First, in the 1500s, Italian printers started distinguishing between the vowel U and the consonant V. However, the V continued to be used for the U sound at the beginning of words. In 1629, the capital U became an accepted letter when Lazare Zetzner, a printer, started using it in his print shop.
https://www.dictionary.com/e/theletteru/
Click to expand...
 

Fabius Maximus

TRH said:
I was given to understand part of the reason for thou falling out of usage was precisely because it requires you to know where you and the other person stand on the social hierarchy, so a more egalitarian society would eschew it even sooner.
Click to expand...

I know that's sometimes given as an explanation, but TBH I'm doubtful -- most Romance languages (and maybe non-Romance European languages too, but I don't know enough about them to comment) keep the thou/ye distinction, and they seem to manage interactions with strangers OK. TBH I think the change in England was just one of these more-or-less random changes in fashion; addressing everyone as "you" happened to become fashionable amongst the upper classes, and everyone else followed suit.

Kaiser Kolovos said:
Funnily enough, "thou" was used to indicate familiarity, intimacy, and even disrespect while "you" was formal but nowadays most people assume that "thou" was the fancy and old-timey one.
Click to expand...

During Sir Walter Raleigh's trial for treason, the prosecutor once addressed him as "Thou -- and yes, I 'thou' thee, thou traitor!"

Peppe said:
Wasn't the printing press the reason why "thou" fell out of style?

If I remember it correctly, originally to write the the "th" of "thou" the letter "þ" was used. Said letter by the Late Middle Ages was only used in England and Iceland (and maybe Scandinavia, I'm not sure. In Iceland it is still used), and so, when the printing press came, since it was a german invention, it lacked the "þ", causing the printers to write it as a "y" because it looked similar enough (that's the reason for the writing where there is "y" replacing the "th", at the time it would be read as "th").

Over time, people got tired of having to always remind themselves that "you" actually was read as "thou", and so the world evolved into being actually pronounced "you".
Click to expand...

TBH I suspect that not enough people read regularly during the 16th and 17th centuries for printing conventions to have any real difference. Plus, English has plenty of words, letter clusters, etc., that are spelt the same but pronounced differently,* so there's no real reason why thou/you should be any different.

* It's true, English spelling is a nightmare. It can be mastered through tough, thorough thought, though. ;)

ETA: Also, back in the 16th century, thou was the nominative and thee the oblique, whereas ye was the nominative and you the oblique. So I think that it would have generally been pretty easily to distinguish the two in written text, even if the "th" was written with a "y".
 

TRH

Fabius Maximus said:
I know that's sometimes given as an explanation, but TBH I'm doubtful -- most Romance languages (and maybe non-Romance European languages too, but I don't know enough about them to comment) keep the thou/ye distinction, and they seem to manage interactions with strangers OK. TBH I think the change in England was just one of these more-or-less random changes in fashion; addressing everyone as "you" happened to become fashionable amongst the upper classes, and everyone else followed suit.
Click to expand...

I kind of expect "vous" to decline in usage as a singular pronoun, but I take your point nevertheless. Maybe vous and thou don't share all the same connotations or situational contexts, though. I couldn't say considering I haven't lived in a time where the latter was ever used.
 
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