Re: How and why did English lose "thou"

On 2025-05-20, Grimble Crumble <grimblecrumble870@gmail.com> wrote:

In EmE, there were 2 distinct pronouns that translate to "you" in Modern
English: thou, used in the singular; and ye, used in the plural/formal
singular. This is a common distinction in other languages (Spanish, German,
French, etc.), so how come "thou" was lost?

Inflation.  A common driver of language change, too.  The plural
was used as a form of respect when addressing superiors, cf. French
"vous".  In fact, the usage may have been copied from French.
Eventually this spread throughout society until everybody was given
the courtesy of this address, and "thou" and its associated verb
forms withered away.

This sort of development is in no way unique to English.

Some parts of the Spanish speaking world, most prominently Argentina,
have so-called voseo where the informal second person singular is
"vos" and associated verb forms, originally the second person plural
used deferentially, but then suffering inflation and becoming
informal, with "usted" taking over the formal role.

The Portuguese equivalent of Spanish "usted" is "você"; both take
third person verb forms and were contracted from a phrase that
originally meant "your grace".  In Brazilian Portuguese, at least
the media variety, this "você" has replaced original "tu" as the
form of address.  If you now want to show respect, you need
"o senhor" etc.  Inflation again.  As a side effect, the original
second person verb forms have disappeared from colloquial Brazilian
Portuguese, much like the "thou -st/-t" forms have disappeared from
English.

Latin American Spanish in general and European Portuguese show a
partial form of this change in the plural, where originally formal
"ustedes" and "vocês" have replaced informal "vosotros" and "vós"
and their associated verb forms, respectively.

--
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber                          naddy@mips.inka.de