Thou
The word thou (
Originally, thou was simply the singular counterpart to the plural pronoun
Early English translations of the Bible used the familiar singular form of the second person, which mirrors common usage trends in other languages. The familiar and singular form is used when speaking to
In standard Modern English, thou continues to be used in formal religious contexts, in wedding ceremonies ("I thee wed"), in literature that seeks to reproduce archaic language, and in certain fixed phrases such as "fare thee well". For this reason, many associate the pronoun with solemnity or formality. Many dialects have compensated for the lack of a singular/plural distinction caused by the disappearance of thou and ye through the creation of new plural pronouns or pronominals, such as yinz, yous[6] and y'all or the colloquial you guys. Ye remains common in some parts of Ireland, but the examples just given vary regionally and are usually restricted to colloquial speech.
Grammar
Because thou has passed out of common use, its traditional forms are often confused by those imitating archaic speech.[7][citation needed]
Declension
The English personal pronouns have standardized declension according to the following table:[citation needed]
Nominative | Oblique | Genitive | Possessive
| ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1st person | singular | I | me | my/mine[# 1] | mine |
plural | we | us | our | ours | |
2nd person | singular informal | thou | thee | thy/thine[# 1] | thine |
singular formal | ye, you | you | your | yours | |
plural | |||||
3rd person | singular | he/she/it | him/her/it | his/her/his (it)[# 2] | his/hers/his[# 2] |
plural | they | them | their | theirs |
- ^ possessive adjectives before a noun, or as possessive pronouns without a noun. All four forms are used as possessive adjectives: mine and thine are used before nouns beginning in a vowelsound, or before nouns beginning in the letter h, which was usually silent (e.g. thine eyes and mine heart, which was pronounced as mine art) and my and thy before consonants (thy mother, my love). However, only mine and thine are used as possessive pronouns, as in it is thine and they were mine (not *they were my).
- ^ King James Bible(Leviticus 25:5) as groweth of it owne accord.
Conjugation
Verb forms used after thou generally end in -est (pronounced /-ᵻst/) or -st in the
Typical examples of the standard present and past tense forms follow. The e in the ending is optional; early English spelling had not yet been standardized. In verse, the choice about whether to use the e often depended upon considerations of
- to know: thou knowest, thou knewest
- to drive: thou drivest, thou drovest
- to make: thou makest, thou madest
- to love: thou lovest, thou lovedst
- to want: thou wantest, thou wantedst
Modal verbs also have -(e)st added to their forms:
- can: thou canst
- could: thou couldst
- may: thou mayest
- might: thou mightst
- should: thou shouldst
- would: thou wouldst
- ought to: thou oughtest to
A few verbs have irregular thou forms:
- to be: thou art (or thou beest), thou wast /wɒst/ (or thou wert; originally thou were)
- to have: thou hast, thou hadst
- to do: thou dost /dʌst/ (or thou doest in non-auxiliary use) and thou didst
- shall: thou shalt
- will: thou wilt
A few others are not inflected:
- must: thou must
In Proto-English[clarification needed], the second-person singular verb inflection was -es. This came down unchanged[citation needed] from Indo-European and can be seen in quite distantly related Indo-European languages: Russian знаешь, znayesh, thou knowest; Latin amas, thou lovest. (This is parallel to the history of the third-person form, in Old English -eþ, Russian, знает, znayet, he knoweth, Latin amat he loveth.) The anomalous development[according to whom?] from -es to modern English -est, which took place separately at around the same time in the closely related German and West Frisian languages, is understood to be caused by an assimilation of the consonant of the pronoun, which often followed the verb. This is most readily observed in German: liebes du → liebstu → liebst du (lovest thou).[8]
There are some speakers of modern English that use thou/thee but use thee as the subject and conjugate the word with is/was, i.e. thee is, thee was, thee has, thee speaks, thee spoke, thee can, thee could. However this is not considered standard.
Comparison
Early Modern English | Modern West Frisian | Modern German | Modern Dutch
|
Modern English |
---|---|---|---|---|
Thou hast | Do hast [dou ˈhast] |
Du hast [duː ˈhast] |
Jij hebt [jɛi ˈɦɛpt] |
You have |
She hath | Sy hat [sɛi ˈhat] |
Sie hat [ziː ˈhat] |
Zij heeft [zɛi ˈɦeːft] |
She has |
What hast thou? | Wat hasto? [vat ˈhasto] |
Was hast du? [vas ˈhast duː] |
Wat heb je? [ʋɑt ˈɦɛp jə] |
What do you have? (What have you?) |
What hath she? | Wat hat sy? [vat ˈhat sɛi] |
Was hat sie? [vas ˈhat ziː] |
Wat heeft zij? [ʋɑt ˈɦeːft sɛi] |
What does she have? (What has she?) |
Thou goest | Do giest [dou ˈɡiəst] |
Du gehst [duː ˈɡeːst] |
Jij gaat [jɛi ˈɣaːt] |
You go |
Thou doest | Do dochst [dou ˈdoχst] |
Du tust [duː ˈtuːst] |
Jij doet [jɛi ˈdut] |
You do |
Thou art (variant thou beest) |
Do bist [dou ˈbɪst] |
Du bist [duː ˈbɪst] |
Jij bent [jɛi ˈbɛnt] |
You are |
In Dutch, the equivalent of "thou", du, also became archaic and fell out of use and was replaced by the Dutch equivalent of "you", gij (later jij or u), just as it has in English, with the place of the informal plural taken by jullie (compare English y’all).
In the subjunctive and imperative moods, the ending in -(e)st is dropped (although it is generally retained in thou wert, the second-person singular past subjunctive of the verb to be). The subjunctive forms are used when a statement is doubtful or contrary to fact; as such, they frequently occur after if and the poetic and.
- If thou be Johan, I tell it thee, right with a good advice ...;[9]
- Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart ...[10]
- I do wish thou wert a dog, that I might love thee something ...[11]
- And thou bring Alexander and his paramour before the Emperor, I'll be Actaeon ...[12]
- O WERT thou in the cauld blast, ... I'd shelter thee ...[13]
In modern regional English dialects that use thou or some variant, such as in Yorkshire and Lancashire, it often takes the third person form of the verb -s. This comes from a merging of Early Modern English second person singular ending -st and third person singular ending -s into -s (the latter a northern variation of -þ (-th)).
The present
Etymology
Thou originates from
History
Old and Middle English
In Old English, thou was governed by a simple rule: thou addressed one person, and ye more than one. Beginning in the 1300s thou was gradually replaced by the plural ye as the form of address for a superior person and later for an equal. For a long time, however, thou remained the most common form for addressing an inferior person.[3]
The practice of matching singular and plural forms with informal and formal connotations is called the T–V distinction and in English 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 generalized, as in French, to address any social superior or stranger with a plural pronoun, which was felt 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.[citation needed]
General decline in Early Modern English
Fairly suddenly in the 17th century, thou began to decline in the standard language (that is, particularly in and around London), often regarded as impolite or ambiguous in terms of politeness. It persisted, sometimes in an altered form, particularly in
In the 18th century,
One notable consequence of the decline in use of the second person singular pronouns thou, thy, and thee is the obfuscation of certain sociocultural elements of Early Modern English texts, such as many character interactions in Shakespeare's plays, which were mostly written from 1589 to 1613. Although Shakespeare is far from consistent in his writings, his characters primarily tend to use thou (rather than you) when addressing another who is a social subordinate, a close friend or family member, or a hated wrongdoer.[17]
Usage
Use as a verb
Many European languages contain verbs meaning "to address with the informal pronoun", such as German duzen, the Norwegian noun dus refers to the practice of using this familiar form of address instead of the De/Dem/Deres formal forms in common use, French tutoyer, Spanish tutear and vosear, Swedish dua, Dutch jijen en jouen, Ukrainian тикати (tykaty), Russian тыкать (tykat'), Polish tykać, Romanian tutui, Hungarian tegezni, Finnish sinutella, etc. Although uncommon in English, the usage did appear, such as at the trial of Sir Walter Raleigh in 1603, when Sir Edward Coke, prosecuting for the Crown, reportedly sought to insult Raleigh by saying,
- I thou thee, thou traitor![18]
- In modern English: I "thou" you, you traitor!
here using thou as a verb meaning to call (someone) "thou" or "thee". Although the practice never took root in Standard English, it occurs in dialectal speech in the north of England. A formerly common refrain in Yorkshire dialect for admonishing children who misused the familiar form was:
- Don't thee tha them as thas thee!
- In modern English: Don't you "tha" those who "tha" you!
- In other words: Don't use the familiar form "tha" towards those who refer to you as "tha". ("tha" being the local dialectal variant of "thou")
And similar in Lancashire dialect:
- Don't thee me, thee; I's you to thee!
- In standard English: Don't "thee" me, you! I'm "you" to you!
See further the Wiktionary page on thou as a verb.
Religious uses
Christianity
Many conservative Christians use "Thee, Thou, Thy and Thine when addressing God" in prayer; in the Plymouth Brethren catechism Gathering Unto His Name, Norman Crawford explains the practice:[5]
The English language does contain reverential and respectful forms of the second person pronoun which allow us to show reverence in speaking to God. It has been a very long tradition that these reverential forms are used in prayer. In a day of irreverence, how good to display in every way that we can that "He (God) is not a man as I am" (Job 9:32).[5]
When referring to God, "thou" (as with other pronouns) is often capitalized, e.g. "For Thou hast delivered my soul from death" (Psalm 56:12–13).[19][20][21]
As
The 1662 Book of Common Prayer, which is still an authorized form of worship in the Church of England and much of the Anglican Communion, also uses the word thou to refer to the singular second person.[26][improper synthesis?]
In
Islam and Baháʼí Faith
In many of the Quranic translations, particularly those compiled by the
In the English translations of the scripture of the Baháʼí Faith, the terms thou and thee are also used. Shoghi Effendi, the head of the religion in the first half of the 20th century, adopted a style that was somewhat removed from everyday discourse when translating the texts from their original Arabic or Persian to capture some of the poetic and metaphorical nature of the text in the original languages and to convey the idea that the text was to be considered holy.[33]
Literary uses
Shakespeare
Like his contemporaries, William Shakespeare uses thou both in the intimate, French-style sense, and also to emphasize differences of rank, but he is by no means consistent in using the word, and friends and lovers sometimes call each other ye or you as often as they call each other thou,[34][35][36] sometimes in ways that can be analysed for meaning, but often apparently at random.
For example, in the following passage from
- Prince: Thou art so fat-witted with drinking of old sack, and unbuttoning thee after supper, and sleeping upon benches after noon, that thou hast forgotten to demand that truly which thou wouldest truly know. What a devil hast thou to do with the time of the day? ...
- Falstaff: Indeed, you come near me now, Hal ... And, I prithee, sweet wag, when thou art a king, as God save thy Grace – Majesty, I should say; for grace thou wilt have none –
While in Hamlet, Shakespeare uses discordant second person pronouns to express Hamlet's antagonism towards his mother.
- Queen Gertrude: Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended..
- Hamlet: Mother, you have my father much offended.
More recent uses
Except where everyday use survives in some regions of England,
The converse—the use of the second person singular ending -est for the third person—also occurs ("So sayest Thor!"―spoken by Thor). This usage often shows up in modern parody and pastiche[42] in an attempt to make speech appear either archaic or formal. The forms thou and thee are often transposed.
Current usage
You is now the standard English second-person pronoun and encompasses both the singular and plural senses. In some dialects, however, thou has persisted,
Persistence of second-person singular
In traditional dialects, thou is used in the English countries of Cumberland, Westmorland, Durham, Lancashire, Yorkshire, Staffordshire, Derbyshire and some western parts of Nottinghamshire.[46] The Survey of Anglo-Welsh Dialects, which began in 1968,[47] found that thou persisted in scattered sites across Clwyd, Dyfed, Powys and West Glamorgan.[48] Such dialects normally also preserve distinct verb forms for the singular second person, for example thee coost (standard English: you could, archaic: thou couldst) in northern Staffordshire. Throughout rural Yorkshire, the old distinction between nominative and objective is preserved.[citation needed] The possessive is often written as thy in local dialect writings, but is pronounced as an unstressed tha, and the possessive pronoun has in modern usage almost exclusively followed other English dialects in becoming yours or the local[specify] word your'n (from your one):[citation needed]
Nominative | Objective | Genitive | Possessive | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Second person | singular | tha | thee | thy (tha) | yours / your'n |
The apparent incongruity between the archaic nominative, objective and
Some other variants are specific to certain areas. In
In rural North Lancashire between Lancaster and the North Yorkshire border tha is preserved in colloquial phrases such as "What would tha like for thi tea?" (What would you like for your dinner), and "'appen tha waint" ("perhaps you won't" – happen being the dialect word for perhaps) and "tha knows" (you know). This usage in Lancashire is becoming rare, except for elderly and rural speakers.
A well-known routine by comedian
The use of the word "thee" in the song "
The word "thee" is also used in the song Upside Down "Respectfully, I say to thee / I'm aware that you're cheating".[53]
The use of the phrase "tha knows" has been widely used in various songs by
The use persists somewhat in the
Thoo has also been used in the Orcadian Scots dialect in place of the singular informal thou. In Shetland dialect, the other form of Insular Scots, du and dee are used. The word "thou" has been reported in the North Northern Scots Cromarty dialect as being in common use in the first half of the 20th century and by the time of its extinction only in occasional use.[55]
See also
Citations
- ^ "thou, thee, thine, thy (prons.)", Kenneth G. Wilson, The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. 1993. Retrieved 2 March 2016.
- ^ Pressley, J. M. (8 January 2010). "Thou Pesky 'Thou'". Shakespeare Resource Centre.
- ^ a b "yǒu (pron.)". Middle English Dictionary. the Regents of the University of Michigan. 2014. Retrieved 10 May 2018.
- ^ a b Shorrocks, 433–438.
- ^ a b c Crawford, Norman (1997). Gathering Unto His Name. GTP. pp. 178–179.
- ISBN 978-3110175325.
- ^ "Archaic English Grammar -- dan.tobias.name". dan.tobias.name. Retrieved 2020-11-02.
- ^ Fennell, Barbara A. (2001). A history of English: a sociolinguistic approach. Blackwell Publishing. p. 22.
- ^ Middle English carol:
If thou be Johan, I tell it the
Ryght with a good aduyce
Thou may be glad Johan to be
It is a name of pryce.
- ^ Eleanor Hull, Be Thou My Vision, 1912 translation of traditional Irish hymn, Rob tu mo bhoile, a Comdi cride.
- ^ Shakespeare, Timon of Athens, act IV, scene 3.
- ^ Christopher Marlowe, Dr. Faustus, act IV, scene 2.
- ^ Robert Burns, O Wert Thou in the Cauld Blast(song), lines 1–4.
- ^ Entries for thou and *tu, in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language
- ^ Nordquist, Richard (2016). "Notes on Second-Person Pronouns: Whatever Happened to 'Thou' and 'Thee'?" ThoughtCo. About, Inc.
- Merriam Webster's Dictionary of English Usage.
- ^ Atkins, Carl D. (ed.) (2007). Shakespeare's Sonnets: With Three Hundred Years of Commentary. Associated University Presses. p. 55.
- ^ Reported, among many other places, in H. L. Mencken, The American Language (1921), ch. 9, ss. 4., "The pronoun".
- ISBN 1930367287.
- ISBN 0314061150.
- ISBN 1592760945.
- ^ Jespersen, Otto (1894). Progress in Language. New York: Macmillan. p. 260.
- ISBN 0-300-09930-4.
- ^ Preface to the Revised Standard Version Archived 2016-05-18 at the Wayback Machine 1971
- ^ "NRSV: To the Reader". Ncccusa.org. 2007-02-13. Archived from the original on 2010-02-06. Retrieved 2010-03-18.
- ^ The Book of Common Prayer. The Church of England. Retrieved on 12 September 2007.
- ^ "Q: What about the funny Quaker talk? Do you still do that?". Stillwater Monthly Meeting of Ohio Yearly Meeting of Friends. Archived from the original on 9 August 2021. Retrieved 10 April 2022.
- ^ See, for example, The Quaker Widow by Bayard Taylor
- ISBN 0-19-506905-6.
- JSTOR 452011.
- ^ Oaks, Dallin H. (May 1983). "The Language of Prayer". Ensign.
- ISBN 1 85372 314 2) by Islam International Publications Ltd. Islamabad, Sheephatch Lane, Tilford, Surrey GUl 0 2AQ, UK.The Holy Quran, English Translation
- ^ Malouf, Diana (November 1984). "The Vision of Shoghi Effendi". Proceedings of the Association for Baháʼí Studies, Ninth Annual Conference. Ottawa, Canada. pp. 129–139.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ Cook, Hardy M.; et al. (1993). "You/Thou in Shakespeare's Work". SHAKSPER: The Global, Electronic Shakespeare Conference. Archived from the original on 2007-02-25. Retrieved 2004-12-04.
- ^ Calvo, Clara (1992). "'Too wise to woo peaceably': The Meanings of Thou in Shakespeare's Wooing-Scenes". In Maria Luisa Danobeitia (ed.). Actas del III Congreso internacional de la Sociedad española de estudios renacentistas ingleses (SEDERI) / Proceedings of the III International Conference of the Spanish Society for English Renaissance studies. Granada: SEDERI. pp. 49–59.
- ^ Gabriella, Mazzon (1992). "Shakespearean 'thou' and 'you' Revisited, or Socio-Affective Networks on Stage". In Carmela Nocera Avila; et al. (eds.). Early Modern English: Trends, Forms, and Texts. Fasano: Schena. pp. 121–36.
- ^ "Why Did We Stop Using 'Thou'?".
- ^ "Psalm 90". Archived from the original on August 13, 2004. Retrieved May 23, 2017. from the Revised Standard Version
- ^ Ode to a Skylark Archived 2009-01-04 at the Wayback Machine by Percy Bysshe Shelley
- E. H. Blakeney, 1921
- ^ "The Mighty Thor". Archived from the original on September 17, 2003. Retrieved May 23, 2017. 528
- ^ See, for example, Rob Liefeld, "Awaken the Thunder" (Marvel Comics, Avengers, vol. 2, issue 1, cover date Nov. 1996, part of the Heroes Reborn storyline.)
- JSTOR 3196963.
- ISBN 0-914010-00-X.
- ^ "Definition of HOLIER-THAN-THOU". www.merriam-webster.com. Retrieved 2020-08-06.
- ISBN 978-0631218159.
- ^ Parry, David (1999). A Grammar and Glossary of the Conservative Anglo-Welsh Dialects of Rural Wales. The National Centre for English Cultural Tradition. p. Foreword.
- ^ Parry, David (1999). A Grammar and Glossary of the Conservative Anglo-Welsh Dialects of Rural Wales. The National Centre for English Cultural Tradition. p. 108.
- ^ Stoddart, Jana; Upton, Clive; Widdowson, J. D. A. (1999). "Sheffield dialect in the 1990s: revisiting the concept of NORMs". Urban Voices. London: Arnold. p. 79.
- ISBN 9027279497.
- ^ "Has tha nowt moist - Youtube". YouTube.
- ^ "BBC Top of the Pops web page". Bbc.co.uk. 2005-09-29. Archived from the original on 2010-06-18. Retrieved 2010-03-18.
- ^ "Nile Rodgers Official Website".
- ^ "Cider drinkers target core audience in Bristol". Bristol Evening Post. April 2, 2010. Archived from the original on 2010-04-05. Retrieved April 2, 2010, and Wurzelmania. somersetmade ltd. Retrieved on 12 September 2007.
- ^ The Cromarty Fisherfolk Dialect Archived 2015-12-02 at the Wayback Machine, Am Baile, page 5
General and cited references
- Baugh, Albert C. and Thomas Cable. A History of the English Language, 5th ed. ISBN 0-13-015166-1
- Burrow, J. A., Turville-Petre, Thorlac. A Book of Middle English. ISBN 0-631-19353-7
- Daniel, David. The Bible in English: Its History and Influence. ISBN 0-300-09930-4.
- Shorrocks, Graham (1992). "Case Assignment in Simple and Coordinate Constructions in Present-Day English". American Speech. 67 (4): 432–444. JSTOR 455850.
- Smith, Jeremy. A Historical Study of English: Form, Function, and Change. ISBN 0-415-13272-X
- "Thou, pers. pron., 2nd sing." Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. (1989). Oxford English Dictionary Archived 2006-06-25 at the Wayback Machine.
- Trudgill, Peter. (1999) Blackwell Publishing. Dialects of England. ISBN 0-631-21815-7
Further reading
- Brown, Roger and Gilman, Albert. The Pronouns of Power and Solidarity, 1960, reprinted in: Sociolinguistics: the Essential Readings, Wiley-Blackwell, 2003,
- Byrne, St. Geraldine. Shakespeare's use of the pronoun of address: its significance in characterization and motivation, Catholic University of America, 1936 (reprinted Haskell House, 1970) OCLC 2560278.
- Quirk, Raymond. Shakespeare and the English Language, in Kenneth Muir and Sam Schoenbaum, eds, A New Companion to Shakespeare Studies*, 1971, Cambridge UP
- Wales, Katie. Personal Pronouns in Present-Day English. ISBN 0-521-47102-8
- Walker, Terry. Thou and you in early modern English dialogues: trials, depositions, and drama comedy, John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2007, ISBN 90-272-5401-X, 9789027254016
External links
- A Grammar of the English Tongue by Samuel Johnson – includes description of 18th century use
- Contemporary use of thou in Yorkshire Archived 2007-07-16 at the Wayback Machine
- Thou: The Maven's Word of the Day
- You/Thou in Shakespeare's Work Archived 2007-02-25 at the Wayback Machine (archived forum discussion)
- A Note on Shakespeare's Grammar Archived 2007-05-23 at the Wayback Machine by Seamus Cooney
- The Language of Formal Prayer by Don E. Norton, Jr. - LDS