Borrowing pronouns

[Anthony Appleyard]

  Frank Rossi <iglesias at axia.it> wrote:-
> Lei e Loro in italian were apparently copied from the Spanish usage at the
> height of Spanish power in Italy and stand for "Signoria" = my Lord, my Lady
> (source Giacomo Devoto). ...

The same seems to have happened in Dutch. Spain got possession of Holland (not
by conquest but by the chances of marriage and birth and death and inheritance
among noble and royal families, and Holland got free afterwards in a long
savage religious war.) In Dutch originally: {du} = "thou", {jij} = "ye",
{uwe}?= "your (pl)", or similar (I think). Later:-
  {jij} used as polite singular as in French and English.
  {Uwe Edelheid} = "Your Nobility" used as polite "you" sg & pl, later
abbreviated in writing and then in speech to (U E} and then {U} (by imitating
Spanish {usted}?)
  {jij} no longer used as plural.
  (du} fell completely out of use :: in the 16th century it was a literary
rarity. (But I have seen {dou wilde se} = "thou wild sea" in a poem in
modern Frisian.)
    The present situation is (I think: my Dutch has got a bit stale; I
learned it for 2 holidays motorcycling around Holland around 1980):-
  nom          gen
  jij & je     jouw      you (sg) (intimate / condescending, like French {tu})
  gij & ge               thou (sg) (religious / dialectal / poetical)
  jullie    van jullie   you (pl) (familiar)  (< "you people")
  u            uw        you (sg & pl) (polite)

  Anthony Appleyard, UMIST, Manchester, UK;  http://www.buckrogers.demon.ac.uk