Borrowing pronouns

X99Lynx at aol.com X99Lynx at aol.com
Wed Mar 24 17:13:40 UTC 1999


On Mon, 22 Mar 1999, jpmaher at neiu.edu wrote:

<<calquing in pronouns:
Modern Greek uses the apparently French system, with old singular and plural
further specialized to indicate not number alone, but relative status:
/esi//esis/ [ECY ECEIC]...

In Poland <Pan Pani> 'sir, Mister, Lord; lady, madame' are used as '[your]
majesty, worship, highness' etc....  In German, ...the waiter or waitress
addresses a group at table with <... die Herrschaften> 'the lordships'...

So, it seems pronouns are as exportable as etiquette, because of the social
climbing gene.>>

Or, from the other perspective, the great leveling gene.

Plurality became associated with status for a very apparent conceptual reason.
The person of a king or a lord was not him alone, but also represented his
people.  This idea is older than feudalism but runs through it.  The Pharaoh
is Eygpt.  "Ceasar is Rome." "L'etat c'est moi" - Louis XIV.  Therefore when
Victoria says "we are not amused" she is speaking as England.  This concept
also applied to the nobility of course - where smaller flocks were still
represented by a single body.

The shake-up in the concept of status was signaled by such ideas as the
English Leveler John Lilburne's "every man his own king and every woman his
lady."   By the time this attitude erupted in America (where in the early days
accepting a foreign title would automatically strip you of your citizenship),
every man was a "sir" or a "mister."  "Ladies and gentlemen" was the expected
address (sometimes sarcastically) to the most ungentlemenly and unladylike of
crowds.

Of course, 'sir' as in 'dear sir' is no longer a vested title.  <<Pan Pani ...
are used as '[your] majesty, worship, highness' etc. >> is inaccurate.  'Pan'
does not mean majesty any more.  <... die Herrschaften> does not really mean
'the lordships'.  These vested titles and indicia of title were usurped and
re-distributed in the adoption of the concept of natural rights into the
language.  "You" in English replaced "thou."

On the other hand, there was also the conscious adoption of the familiar
singular in those subgroups where religious humility seasoned the leveling.
E.g., the American Quaker's persistent use of "thou."

<<Only members of the [Polish] communist Party deviated from this, using the
Russian model of <ty Vy>. --In days of yore, the Tsar was addressed with <Ty>,
not <Vy>...
In Carinthian (Austria) the German dialect (there is also Slovene) has polite
<Tes>, or <Des>. Initial consonants are neutralized re voicing.>>

Maybe these are the humility approach.  Maybe they are some other gene.

Regards,
Steve Long



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