[Lexicog] Re: The irony of thou

[Hayim Sheynin]

I think it was developed with the rise of the feudal class (nobility), where some people were higher and more important than the others and it was backed by the courtly customs. However I think it must be described in books on sociolinguistics and historical linguistics.

Hayim Y. Sheynin 

billposer at alum.mit.edu wrote:                                  The other aspect of the tu/usted distinction about which I am
 curious, and which I don't think anyone has touched on, is how
 it arose in the first place. Neither Latin nor (ancient) Greek
 had such a distinction (that is, it was just a singular/plural
 distinction, without any connotations of intimacy or power), nor
 is there any reason to think that there was such a distinction
 in early Germanic, Baltic, or Slavic. Somehow the majority of
 European languages developed this kind of distinction in the
 Middle Ages. Why?
 
 Bill
 
     
                       

       
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