polite vy

[John Dunn]

-----Original Message-----
From: John Dingley <jdingley at YORKU.CA>
To: SEELANGS at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
Date: Wed, 21 Dec 2005 15:12:39 -0500
Subject: [SEELANGS] polite vy

.....

The written English system developed a complex interaction
between T/V pronouns and other markers of politeness and affect for a
few hundred years starting in the mid 13th Century (Burnley, 28),
before rapidly jettisoning the system along with the useful
singular-plural distinction that 'thou'/'you' had also maintained, in
the 17th century.


Except in Yorkshire.  The practice of 'theethou'ing'* still survives in parts of South Yorkshire (as reflected in the film 'Kes)', though in the area of the West Riding where I grew up it had more or less disappeared by the 1950s.

My experience of 17th- and 18th-century Russian documents is that the use of the polite 'vy' form is very rare and mostly restricted to letters addressed to monarchs (i.e. those entitled to use the pluralis majestatis), though even here the smooth sophisticated scribes of the Posol'skii prikaz could not always achieve consistency.  

John Dunn.  

*As in the rebuke issued to those considered to be too forward in the use of the familiar form:
Don't tha theethou me, theethou thysen and see how tha likes being theethou'd then  


John Dunn
SMLC (Slavonic Studies)
University of Glasgow
Hetheringon Building
Bute Gardens
Glasgow G12 8RS
U.K.

Tel.: +44 (0)141 330 5591
Fax: +44 (0)141 330 2297
e-mail: J.Dunn at slavonic.arts.gla.ac.uk

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