Borrowing pronouns

[Miguel Carrasquer Vidal]

"Anthony Appleyard" <mclssaa2 at fs2.mt.umist.ac.uk> wrote:

>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}?)

19th c. spelling <Uwe'> /y'We/ > /'yW@/ > /y/.

>  {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.)

Yes, Frisian is different:

1. ik           mij/my
2. do/du^       dij/dy  (fam.)
   jo           jo      (form.)
3. hij/hy       him     (masc.)
   sij/sy/hja   har     (fem.)
1. wij/wy       u's
2. jim(me)      jim(me)
3. sij/sy/hja   har

>    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)

nom     acc     gen
jij     jou     jouw   (unstressed: je - je - je)
gij     u       uw     (unstressed: ge - u  - u)
jullie  jullie  jullie (unstressed: jullie - je - jullie)
U       U       Uw

In Southern dialects, there is a single 2nd. person form (no
familiar, formal; singular, plural distinctions) gij/u/uw, much
as in English.  Jij/gij and jou(we)/u(we) are phonetic variants
(the first northern, the second southern).

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl
Amsterdam