Borrowing pronouns
Rick Mc Callister
rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu
Fri Mar 19 23:57:41 UTC 1999
I seem to remember that Gaidhlig [Scots Gaelic] calqued French <vous>
by using <sibh> "you all" [sp?] for formal 2nd person singular
[snip]
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)
[snip]
More information about the Indo-european
mailing list