[Lexicog] Re: The irony of thou

[Bill Poser]

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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