Friday, February 21, 2014

If You Aren't Interested In Language, Thou Wilt Not Enjoy This Joke



Is this the kind of thing that only I find funny?

Pronouns are surprisingly fundamental to most languages, but surprisingly quirky as well. For instance, in English both the first and third person pronouns have singular and plural forms (I and we, he/she/it and they), while the word you is both singular and plural. Of course, that wasn't always true. Originally, thou was the second person singular and ye was the second person plural (kind of like you and you all - more on that later). The word you was the oblique form of ye, similar to me or them. So one might say, "If thou singest to me, I will sing to thee," with one person, or, "If ye sing to me, I will sing to you," with a group.

Everyone was addressed with those pronouns, regardless of relationship or station. This is in contrast to Latin-based languages, in which there is a distinction between a familiar relationship and a formal relationship. This is referred to as the T-V Distinction by sociolinguists (all seven of them), based on the distinction between tu (a friend, close family member or inferior) and vos (someone to whom respect was due, whether as high as a king or as close as a father). For whatever reason (those crazy Romans), the word vos also served as the second person plural pronoun. So if one were wont to replace the second person pronouns in the example above: "If tu singest to me, I will sing to tu," with one friend, or, "If vos sing to me, I will sing to vos," with a group of friends... or with your boss.

Still with me? I realize it hasn't gotten funny yet.

Anyway, English had no such distinction until 1066 or so, after which the language was heavily influenced by that of the Norman conquerors. Having Latin roots, French also distinguished between T and V pronouns, and as in Latin the plural form was generally used to address a respected person. Since they were now the rulers of the English-speakers, they demanded to be addressed with respect, but even then it was impossible to get English-speakers to learn proper French ("Mon Dieu! An abomination to my ears!"). The best they could do was to claim the plural pronouns as their own; this is the origin of "the royal we". It is also where the usage of you becomes fodder for humor; while in a tavern one could hear, "Pierre, thou art a cheese-eating surrender monkey," at court it would more likely sound like, "Pierre, you are a brie aficionado who lulls us into a false sense of security in a simian fashion."

As time passed and society grew more polite, it became more and more common to address others with the respect formerly reserved for kings when speaking directly to them. Eventually, thou was reserved for very close friends, and to a stranger it could be considered insulting. This was the state of usage during Shakespeare's time, which makes me want to go back and re-read some Shakespeare to see which was chosen in various scenes. Of course, in modern common usage thou has almost entirely vanished, excepting religion, a few dialects and writing that is intentionally archaic.

Unfortunately, many of those writers are actually just comedians trying to make their late-night TV skit seem old-timey, and they liberally sprinkle thous all over the place in their confusion over its original usage. Because of the historical significance of royalty and the inherent comedic possibilities in conversation between people with diverse socioeconomic status, these archaic pronouns are certain to be used out of context.

Are you ready? This is where it gets funny... well, funny to me, at least.

I fell down that rabbit hold earlier (while wondering, for obscure reasons lost even to me, if, "Avast, ye scurvy dogs!" is grammatically correct - it is, by the way), and because I'm a grammar geek I found it fascinating. I wanted to drop the words into my vocabulary immediately, because in my opinion the addition of both a plural and an informal form of you would vastly increase the utility of pronouns. Of course, this led me to ponder how my friends would react if I started addressing them as thou, but the irony is that it would have the reverse of the intended effect. Due to centuries of religion, and decades of scullery maids in improv sketches addressing royalty as thou, it has come to seem more formal rather than less.

Of course, there is still hope. We do have our very own American-made second person plural pronoun, and while it may be too late to appropriate it for formal usage it would still work as an informal variant to replace thou. I guess I'll just have to get over my knee-jerk reaction to my redneck roots and start using y'all again. Y'all will understand what I mean, right?