In sociolinguistics, a T-V distinction describes the situation wherein a language has second-person pronouns that distinguish varying levels of politeness, social distance, courtesy, familiarity, or insult toward the addressee. Sociolinguistics is the study of the effect of any and all aspects of Society, including cultural norms expectations and context on the way Language is used A language is a dynamic set of visual auditory or tactile Symbols of Communication and the elements used to manipulate them Grammatical person, in Linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event such as the speaker the Addressee, or others In Linguistics and Grammar, a pronoun is a Pro-form that substitutes for a (including a noun phrase consisting of a single Noun) with or Politeness is best expressed as the practical application of good Manners or Etiquette. Social distance describes the Distance between different groups of society and is opposed to locational distance. Etiquette is a code that governs the expectations of Social behavior, according to the contemporary conventional norm within a Society, An insult (also called putdown) is an expression statement or behavior that is considered degrading In Linguistics, an addressee is an intended direct recipient of the speaker's communication
The expressions T-form and V-form were introduced by Brown and Gilman (1960), with reference to the initial letters of these pronouns in Latin, tu and vos. Latin ( lingua Latīna, laˈtiːna is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. In Latin, tu was originally the singular, and vos the plural, with no distinction for honorific or familiar. Latin ( lingua Latīna, laˈtiːna is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. According to Brown and Gilman, usage of the plural to the Roman emperor began in the fourth century AD. The Roman Emperor was the ruler of the Roman State during the imperial period (starting at about 27 BC They mention the possibility that this was because there were two emperors at that time (in Constantinople and Rome), but also mention that "plurality is a very old and ubiquitous metaphor for power". Constantinople (Κωνσταντινούπολις Konstantinoúpolis, or gr ἡ Πόλις hē Polis, Latin: la CONSTANTINOPOLIS Rome ( Roma ˈroma Roma is the capital city of Italy and Lazio, and is Italy's largest and most populous city with more than 2 This usage was extended to other powerful figures, such as Pope Gregory I (590-604). But Brown and Gilman note that it was only between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries that the norms for the use of T- and V-forms crystallized. Less commonly, the use of the plural may be extended to other persons, such as the "royal we" (majestic plural) in English. Grammatical person, in Linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event such as the speaker the Addressee, or others The majestic plural ( pluralis majestatis in Latin) is the use of a Plural Pronoun to refer to a single person holding a high office such as English is a West Germanic language originating in England and is the First language for most people in the United Kingdom, the United States
Brown and Gilman argued that the choice of form is governed by either relationships of 'power' and/or 'solidarity', depending on the culture of the speakers, showing that 'power' had been the dominant predictor of form in Europe until the twentieth century. Thus it was quite normal for a powerful person to use a T-form but expect a V-form in return. However in the twentieth century the dynamic shifted in favour of solidarity, so that people would use T-forms with those they knew, and V-forms in service encounters, with reciprocal usage being the norm in both cases.
Modern English has no T-V distinction. English is a West Germanic language originating in England and is the First language for most people in the United Kingdom, the United States It can often be confusing for an English speaker learning a language with a T-V distinction to assimilate the rules surrounding when to call someone with the formal or the informal pronoun. Students are often advised to err on the side of caution by using the formal pronouns. However, this risks sounding snobbish or ridiculous.
Though English has no syntactic T-V distinction, there are semantic analogies, such as whether to address someone by first name or last name (or using sir and ma'am). In Linguistics, syntax (from Ancient Greek grc συν- syn-, "together" and grc τάξις táxis, "arrangement" is the Semantics is the study of meaning in communication The word derives from Greek σημαντικός ( semantikos) "significant" from A family name or last name is a type of Surname and part of a person's name indicating the family to which the person belongs However the boundaries between formal and informal language differ from language to language, and most languages use formal speech more frequently, and/or in different circumstances than English. In some circumstances it is not unusual to call other people by first name and the respectful form, or last name and familiar form. For example, German teachers use the former construct with upper-secondary students, while Italian teachers typically use the latter. This can lead to constructions denoting an intermediate level of formality in T-V-distinct languages that sound awkward to English-speakers. For example, the catchphrase of "Be careful, Michael" from Knight Rider was usually dubbed "Seien Sie vorsichtig, Michael" in German, implying both formality (use of Sie) and familiarity (use of first name). Knight Rider is an American Television series that originally ran from September 26 1982 to August 8 1986 In filmmaking, dubbing or looping is the process of recording or replacing voices for a Motion picture.
The use of these forms calls for compensating translation of dialogue into English. Untranslatability is a property of a text or of any utterance in one Language, for which no equivalent text or utterance can be found in another language For example, a character in a French film or novel saying "Tutoie-moi!" ("Use [the informal pronoun] tu when addressing me!") might be translated "Don't be so formal!"
In many languages, the formal singular pronoun derives from a plural form. Many Romance languages have familiar forms derived from the Latin singular tu and formal forms derived from Latin plural vos, sometimes via a circuitous route. Latin ( lingua Latīna, laˈtiːna is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Sometimes, singular V-form derives from a third person pronoun. Some languages have separate T and V forms for both singular and plural; others have the same form; others have a T-V distinction only in the singular.
Different languages distinguish pronoun uses in different ways. Even within languages, there are differences between groups (older people and people of higher status tending both to use and to expect more formal language) and between various aspects of one language. For example, in Dutch, u is slowly falling into disuse in the plural, and thus one could sometimes address a group as jullie when one would address each member individually as u. In Latin American Spanish, the opposite change has occurred – having lost vosotros, Latin Americans address all groups as ustedes, even if the group is composed of friends whom they would call tú or vos (mostly in Argentina and Uruguay). In Standard Peninsular Spanish, however, vosotros is still regularly employed in familiar conversation. In some cases, V-forms are likely to be capitalized when written. Capitalization (or capitalisation &mdash see spelling differences) is writing a word with its first letter as a Majuscule (upper case letter
Following is a table of singular and plural versions of the second person plural and singular in many languages. Many of these do not demonstrate T-V distinction in the above sense of the "you" plural being used for "you" singular informal.
| second-person singular informal | second-person singular formal | second-person plural informal | second-person plural formal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Afrikaans | jy /jou | u
| julle | u |
| Albanian | ti | ju | ju | ju |
| Amharic | አንተ (antä) (m)
| እስዎ (ɨsswo) or እርስዎ (ɨrswo) | እናንተ (ɨnnantä) | እስዎ (ɨsswo) or እርስዎ (ɨrswo) |
| Arabic | أنت (anta, when addressing a man), أنتِ (anti, when addressing a woman) | anta / anti; in some spoken varieties of Arabic, such as Egyptian, terms such as ḥaḍretak (your grace) or siyadtak (your lordship) are used | antum (when addressing men), antunna (when addressing women) | antum / antunna; in some spoken varieties of Arabic, such as Egyptian, terms such as ḥaḍretkum or siyadetkum are used |
| Armenian | դու (du) Eastern dialect, դուն (tun) Western dialect | դուք (duk) Eastern (tuk) Western | դուք (duk) Eastern (tuk) Western | դուք (duk) Eastern (tuk) Western |
| Basque | hi (very close or dialectal), zu | zu, berori (very respectful) | zuek | zuek |
| Bengali | তুই tui (very informal) তুমি tumi | আপনি apni | তোরা tora (very informal) তোমরা tomra | আপনারা apnara |
| Bosnian | ti | Vi | vi | vi |
| Bulgarian | ти (ti) | Вие (Vie) | вие (vie) | вие (vie) |
| Catalan | tu
| vostè | vosaltres | vostès |
| Chinese (Mandarin) | 你 nǐ | 您 nín | 你们 (你們) nǐmen | no official form; often 大家 dàjiā but see below |
| Croatian | ti | Vi | vi | vi |
| Czech | ty | Vy | vy | vy |
| Danish | du | De | I | De |
| Dutch | jij /je (more in the Netherlands) or gij/ge (more in Flanders) | u (Capitalised when addressing God, or in very formal writing: U. In linguistics grammatical number is a Grammatical category of nouns pronouns and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions (such as "one" Plural is a Grammatical number, typically referring to more than one of the Referent in the real world Afrikaans is an Indo-European language, derived from 17th century Dutch and classified as Low Franconian Germanic, mainly spoken in Albanian (sq ''Gjuha shqipe'' ˈɟuha ˈʃcipɛ is an Indo-European language spoken by nearly 6 million peoplewhile others claim that it derives from Daco - Amharic (አማርኛ amarəñña) is a Semitic language spoken in North Central Ethiopia by the Amhara. Arabic (ar الْعَرَبيّة (informally ar عَرَبيْ) in terms of the number of speakers is the largest living member of the Semitic language See Arabic languages for the historical family of dialects The Arabic language is a Semitic language with many varieties See Arabic languages for the historical family of dialects The Arabic language is a Semitic language with many varieties The Armenian language (hy հայերեն լեզու hajɛɹɛn lɛzu —, conventional short form) is an Indo-European language spoken by the Armenian Basque ( native name: euskara) is the Language spoken by the Basque people who inhabit the Pyrenees in North-Central Spain Bosnian language (Bosnian bosanski jezik) sometimes referred as Bosniak language or Bosniac language is a South Slavic language native Bulgarian (български език IPA: ɛzˈik is an Indo-European language, a member of the Slavic linguistic group Catalan ˈkætəˌlæn ( català kətəˈla or) is a Romance language, the national and official language of Andorra, and a co-official Standard Mandarin, also known as Standard Spoken Chinese, is the official modern Chinese spoken language used in mainland China and Taiwan Croatian language ( hrvatski jezik) is a South Slavic language which is used primarily in Croatia, by Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina in neighbouring Czech (ˈʧɛk čeština ˈʧɛʃcɪna in Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers it is the majority language in the Danish ( d̥ænsɡ̊ is one of the North Germanic languages (also called Scandinavian languages a sub-group of the Germanic branch of the Dutch ( is a West Germanic language spoken by around 24 million people 22 million of which are from the Netherlands, Belgium and Suriname The Netherlands ( Dutch:, ˈnedərlɑnt is the European part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, which consists of the Netherlands the Netherlands Flanders (Vlaanderen Flandre Flandern is a geographical region located in parts of present day Belgium, France, and the Netherlands. Alternatively: Gij(to God)) | jullie (from jij /jou + lui (people) = "you people") | u |
| English | you thou (archaic and in certain dialects in northwest England) | you | you y'all (Southern American English) ye (archaic and in Ireland as a slang term) | you ye (archaic) |
| Esperanto | ci (experimental use only), normally vi | vi | vi | vi |
| Estonian | sina | Teie | teie | Teie |
| Faroese | tú | tygum | tit | tygum |
| Farsi | to | shoma | ||
| Filipino | ka /ikaw | kayo | kayo | sila |
| Finnish | sinä | te | te | te |
| French | tu /toi /te | vous | vous | vous |
| Frisian (West) | dû/do | jo (Jo when addressing God) | jimme/jim | jimme/jim |
| Gaelic (Scottish) | thu | sibh | sibh | sibh |
| Galician | tu, tí | vostede | vós | vostedes |
| Georgian | შენ shen | თქვენ tkven | თქვენ tkven | თქვენ tkven |
| German | du | Sie (and third person plural of the verb) | ihr | Sie (and third person plural of the verb) |
| Greek | εσύ (esy) | εσείς (eseis) | εσείς (eseis) | εσείς (eseis) |
| Hungarian | te | maga (formal) or Ön (official) | ti | maguk (formal) or Önök (official) |
| Hindi | तू tū (very informal) तुम tum | आप āp | तुम लोग tum log | आप लोग āp log |
| Icelandic | þú | þér (obsolete, mostly informal used) | þið | þér (obsolete, mostly informal used) |
| Indonesian | kamu | Anda | kalian | Anda |
| Interlingua | tu (te) | vos | vos | vos |
| Italian | tu (te) | Lei (archaic Ella, old voi) | voi | voi (rarely used Loro) |
| Javanese | kowe, awakmu | panjenengan, sampeyan | kowe kabeh | panjenengan sedanten |
| Kannada | niinnu | niivu | niivu | niivu |
| Kazakh | сен (sen) | сіз (siz) | сендер (sender) | сіздер (sizder) |
| Korean | neo | — (directly addressing a person);
| neohui | — (yeoreobun) |
| Kung-ekoka | a | i!a | i!a | i!a |
| Kurdish (North), Kurmanji | تو (tu) | هون (hûn), هنگۆ (hingo), تو (tu) | هون (hûn), هنگۆ (hingo) | هون (hûn), هنگۆ (hingo) |
| Kurdish (South), Sorani | تۆ (to) | ێوه (êwe), تۆ (to) | ێوه (êwe) | ێوه (êwe) |
| Kyrgyz | сен (sen) | сиз (siz) | силер (siler) | сиздер (sizder) |
| Ladino, see Spanish | tu | tu | vozótros | vozótros |
| Latvian | tu | Jūs | jūs | Jūs |
| Lithuanian | tu | Jūs | jūs | Jūs |
| Lombard | ti | vü; or lüü (male) or lée (female) | viòltar | viòltar; or vü; or lur |
| Malay | kamu (standard), engkau (regional Malay; common spoken short form is kau -- when pronounced as "ko", is even more informal. English is a West Germanic language originating in England and is the First language for most people in the United Kingdom, the United States Y'all, sometimes spelled as " Ya'll " " Yawl " or " Yaw " and archaically spelled " You-all " Ireland ( Irish: Éire, ˈeːrʲə is a country in north-western Europe. is by far the most widely spoken constructed International auxiliary language in the world Estonian (; ˈeːsti ˈkeːl is the official language of Estonia, spoken by about 1 Faroese ( føroyskt ˈføːɹɪst or) often also spelled Faeroese (cf Filipino is the national and an Official language of the Philippines as designated in the 1987 Philippine Constitution. Finnish ( or suomen kieli) is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland (92% As of 2006) and by ethnic Finns outside French ( français,) is a Romance language spoken around the world by 118 million people as a native language and by about 180 to 260 million people West Frisian ( Frysk) is a Language spoken mostly in the province of Friesland ( Fryslân) in the north of the Netherlands. Scottish Gaelic ( Gàidhlig) is a member of the Goidelic branch of Celtic languages. Georgian (ka ქართული ენა kartuli ena) is the Official language of Georgia, a country in the Caucasus. The German language (de ''Deutsch'') is a West Germanic language and one of the world's major languages. Greek (el ελληνική γλώσσα or simply el ελληνικά — "Hellenic" is an Indo-European language, spoken today by 15-22 million people mainly Hungarian ( magyar nyelv) is a Uralic language (more specifically a Ugric language) unrelated to most other languages in Europe. Hindi ( Devanāgarī: hi [[wiktहिन्दी हिन्दी]] or hi [[wiktहिंदी हिंदी]] IAST:, IPA:) is Icelandic ( is a North Germanic language, the language of Iceland. Indonesian or Bahasa Indonesia, based on the Riau version of Malay language, was declared the official language with the declaration of Interlingua is an International auxiliary language (IAL developed between 1937 and 1951 by the International Auxiliary Language Association (IALA Italian ( or lingua italiana) is a Romance language spoken by about 63 million people as a First language, primarily in Italy. Javanese is the language of the people in the central and eastern parts of the island of Java, in Indonesia. Kannada (kn [[wiktಕನ್ನಡ ಕನ್ನಡ]] Kannaḍa) is one of the major Dravidian languages of India, spoken predominantly in the state Kazakh (also Qazaq and variants natively kk Qazaq tili, kk Қазақ тілі; pronounced tˈlə is a Turkic language closely related to This article is mainly about the spoken Korean language See Hangul for details on the native Korean writing system The Kurdish language (Kurdish Kurdî or کوردی is a term used for the language spoken by Kurds. The Kurdish language (Kurdish Kurdî or کوردی is a term used for the language spoken by Kurds. Kyrgyz or Kirghiz (Кыргыз тили Kyrgyz tili, قىرعىز ٴتىلى is a Turkic language, and together with Russian, an official Latvian language (latviešu valoda is the official state language of Latvia. Lithuanian ( lietuvių kalba) is the official state language of Lithuania and is recognised as one of the official languages of the European Union. Lombard is a language spoken mainly in Northern Italy (most of Lombardy and some areas of neighbouring regions notably the eastern side of Piedmont The Malay language ( ISO 639-1 code MS is an Austronesian language spoken by the Malay people and people of other ethnic groups who reside in the ), hang (northern dialect, but understood and accepted across Peninsula Malaysia), awak (is rude in all contexts except in very close relationships, e. g. friends [but not acquaintances]) | anda (polite/friendly formal; found in formal documents and in all formal contexts, e. g. advertisements. "Anda" is almost never encountered in spoken Malay; instead, most Malaysians would address a respected person by his title or name), kamu (impolite/unfriendly formal; also found in formal documents and in all formal contexts, where the intention is to convey a forceful tone in writing). | kau orang (when pronounced as "ko'rang" [equivalent to "y'all" in parts of the U. S. ] is slang and more informal), kau semua, hangpa (northern dialect), kalian (archaic) | anda, kalian (archaic) |
| Macedonian | ти (ti) | Вие (Vie) | вие (vie) | вие (vie) |
| Nepali | तँ, तिमी (tã, timi) | तपाईं (tapāī̃) | तिमी(-हरू) (timi[-harū]) | तपाईं(-हरू) (tapāī̃[-harū]) |
| Norwegian (bokmål) | du | De | dere | De |
| Norwegian (nynorsk) | du | De | de | De |
| Oriya | tu/ tume | aapano | tumemane | aapanomane |
| Persian | تو to LoiL | شما shomâ | شما shomâ | شما shomâ |
| Polish | ty | pani (to a woman) pan (to a man) (verbs following any of the above addresses are in the 3rd person singular form) In the early period of the communist rule, a practice of using the second-person plural form wy as a formal way of referring to a single person was introduced (a calque from Russian) but it didn't catch on. Macedonian () is the official Language of the Republic of Macedonia and is a part of the Eastern group of South Slavic languages. Nepali is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in Nepal, Bhutan, and some parts of India and Myanmar (Burma Bokmål (lit "book language" or Dano-Norwegian is the most commonly used of the two official Norwegian written Standard languages the other Nynorsk (literally "New Norwegian" is one of the two official Norwegian Standard languages the other being Bokmål. Oriya (ଓଡ଼ିଆ oṛiā) is one of the Indian Languages mainly spoken in the Indian state of Orissa. Polish ( język polski, polszczyzna) is the Official language of Poland. The history of Poland from 1945 to 1989 spans the period of Soviet Communist dominance over the People's Republic of Poland following World In Linguistics, a calque (kælk or loan translation is a Word or Phrase borrowed from another Language by Literal, word-for-word | wy | państwo (general) panie (to women) panowie (to men) (verbs following any of the above addresses are in the 3rd person plural form, although in many cases for państwo (general) the 2nd person plural form is also possible). |
| Portuguese (Portugal) | tu vós (regional use) | o senhor/a senhora (more formal) você (less formal) vós (archaic and literary) | vocês vós (archaic, literary, or regional) | os senhores/as senhoras |
| Portuguese (Brazil) | você (sometimes tu) | o senhor/a senhora vós (archaic and literary) | vocês vós (archaic and literary) | os senhores/as senhoras |
| Romanian | tu | dumneata (less formal or, in certain contexts, an insult) / dumneavoastră (formal) | voi | dumneavoastră / domniile voastre (archaic) |
| Russian | ты (ty) | вы (vy) / Вы (Vy) (addressing officials in letters etc) | вы (vy) | вы (vy) |
| Serbian | ти (ti) | Ви (Vi) | ви (vi) | ви (vi) |
| Slovak | ty | Vy | vy | vy |
| Slovenian | ti | vi Vi (protocolar) | vidva (dual), vidve or vedve (dual - when addressing two women); vi (plural), ve (plural - when addressing only women) | vi (dual and plural) |
| Sorbian (Lower) | ty | Wy | wej (dual), wy (plural) | wy |
| Somali | adhi | adhiga | idhinka | idhinka |
| Spanish (Peninsular, Equatorial Guinea, Morocco) | tú | usted (formerly or literary vos, usía and vuecencia/vuecelencia among others) | vosotros (masc. Portuguese ( or língua portuguesa) is a Romance language that originated in what is now Galicia (Spain and northern Portugal. Brazilian Portuguese ( Language code pt-BR Portuguese: português brasileiro or português do Brasil) is a group of Portuguese Romanian or Daco-Romanian ( dated: Rumanian or Roumanian; self designation limba română, ˈlimba roˈmɨnə is a Romance Russian ( transliteration:,) is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages Serbian (sr-Cyrl српски језик sr-Latn ''srpski jezik'' is a South Slavic language, The Slovak language ( slovenčina, slovenský jazyk, not to be confused with Slovenščina) sometimes referred to as "Slovakian" Slovene or Slovenian ( slovenski jezik or slovenščina, not to be confused with Slovenčina) is a South Slavic language Lower Sorbian (dsb ''Dolnoserbski'' is a Slavic Minority language spoken in eastern Germany in the historical province of Lower Lusatia Somali ( Af Soomaali, الصوماليه is a member of the East Cushitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family spoken by ethnic Somalis The Republic of Equatorial Guinea ( República de Guinea Ecuatorial,) is a country in Central Africa. Morocco (المغرب "al-Maghrib" officially the Kingdom of Morocco (المملكة المغربية is a country located in North Africa )
| ustedes |
| Spanish of the Americas and some parts of Andalusia (altered system: i. Andalusia (Andalucía is an autonomous community of Spain. It is the most populous and the second largest in terms of land area e. : ustedes estáis) and Canary Islands where previous system is replacing this one | tú or vos | usted | ustedes (literary vosotros, vosotras, in poetry, anthems. The Canary Islands ( English pronunciation kəˈnæriː ˈaɪləndz Spanish: Islas Canarias, ˈizlas kaˈnarjas are a Spanish The term anthem means either a specific form of Anglican church music (in Music theory and religious contexts or more generally a song (or composition of . . ) | ustedes |
| Swedish | du or Du | ni or Ni | ni | ni or Ni |
| Tagalog | ikáw ka (postpositive only) | kayó | kayó | kayó |
| Tajik | ту (tu) | Шумо (Shumo) | шумо (shumo) | шумо (shumo) or шумоён (shumoyon)(the latter is used in Spoken Tajik only) |
| Tamil | nee | neengal | neengal | neengal |
| Telugu | nuvvu | meeru | meer-andaru | meer-andaru |
| Turkish | sen | siz | siz | siz, sizler |
| Ubykh | wæghʷa | sʸæghʷaalha | sʸæghʷaalha | sʸæghʷaalha |
| Ukrainian | ти (ty) | ви (vy) / Ви (Vy) (addressing officials in letters etc) | ви (vy) | ви (vy) |
| Urdu | تو tū (very informal) تم tum | آپ āp | تم لوگ tum log | آپ لوگ āp log |
| Uyghur | سەن sän | سىز siz or سىلى sili | سىلەر silär | سىزلەرsizlär |
| Welsh | ti or chdi | chi or chwi | chi or chwi | chi or chwi |
| Yiddish | דו (du) | איר (ir) | איר (ir) עץ (ets) (regional) | איר (ir) |
Modern Standard Arabic does not have a T-V distinction, using أنت (anta, male) and أنتِ (anti, female) for both formal and informal situations in the singular, antuma or antunnaa in the dual, and antum or antunna in the plural. Swedish ( is a North Germanic language spoken by more than nine million people predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along the Tagalog is one of the major languages used in the Philippines. The Tajik language, or Tajik Persian, or Tajiki, (sometimes written Tadjik or Tadzhik; тоҷикӣ, tg-Latn ''tojikí'') is a modern Tamil (ta தமிழ்; t̪əmɨɻ is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. Turkish ( tr Türkçe IPA) is a language spoken by over 63 million people worldwide making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Ubykh or Ubyx is a Language of the Northwestern Caucasian group, spoken by the Ubykh people up until the early 1990s Ukrainian (in Ukrainian украї́нська мо́ва ukrayins'ka mova,) is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. Urdu ( ur '''{{Nastaliq اردو}}''' trans Urdū, historically spelled Ordu) is a Central Indo-Aryan language Urdu is a standardised Uyghur (/ ug-Latn Uyƣurqə/ug-Cyrl Уйғурчә, or / ug-Latn Uyƣur tili/ug-Cyrl Уйғур Welsh ( cy Cymraeg or cy y Gymraeg, kəmˈrɑːɨɡ and {{IPA|[ə ɡəmˈrɑːɨɡ]}}, is a member of the Brythonic branch of Celtic Yiddish (yi [[wiktייִדיש ייִדיש]] yidish or yi [[wiktאידיש אידיש]] idish, literally "Jewish" is a nonterritorial High Literary Arabic (ar اللغة العربية الفصحى "the Eloquent Arabic language" or Standard Arabic is the literary and standard variety Dual is a Grammatical number that some languages use in addition to singular and Plural. However, many spoken varieties of Arabic do make the distinction. See Arabic languages for the historical family of dialects The Arabic language is a Semitic language with many varieties Notably, Egyptian Arabic uses حضرتك (ḥaḍretak/ḥaḍretik, meaning "your grace") and variants as the formal pronoun, with anta as the informal pronoun. In general, ḥaḍretak is reserved for elder relatives, authorities, bosses, and senior business partners.
Bengali has three levels of formality in its pronouns; the most neutral forms of address among closer members of a family are তুমি tumi and তোমরা tomra (plural). These two pronouns are also typically used when speaking to children, or to younger members of the extended family. তুমি tumi is also used when addressing God. When speaking with adults outside the family, or with senior members of the extended family, the pronouns আপনি apni and আপনারা apnara (plural) are used. This is also true in advertisements and public announcements. A third set of pronouns, তুই tui and তোরা tora (plural), is reserved for use between very close friends, and by extension, between relatives who share a bond not unlike a close friendship. It is also used when addressing people presumed to be of "inferior" social status; this latter use is occasionally used when speaking to housemaids, rickshaw-pullers, and other service workers, although this use is considered offensive.
The situations in which these different pronouns can be used vary considerably depending on many social factors. In some families, children may address their parents with আপনি apni and আপনারা apnara, although this is becoming increasingly rare. Some adults alternate between all three pronoun levels when speaking to children, normally choosing তুমি tumi and তোমরা tomra, but also often choosing তুই tui and তোরা tora to indicate closeness, or আপনি apni or আপনারা apnara in a joking manner. Additionally, Bengalis vary in which pronoun they use when addressing servants in the home; some may use আপনি apni and আপনারা apnara to indicate respect for an adult outside the family, while others may use তুমি tumi and তোমরা tomra to indicate either inclusion into the family or to indicate somewhat less honorable status. Others may even use তুই tui and তোরা tora to indicate inferior status.
Bulgarian distinguishes between familiar ti (ти) and respectful vi (ви), which is also used familiar address for several people. (Respectful Vi may be capitalized, while plural vi is not. ) Generally, ti is used among friends and relatives, but the usage depends not only on the closeness of the relationship but also on age and the formality of the situation (e. g. , work meeting vs. a party). Children always use ti to address each other and are addressed in this way by adults but are taught to address adults with vi. When talking to each other young people often start with the formal vi when talking to each other but may transition to ti very quickly in an informal situation. Unless there is a substantial difference in social situation (e. g. teacher and student), the choice of the form is symmetric: if A uses ti to address B, then B also uses ti to address A. While people may transition quickly from vi to ti, such transition presumes mutual agreement. In the last years the formal "Vi" form is slowly diminished in some situations, but is (and will be) still used in formal speech and when addressing someone unknown.
Catalan vós follows the same concordance rules as the French vous (verbs in second person plural, adjectives in singular), and vostè follows the same concordance rules as the Spanish usted (verbs in 3rd person). Catalan ˈkætəˌlæn ( català kətəˈla or) is a Romance language, the national and official language of Andorra, and a co-official Vostè originated from vostra mercè as a calque from Spanish, and replaced the original Catalan form vós. In Linguistics, a calque (kælk or loan translation is a Word or Phrase borrowed from another Language by Literal, word-for-word
In some dialects of Catalan, vós is no longer used. Other dialects have a three-way distinction tu/vós/vosté, where vós is used as a respectful form for elders and respected friends, and vostè for foreigners and people whom one doesn't know well. Vostè is more distant than vós.
Historically, Mandarin has upheld its T-V distinction rigorously in speech as well as in writing. This is particularly evident in Beijing, whose dialect formed the basis for Standard Mandarin. Beijing dialect ( is the Dialect of Mandarin spoken in the urban area of Beijing, China. Standard Mandarin, also known as Standard Spoken Chinese, is the official modern Chinese spoken language used in mainland China and Taiwan Written Chinese, which generally strives for a more formal, or even semi-archaic tone, consistently makes the T-V distinction, sometimes even going so far as to employ archaic forms no longer used in speech (such as 閣下 (阁下), géxià, literally, from below the pagoda, used in extremely formal situations in Imperial China). Although rarely, 前辈 (qianbei) is still sometimes used in very formal settings, and when there is a very large chronological age gap between the speaker and the listener.
Unlike many European languages, the T-V distinction in Mandarin is predicated much more on the chronological age of the speakers rather than on their social positions per se. Unless there is a very large gap in the social status or social-standing, e. g. you are addressing your boss, or a servant (or a waiter at a restaurant) is addressing you, people of the same age generally refer to each other in or as 你 (nǐ), even if they are strangers. Older people, including one's parents, are properly addressed in or as 您 (nín). 您 is also used as a way to indicate (formal) affections, because 您 is 你 suffixed with a 心(xin), which means heart -- denoting that the 2nd person and plural persons are addressed with a (formal) affection. As a result of this, it is relatively rare to have a situation where each of two people addresses each other in or as 您, unless it is the intention of the parties concerned to indicate their (formal) affection. As such, 您 may also be used with one's close family members, and it does not carry any implication of distance, or a lack of intimacy, as the vous of modern French does.
In many of the southern Chinese languages (for example Wu), there is no T-V distinction made at all. Formality in these languages are indicated by use of different kinship terms only, much like other Asian languages (such as Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese). As a result of this, some southern Chinese, whose mother-tongue is not Mandarin, when speaking Mandarin find it irrelevant, unnecessary, and sometimes difficult to make the distinction. However, as almost all Chinese mother-tongue-speakers (including overseas Chinese) understand the rudimentary rules with regard to the agglutination-cum-contextual rules in Chinese languages, this is merely a minor set-back at the beginning of the Mandarin-learning stage -- the suffix of a 心 (xin) to 你 in 您 speaks for itself. Nevertheless, many southern Chinese often see 您 as a form of expressing (formal) affections only, and do not make the subtle distinction that 您 may be used in various formal communications. This simple linguistic faux pas has earned many southern migrants in Beijing and other northern cities a reputation for being rude and uncouth.
Although the plural forms of personal pronouns in Mandarin are typically formed by adding the word 們 (们) to their singular counterparts, the construction of 您們 is quite rare in Standard Mandarin, indirect constructions such as 大家 (dàjiā, everyone) being preferred when addressing a crowd. The use of 您們 remains extant in the Beijing dialect, however, which retains a number of distinctions lost in Standard Mandarin. Examples of its use include situations where a small number of older people with whom one is relatively familiar is directly addressed, making 大家 awkward.
Use of ti is limited to friends and family, and used among children. In any formal use vi is used only; ti can be used among peers in a workplace, but rarely in official documents. It is a common missconception even among native speakers to always capitalize Vi when used in formal tone but Vi is capitalized only in direct personal correspondence between two persons.
Traditionally, use of the informal form was limited for relatives and very close friends, for children or to explicitly express social distance. Czech verbs describes the Conjugations or system of grammatically-determined modifications in Verbs in the Czech language. During the second half of the 20th century, use of the informal form grew significantly among coworkers, youth and members of organisations and groups. The formal form is always used in official documents and when dealing with a stranger (especially an older one) as a sign of respect. 2nd-person pronouns (Ty, Tvůj, Vy, Váš) are often capitalized in letters, advertisement, etc. The capitalization is optional and is slowly becoming obsolete. A variant of the formal form modeled after German "Sie" (Oni/oni, Jejich/jejich, verb onikat) was frequently used during 19th century but disappeared.
In grammar, plural forms are used in personal and possessive pronouns (vy – you, váš – your) and in verbs, but not in participles and adjectives, they are used in singular forms (when addressing a single person). In Linguistics and Grammar, a pronoun is a Pro-form that substitutes for a (including a noun phrase consisting of a single Noun) with or In Linguistics, a participle (from Latin participium, a Calque of Greek μετοχη "partaking" is a derivative of a non-finite In Grammar, an adjective is a word whose main syntactic role is to modify a Noun or Pronoun, giving more information about the This is a difference from some other Slavic languages (Slovak, Russian, etc. The Slavic languages (also called Slavonic languages) a group of closely related Languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages The Slovak language ( slovenčina, slovenský jazyk, not to be confused with Slovenščina) sometimes referred to as "Slovakian" Russian ( transliteration:,) is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages )
| One person informal (tykání) | One person formal (vykání) | More people (both formal and informal) | English |
|---|---|---|---|
| ty děláš | vy děláte | vy děláte | you do |
| dělal jsi | dělal jste | dělali jste | you did |
| jsi hodný | jste hodný | jste hodní | you are kind |
| byl jsi přijat | byl jste přijat | byli jste přijati | you were accepted |
Greetings are also connected with T-V distinction. Formal dobrý den (good day) and na shledanou (good-bye) are used with formal vy, while ahoj, nazdar, čau (meaning both hello, hi, and bye) are informal and used with ty.
In Denmark, the use of the formal forms of address has diminished significantly over the last twenty years. De is still used in the written language, in official letters and the like, but the spoken form will be du. De must be written with a capital "D". For example, a letter from the Inspector of Taxes inviting you a meeting to go through last year's tax return will use De, but during the meeting itself, everyone will say du. Waiters might very occasionally use De, but this is unexpectedly formal.
In general, say du to one person, and I to more than one. Write du if you know the name of the person to whom you are writing, and De if you do not.
The word de with the small "d" is the third-person plural pronoun - equivalent to "they. "
In Dutch has 3 principal forms of second-person pronouns, namely u, gij and jij. Dutch ( is a West Germanic language spoken by around 24 million people 22 million of which are from the Netherlands, Belgium and Suriname In the case of gij/jij, ge/je are its unstressed variants. In Linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain Syllables in a word In Dutch, the T-V distinction is difficult as it relies mainly on (personal) status.
U is the formal pronoun used in all Dutch speaking regions, however gij/jij are region specific. Jij is preferred in writing in both the Netherlands and Belgium, but when speech is concerned Dutch-speakers in Belgium tend to use gij. The southern part of the Netherlands (mainly Brabant) also uses gij, but not when addressing people from outside Brabant, as the majority of the Netherlands uses jij. North Brabant ( Dutch: Noord-Brabant,) is a province of the Netherlands, located in the south of the country bordered by Belgium To address God in Dutch, both gij and U in both the Netherlands and Belgium are used, never jij. God is the principal or sole Deity in Religions and other belief systems that worship one deity.
The pronoun je can also be used impersonally, corresponding to the English generic you. In English grammar, generic you or indefinite you is the use of the Pronoun You to refer to an unspecified
In Dutch the formal personal pronoun is used for people with a higher or equal status, unless the addressed makes it clear (s)he wants to be spoken to with the informal pronoun. Unlike for example in German, there is no defined line (in the case of German, roughly when someone passes the age of 16) in which everyone, apart from family, is addressed with the formal pronoun. The German language (de ''Deutsch'') is a West Germanic language and one of the world's major languages. A Dutchman might be called jij by his own cousin, but u by his own children, although many people use jij to address their parents (the younger generation also uses jij to their grandparents more and more)
In the closely related Afrikaans language, the same distinction between "jy" and "u" exists as in Standard Dutch, but "u" now sounds archaic and is dying out. Afrikaans is an Indo-European language, derived from 17th century Dutch and classified as Low Franconian Germanic, mainly spoken in Instead of using "u", Afrikaans-speakers will often use a person's title or another term denoting that person's status relative to the speaker: "Oom, kom jy saam?" ("Uncle, are you coming along") would be informal usage while "Oom, kom oom saam?" ("Uncle, is uncle coming along?") would be more formal. The generic you is expressed in Afrikaans by the term "'n mens" ("a person"). In English grammar, generic you or indefinite you is the use of the Pronoun You to refer to an unspecified
Anglo-Saxon (a. The word thou ( in most dialects is a second person singular Pronoun in English. k. a. Old English) had no distinction between formal and informal "you". In Middle English, in the 13th century, the term "ye" was used as a formal version of "thou" (to superiors or non-intimates) — however, this use was often contextually-dependent (i. e. changing dynamically according to shifting nuances in the relationship between two people), rather than static. By the 17th century, "thou" increasingly acquired connotations of contemptuous address, or of addressing one's social inferiors (so the prosecutor in Sir Walter Raleigh's 1603 trial declaimed "I thou thee, thou traitor!"). Sir Walter Raleigh or Ralegh (c 1552 – 29 October 1618 was a famed English writer Poet, Soldier, Courtier and Explorer Therefore the frequency of use of "thou" started to decline, and it was effectively extinct in the everyday speech of many dialects by the early 18th century. Its use is now archaic except in certain regional dialects, usually as "tha", and Modern English today makes no T-V distinction.
The use of the term "thou", however, survives in some liturgical language when addressing God, most notably in the Lord's Prayer, and is also found in liturgical dialogue (for example, "V. The Lord's Prayer, also known as the Our Father or Pater noster, is probably the best-known Prayer in Christianity. The Lord be with you R. And with thy spirit. "). This is not an indication of familiarity, but a retention of the original distinction between singular "thou/thee/thy" and plural "ye/you/your", reflecting the corresponding singular and plural Latin forms in the original texts.
In Latter-Day Saint prayer tradition, the terms "thee" and "thou" are always and exclusively used to address Deity, as a mark of respect. A Latter See also List of deities A deity is a Postulated Preternatural or Supernatural Being, who is always [1]
Originally "ye" and "thou" were nominative pronouns, while "you" and "thee" were accusative forms, but by the 15th century, "you" had begun being used as a subject pronoun, and only "thee" survived into Quaker "Plain Speech". The Testimony of Simplicity is the Quaker belief that a person ought to live his or her life simply in order to focus on what is most important and ignore or play down what is
The constructed language Esperanto is not a T-V-distinguishing language. A constructed or artificial language known colloquially or informally as a conlang is a Language whose Phonology, Grammar is by far the most widely spoken constructed International auxiliary language in the world Vi is the generic second person for both singular and plural, just like you in English. An informal second person singular pronoun, ci, does exist, but it is almost never used in practice. It is mainly intended to make the informal/formal distinction when translating (literature for example) from languages that do have the T-V-distinction.
Some have imagined ci as an archaic term that was used before and then fell out of common usage; however, this is not true. It has only appeared sometimes in experimental language. In standard Esperanto, vi has always been used since the beginning. For example, ci appears in neither the Fundamenta Gramatiko nor in the Unua Libro. The Fundamento de Esperanto ("Foundation of Esperanto" is a book by L The Unua Libro ( First Book) was the first publication to describe the international language Esperanto (then called Lingvo Internacia, "international
Source: http://bertilow.com/pmeg/gramatiko/pronomoj/dua.html
Estonian is a language with T-V distinction, second person plural (teie) is used instead of second person singular (sina) as a means of expressing politeness or formal speech. Sina is the familiar form of address used with family, friends, and minors. The distinction is still much more widely used and more rigid than in closely related Finnish language.
Similar to the French language vouvoyer, the verb teietama is used, and teie is used when addressing a (new) customer or a patient, or when talking to a person in his/her function. In hierarchical organizations, like large businesses or armies, sina is used between members of a same rank/level while teie is used between members of different ranks. Sina (the verb sinatama is also used) is used with relatives, friends, when addressing children and with close colleagues. Borderline situations, such as distant relatives, young adults, customers in a rental shops or new colleagues, sometimes still present difficulties.
Today, the use of the informal singular form of address is widespread in all social circles, even among strangers and in business situations. A counter-trend has been reported in recent years, whereby some people are choosing to use the formal plural more often, but in practice it is very unusual to use this form unless addressing people considerably one's senior or in situations where strict adherence to form is expected, such as in the military. As the use of formal plural conveys formal recognition of addressee's status and of polite distance, the formal plural may also be used jeeringly or to protest addressee's snobbery. A native speaker may also switch to formal plural when speaking in anger, as an attempt to remain civil.
The number is expressed in pronouns (sinä or sä for singular, or te for plural), verb inflections, and possessive suffixes. In Linguistics, a possessive suffix is a suffix attached to a noun to indicate its possessor, much in the manner of Possessive adjectives Possessive For example, imperatives are expressed in the plural, e. The imperative mood is a Grammatical mood that expresses direct commands or requests g. menkää "go(pl. )!". Likewise, the -nne "your" suffix is used instead of the singular -s(i) suffix. There is number agreement in Finnish, thus you say sinä olet "you(sg. ) are", but te olette "you(pl. ) are". However, this does not extend to words describing the addressee, which are in the singular. For example, oletteko te lääkäri? "are(pl. ) you(pl. ) doctor(sg. )?" A common error, nowadays often made even by native speakers unused to the formal plural, is using the plural form of the main verb in the perfect and pluperfect tenses. The perfect aspect is variously considered either an aspect or tense which calls a listener's attention to the consequences generated by an action rather than the The pluperfect tense (from Latin plus quam perfectum more than perfect also called past perfect in English, is a Perfective The main verb should be in the singular when addressing one person in the formal plural: Oletteko kuullut? instead of *Oletteko kuulleet? "Have you heard?"
Sometimes the third person is used as a polite form of address, after the Swedish model: Mitä rouvalle saisi olla? "What would madam like to have?" The passive voice may be used to circumvent the choice of the correct form of address; the passive voice is also the equivalent of the English patronizing we as in Kuinkas tänään voidaan? "How are we feeling today?"
Finnish language includes the verbs for calling one with informal singular or formal plural: sinutella, teititellä, respectively. Finland Swedish is a general term for the closely related cluster of Dialects of Swedish spoken in Finland by Swedish-speaking Finns as their In Grammar, the voice (also called gender or diathesis of a verb describes the relationship between the action (or state that the verb expresses and the participants identified
In most French-speaking regions (Canada is an exception; see below), a rigid tu-vous distinction is upheld. French ( français,) is a Romance language spoken around the world by 118 million people as a native language and by about 180 to 260 million people Tu is the second person singular, while vous in addition to being the second plural is also used to convey formality. Vous is expected when encountering any completely unknown adult under normal circumstances. "Abnormal" circumstances (where tu could be used) include emotional situations like surprising a thief, or addressing informally other road-users while driving (including swearing at them). The original meaning of the adjective profane (from the Latin for "in front of or outside the Temple " was to refer to items not belonging to the church New acquaintances who are conscious of having something socially significant in common (e. g. , student status, or the same "rank" in some hierarchy) may use tu more or less immediately as a sign of solidarity. In some cases there may be an explicitly defined practice in a particular company, political party, etc. In general, however, the switch from vous to tu is "negotiated" on a case-by-case basis; it can happen nearly unconsciously, or it can become extremely complicated. Rigidly sticking to vous can become equally awkward in a long-standing relationship. Children (including teenagers) generally use tu to speak with another child, whether known or not.
Tu can be very offensive, in the mouth of a person who speaks with a stranger and wants to show disrespect. Vous may be used to distance onself from a person one doesn't want to interract with. Two people who use tu in their private interactions may consciously switch back to vous in public, for example in a formal or professional environment, or in an artificially constructed situation (e. g. , co-hosts of a television show), or simply to conceal the nature of their relationship from others. In some families, the traditional habit is followed: vous is used to address older family members; more rarely, children are taught to use vous to address their parents, and vous is sometimes even used between spouses.
When praying, tu is often used in addressing the deity as this is a mark of a personal relationship with God and particularly Christ as one's savior. The opposite is true, however, in Louisiana where vous is always used to convey a sense of respect and reverence when praying. When praying the Hail Mary prayer to the Blessed Virgin, Louisiana French speakers also use the more formal vous. The Hail Mary or Ave Maria ( Latin) is a traditional Christian Prayer asking for the Intercession of the Virgin Mary, the
The T-V distinction exists only in the singular in French. Vous is the second person plural pronoun in all situations.
Terminology:
Sources:
In French-speaking Belgium, usage is mostly identical to that in Standard French. Swiss French (français de Suisse is the name used for the variety of French spoken in the French-speaking area of Switzerland known as Romandy. Events 197 - Roman Emperor Septimius Severus defeats usurper Clodius Albinus in the Battle of Lugdunum 2000 ( MM) was a Leap year that started on Saturday of the Common Era, in accordance with the Gregorian calendar. Events 1180 - First Battle of Uji, starting the Genpei War in Japan 1305 - The Flemish Year 2005 ( MMV) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Standard French (in French le français standard, le français neutre French or even by the Misnomer le français international French However, linguistic interference from Dutch and the Walloon language[2] can influence the speech of those who have these as their first languages:
Similarly to Danish, North American dialects of French, including Quebec French and Acadian French as well as Louisiana Cajun and Creole French, permit and expect a far broader usage of the familiar tu than in Standard French. Canadian French is an Umbrella term for the varieties of the French language used in Canada. Quebec French ( le français québécois, le français du Québec) or less often Québécois French, is the predominant varieties Acadian French ( le français acadien) is a variety or Dialect of French spoken by Francophone Acadians in the See also [[Cajun]] Cajun French (sometimes called Louisiana Regional French) is one of three varieties or Dialects of the French language Louisiana Creole is a French Creole language spoken by the mixed Louisiana Creole people of the state of Louisiana. Standard French (in French le français standard, le français neutre French or even by the Misnomer le français international French There are still circumstances where it is appropriate and expected to say vous: in a formal interview (notably for a job), when addressing a person of very high rank (such as a judge, or a prime minister), when speaking to senior citizens, when addressing customers or, very often, simply as a fall-back position when addressing strangers or new acquaintances in a formal setting. As acquaintances become familiar with another, the continued use of vous in a conversation may become increasingly awkward and be perceived as prolonging unnecessary formality and inhibiting open dialogue (for example, in a business meeting). It is not uncommon in these situations for mutual agreement to dispense with vous going forward and return to the tu with which the participants are generally more comfortable for conversation.
For a number of Francophones in Canada, vous sounds stilted or snobbish, and archaic. By no means is tu restricted to intimates or social inferiors. There is however an important minority of people, often those who call for a use of standard French in Quebec, who prefer to be addressed as vous. At Radio-Canada (the public broadcaster, often considered as establishing the normative objectives of standard French in Canada), the use of vous is widespread even among colleagues.
Finally, in familiar language, it is usual to use a "generic tu" (cf. English generic you) instead of "on", which is used solely as a first-person plural. In English grammar, generic you or indefinite you is the use of the Pronoun You to refer to an unspecified
In German, the respectful form is the same as the third person plural (sie), rather than the second person plural (which in German is ihr). The German language (de ''Deutsch'') is a West Germanic language and one of the world's major languages. The second person sense is always capitalized (Sie) in writing, as well as its accusative and dative forms, to avoid any ambiguity. Danish and, through Danish, Norwegian, along with (in a sense) Italian, have adopted this German third person plural model. Danish ( d̥ænsɡ̊ is one of the North Germanic languages (also called Scandinavian languages a sub-group of the Germanic branch of the Norwegian ( norsk) is a North Germanic Language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is an official language Italian ( or lingua italiana) is a Romance language spoken by about 63 million people as a First language, primarily in Italy. Verbs used with this form of address are also identical to third person plural forms. In requests and demands, it is considered good manners to combine Sie not only with bitte (please) but also with the subjunctive mood, for example: Würden Sie bitte das Fenster schließen? (Would you (Sie) mind closing the window please?) instead of Schließen Sie bitte das Fenster! (Please close the window). In Grammar, the subjunctive mood (sometimes referred to as the conjunctive mood) is a Verb mood that exists in many languages
The corresponding informal German address is du. The verbs duzen and siezen mean respectively "to call du" and "to call Sie" and the phrases per du or auf du und du mean "to be on du terms". In general terms, Sie is used with persons who would be addressed in English with Mr. or Ms. , while du is used as soon as one progresses to first-name terms. In internet chats and forums, however, Germans rarely use Sie, although there are exceptions. Sometimes, switching back to Sie is used as a method of distancing oneself from the addressee. The connotation is slightly ironic courtesy.
When speaking to more than one person in formal situations, Sie is used in standard German, although ihr can often be heard instead, especially in the South of Germany.
In northern Germany, there is an intermediate address combining Sie with the first name ("Hamburger Sie"), whereas in the Berlin region, sometimes Du is combined with the surname ("Berliner Du"). The former usage also occurs when addressing teenagers, household staff, or guests of TV or radio programs, while the latter style is usually considered inferior and mainly occurs in working class environments. It may be associated with professional contexts, when colleagues have known one another for a long time, but, e. g. due to differences of status, do not want to switch to the usual Du style.
Generally it can be said that everyone up to the age of 16 can be addressed as du without problems, with a tendency to start addressing children with Sie at the age of 14 in East Germany, while West Germans tend towards delaying this until the teens are 18. In most circumstances, adults should at first always be called Sie. However there are many exceptions; for instance, university students nowadays always address each other with du (except for some fraternities who deliberately adopt a so-called 'Siez-Comment'), as do members of the parties on the political left. Children and teenagers are expected to address all adults who are not family members as Sie. Street and similar social workers will usually, sports clubs trainers will sometimes tell children and teens to address them with du. In shops, bars, and other establishments, if they target a younger audience, it is becoming increasingly common for customers and staff to address each other as du, to the degree that it is sometimes considered awkward if a waitress and a customer who are both in their twenties call each other Sie.
Usage varies in the German-speaking world when addressing a group containing both du and Sie persons from the speaker's point of view. Some speakers use the informal plural ihr, others prefer the formal Sie and many, concerned that both pronouns might cause offence, prefer to use circumlocutions which avoid either pronoun.
In Germany, an old custom (called Bruderschaft trinken, drinking brotherhood) involves two friends formally sharing a bottle of wine or drinking a glass of beer together to celebrate their agreement (initially proposed by the elder or socially higher-standing of the two, or by the lady to the gentleman) to call one another du rather than Sie. Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany ( ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant is a Country in Central Europe. Social norms have been defined as "the rules that a group uses for appropriate and inappropriate values beliefs attitudes and behaviors Wine is an Alcoholic beverage made from the fermentation of Grape juice Beer is the world's oldest and most widely consumed Alcoholic beverage and the third most popular drink overall after water and tea This custom has also been adopted among the Swiss-French of the Jura, and in Poland (called by its German name, bruderszaft), though the custom in Poland is now slowly disappearing. It was formerly found also in Sweden.
It is also a custom to propose the use of du rather than Sie by stating one's first name (as in: Ich heiße. . . ). One accepts the proposal by introducing one's own first name. Should a person later forget that they have adopted du, it is polite to remind them by saying, Wir waren doch per Du (We moved on to 'du' terms).
Ihr, capitalized, was formerly used in addressing social superiors, unless more informal relations had been established. This form is still found today in some dialects as a respectful way of addressing elders.
Er (male) or Sie (female), capitalized, was similarly used in the second person to address a social inferior, as a master addressing a servant, but is now obsolete, except in the Northeast, where it sometimes replaces Sie as formal address.
Both Ihr and Er/Sie go by a similar grammar rule pertaining to the verb used with these addresses as modern Sie. The dated capitalized address Ihr demands the same verb form as the modern second person plural pronoun ihr, and dated Er/Sie demands the same verb form as the modern third person singular er and sie.
In Greek, sy (σύ) was originally the singular, and hymeis (υμείς) the plural, with no distinction for honorific or familiar. Paul addressed King Agrippa II as sy (Acts 26:2). Paul the apostle (שאול התרסי Šaʾul HaTarsi, meaning " Saul of Tarsus " Σαούλ Saul and Σαῦλος Saulos and For other with this name see Agrippa (disambiguation. Agrippa II (b The Acts of the Apostles is a book of the Bible, which now stands fifth in the New Testament. Later, hymeis and hēmeis (ημείς) ("we") became too close in pronunciation, and a new plural eseis (εσείς) was invented. The e (ε) of esy (εσύ) is a euphonic prefix. In modern Greek εσείς (esis, second person plural) with second person plural verb conjugation is used as the formal counterpart of εσύ (esi, second person singular) when talking to strangers and elders. Although in everyday life it is somehow common to speak to strangers of your age or younger than you using the singular pronoun. Also the informal second person singular is used even with older people you are acquainted with. Since the formal εσείς (esis) starts getting less common outside schools and workplaces, many people often do not know which form to use (because using a formal version might sound too snobbish even to an elder and using the informal version might sound inappropriate to some strangers) and thus prefer to substitute verbs with nouns (avoiding the dilemma) until enough information on the counterpart's intentions is gathered in order to use either the formal or the informal second person pronoun and verb conjugation.
In Hebrew, there is a T-V distinction used in very formal speech only and only to people of highest authority (for example, a lawyer addressing a judge) or when speaking to rabbis. The 2nd person singular "אתה" (masculine) or "את" (feminine) is the usual form of address. The formal form of address when speaking to a person of highest authority is the 3rd person singular using the person's title without the use of the pronoun. Thus a rabbi could be asked: "כבוד הרב ירצה לאכול" (literally, "the honourable rabbi would like to eat") or a judge told: "כבוד השופט דן בבקשתי" ("his honour the judge is considering my request").
In non-Hebrew-speaking Jewish culture the second-person form of address is similarly avoided in cases of higher authority (e. g. , a student in a yeshiva would be far more likely to say in a classroom discussion "yesterday the rabbi told us. . . " than "yesterday you told us. . . . "). However, this usage is limited to more conservative (i. e. Orthodox) circles. [3]
In both versions of Hindustani, there are three levels of honorifics:
Hungarian provides numerous, often subtle means of T-V distinction:
The use of the second-person conjugation with the pronoun te (plural ti) is the most informal mode. Hungarian ( magyar nyelv) is a Uralic language (more specifically a Ugric language) unrelated to most other languages in Europe. As in many other European languages, it is used within families, among children, lovers, close friends, (nowadays often) among coworkers, and in some communities, suggesting an idea of brotherhood. In biological terms a community is a group of interacting Organisms sharing an environment. Adults unilaterally address children this way, and it is also the form used in addressing God, animals, and objects or ideas. Sociologically, the use of this form is widening. Whereas traditionally the switch to te is often a symbolic milestone between people, sometimes sealed by drinking a glass of wine together ("pertu"), today people under the age of about 30 will often mutually adopt te automatically in informal situations. A notable example is the Internet: strangers meeting online use the informal forms of address virtually exclusively, regardless of age or status differences; even Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány encouraged[4] people in his blog to use te mutually when asking him. (ˈfɛrɛnts ˈɟurtʃaːɲ born in Pápa, June 4, 1961) is the Prime Minister of Hungary. A blog (a contraction of the term " Web log " is a Web site, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary descriptions of (A slang term for someone using formal speech in, for example, a chat room is an "Inönrnet", which is "te", informal "you", replaced with "Ön", formal "you", in the word "Internet". ) IKEA (or rather, its Hungarian team) was noted and practically unique in its choice of this way of addressing people in Hungary in its brochures; reactions were mixed. IKEA is a privately-held international home products retailer that sells flat pack Furniture, accessories bathrooms and kitchens at retail stores around the world
Nevertheless, formal forms of address are alive and well in Hungarian:
| Example: "you" in the nominative "Will you be leaving tomorrow?" | Example: "you" in the accusative "I saw you yesterday on TV. " | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Te | (Te) holnap utazol el? | Láttalak tegnap a tévében. | |||
| Maga | (Maga) | holnap utazik el? | Láttam | magát | tegnap a tévében. |
| Ön | (Ön) | önt | |||
| ∅ | (A) Tanár úr* | (a) Tanár urat* | |||
| Tetszik | Holnap tetszik elutazni? | Láttam tegnap (a) Mari nénit** a tévében. OR Láttam magát tegnap a tévében. | |||
In modern Icelandic the formal second person pronoun (þér or Þér for both singular and plural) is archaic. Icelandic ( is a North Germanic language, the language of Iceland. Today, it is used only on rare occasions when one intends to be extremely formal or when one wants to treat another person with contempt, or create/maintain distance between the parties. The formal pronoun is sometimes used in translations from a language that adheres to them, in formalized official correspondence and court proceedings. Some phrases such as excuse me (afsakið mig) and good appetite (gjöri þér svo vel) are still commonly used with the formal second person pronoun when one intends to be either formal or polite.
In Italian the formal second person singular pronoun is lei, which means "her" (as accusative form of "she"), with the third person singular of the verb. Italian ( or lingua italiana) is a Romance language spoken by about 63 million people as a First language, primarily in Italy. The accusative case ( abbreviated ACC) of a Noun is the Grammatical case used to mark the Direct object of a Transitive The lei is sometimes capitalized as a sign of respect, particularly in administrative or business correspondence; if the pronoun is capitalized, so are all its forms, including the enclitics: ". In Linguistics, a clitic is a grammatically independent and phonologically dependent Word. . . vorrei incontrarLa per parlarGliene" ". . . I should like to meet you to talk to you about this".
It is also possible to use Ella as a very polite alternative, but this is very rarely used and is perceived as archaic or snobbish, since in Italian egli ("he"), essi ("they") and especially ella ("she") have fallen out of common use, being replaced by lui ("him"), loro ("them") and lei ("her").
For the background to the use of "her" as a polite pronoun, see the section "History" below.
Lei is nowadays generally concorded with the gender of the addressee; it might actually not be present in sentences as Italian is not subject-compulsory, and is then understood by the verb being conjugated in the third person.
The polite plural form Loro ("them"), followed by a verb in the third plural person, is rarely used nowadays; voi is normally used both in informal and formal contexts when addressing more than one person. The main situation where Loro might still be heard is in restaurants, because many waiters still use this form to address customers.
Voi ("you", plural) might be used by some speakers instead of lei, especially in Southern Italy, but it sounds old-fashioned. When it is addressed respectfully to one person, the pronoun voi is used with singular adjectives and participles, concorded with the gender of the addressee, although the verbs are still in the second person plural form.
Lei is normally used in formal settings, or with strangers, and it is used reciprocally between adults: the usage may not be reciprocal when young people address older strangers or otherwise respected people.
Students are addressed with tu by their teachers until the end of high school, and with lei in universities. Students might say tu to theirs teachers in elementary school, but switch to lei in middle and high school. Currently, people tend to address strangers of their own age using the informal tu until about thirty years of age. Tu is also the pronoun of first choice to address strangers on the Internet.
In prayers, tu is nowadays used; in the past, voi was a possible alternative.
There's a wide range of possible forms on instruction booklets: tu, lei and voi (the last intended as a plural pronoun) are all acceptable; instructions may also be given in an impersonal way using verbs in the infinitive form, thus avoiding the problem of choosing a personal pronoun. In advertisements, companies usually address their customers using tu: lei sounds too distant, tu suggests a closer relationship between the company and its customers.
In administrative correspondence and on very formal invitations, la S. V. may be written instead of the pronoun lei: "La S. V. è invitata. . . ". The abbreviation stands for la Signoria Vostra "Your Lordship/Ladyship", which is the historical basis for the use of the third person feminine pronoun (see also below).
At the beginning of its history, in the Middle Ages, the Italian language had a tu/voi distinction of formality, as with other Romance languages; in his Divine Comedy (begun in 1307), Dante normally uses tu when talking to the people he meets, but addresses them with voi when he means to show particular respect, for example to his former teacher ("Siete voi qui, ser Brunetto?"). The Romance languages (sometimes referred to as Romanic languages, or Neolatin languages) are a branch of the Indo-European language family comprising all The Divine Comedy
During the Renaissance the use of lei as a polite pronoun began, with some subsequent influence from Spanish; the origin of lei is due to expressions as "Your Lordship/Eminence/Majesty/Holiness/. The Renaissance (from French Renaissance, meaning "rebirth" Italian: Rinascimento, from re- "again" and nascere . . ", where all of these nouns were feminine in gender (Vostra Signoria/Eminenza/Maestà/Santità/. . . ) and referred to in the third person singular.
For a few centuries (possibly from the 16th century to the beginning of the 20th century) there was a three-pronoun system in use, with tu/voi/lei employed with a growing degree of formality; this was very well exemplified in Manzoni's novel The Betrothed (written in 1840-42 and set in 1628-30), where the characters talk using all three pronouns: the usage was often not reciprocal, with several combinations based on age and social status. Alessandro Francesco Tommaso Manzoni ( March 7, 1785 May 22, 1873) was an Italian Poet and Novelist. The Betrothed (orig I Promessi Sposi is an Italian Historical novel by Alessandro Manzoni, first published in 1827, in
In 1938, under Fascist rule, the use of lei was banned on nationalistic grounds, since the use of voi was thought of as "more Italian"; the ban lasted only for a few years, until the end of World War II, and left little trace. The term Italian Fascism denotes the totalitarian Fascismo political movement that ruled Italy from 1922 until 1943 under leader Benito Mussolini The term nationalism can refer to an Ideology, a sentiment, a form of Culture, or a Social movement that focuses on the Nation However, in some parts of Italy, particularly in Southern Italy, voi had always been preferred as the polite form and continued to be used regionally, while lei definitely prevailed as the standard V-form.
In Japanese, as in Vietnamese, kinship terms, titles, or names are commonly used instead of first-, second- or third-person pronouns. is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities As in Korean, there are several levels of politeness regarding to social hierarchy, and polite language encompasses not only pronouns, but verb endings and vocabulary as well. (See the articles Japanese pronouns and Honorific speech in Japanese for more information. Pronouns in the Japanese language are used less frequently than they would be in many other languages mainly because there is no grammatical requirement to explicitly mention The Japanese language has many Honorifics parts of speech which show Respect, and their use is mandatory in many social situations )
Much like Japanese, the Korean language has complex gradations. This article is mainly about the spoken Korean language See Hangul for details on the native Korean writing system It uses honorifics and no less than seven speech levels, each with a singular/plural distinction, making for a total of 14 basic verb stems. Nevertheless, most levels have all but disappeared from everyday language, so one can simplify this into the basic distinction between plain and polite conjugations of verbs and adjectives. In general, the plain form is used when speaking to family, close friends, and social inferiors, and the polite form otherwise. When two Korean-speaking strangers meet where none is the obvious social superior, both use the polite form; when it is determined that one or both can switch to the plain form, one often asks for permission for this switch. The phrase used to describe this is mareul nota (literally “to release language”). In Korean, the polite form is called jondaenmal and the plain form is called yesanmal or banmal. In contrast to the neutral term yesanmal, banmal (literally “half speech”) often has a rather negative connotation, referring for instance to the plain form that one may deliberately use to provoke someone who should be addressed in the polite form.
There is a similar phenomenon called nopimmal, which is honorific speech triggered not by the addressee but by the content of an expression. It is used independently of the speech levels. For example, in -hasimnida “do(es) …”, the speaker uses the infix -si- to honour the subject of the sentence and the ending -mnida to express courtesy or politeness (or simply his distance) towards the addressee. As the subject of the sentence and the addressee don't have to be the same person both forms can be mixed. The speaker can honour a higher person he's talking about with the infix -si- while talking to a friend who is addressed in the informal banmal.
Historically, aside from familiar tu and respectful jūs or Jūs, also used to express plural, there was a special form tamsta, mostly referred to in third person singular (although referring in second person singular is also not uncommon). This form was used to communicate with a stranger which hasn't earned particular respect (a beggar, for example). Through the Soviet occupation period, however, this form was mostly replaced by standard neutral form drauge ('comrade' in vocative form), and by now tamsta is used sparsely.
As there are many additions to the vocabulary of the Malay language, Standard Malay today is a result of many years of various refinements (the Malay language was never, and is still not, taught in a strictly prescriptive manner).
In Norwegian, the polite form "De" is rarely heard in spoken language. Norwegian ( norsk) is a North Germanic Language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is an official language Norwegians almost exclusively use du in their daily life. De is still used in formal situations or when talking to elderly people. De can also be found in written works, business letters, theatrical plays and translations where an impression of formality must be retained. A popular saying is that "De" is reserved for the king.
However, it should be mentioned that Norwegians also generally refer to one another by first name only unless the person is better known by their full or last name only, putting this weakening of the courteous pronoun into a general pattern of declining use of polite speech (for town dwellers), or of a return to traditions of the near past (for country-dwellers). For example, a student might address his professor John Doe, not as "Mr. /Dr. Doe", but as "John", but would refer to the president of the US as "Bush", not "George". However, Norwegian politicians and celebrities are sometimes referred to by their first names, especially in newspaper headlines. Nicknames are not very common.
As the distinction between Bokmål and Nynorsk exists only for written Norwegian (Nynorsk writers speaking more or less their respective dialects), the T-V rules are the same for both forms. Bokmål (lit "book language" or Dano-Norwegian is the most commonly used of the two official Norwegian written Standard languages the other Nynorsk (literally "New Norwegian" is one of the two official Norwegian Standard languages the other being Bokmål.
In Brazilian Portuguese, você and vocês (singular and plural "you", respectively) are used as informal addressing, while o senhor and a senhora ("mister" and "mistress", plurals os senhores and as senhoras) stand for formal speech. A Polish personal name, like names in most European cultures consists of two main elements imię, or the Given name, followed by nazwisko The Portuguese personal pronouns and possessives display a higher degree of Inflection than other parts of speech Brazilian Portuguese ( Language code pt-BR Portuguese: português brasileiro or português do Brasil) is a group of Portuguese
In European Portuguese, tu ("thou") is commonly used as informal addressing pronoum, while "você" is used in formal situations; vocês stands for both formal and informal speech. European Portuguese (português europeu in Portuguese is a group of Portuguese dialects spoken mainly in Portugal but also in places of Africa and Asia
However, there is considerable regional variation in the use of these terms, and more specific forms of address are sometimes employed. A style of office, or honorific, is a term which by Tradition or Law precedes a reference to a person who holds a post or Title, or to the
Historically, você derives from vossa mercê ("your mercy" or "your grace") via the intermediate forms vossemecê and vosmecê; compare with the derivation of Spanish usted from vuestra merced. For that reason, você and vocês require verbs conjugated in the 3rd. person, rather than the 2nd. person.
The second person plural pronoun vós, from Latin vos, has fallen into disuse in all but a few regional dialects of Northern Portugal, where it expresses an intermediate degree of formality between tu and você(s). Its use is kept as an archaism in literature (historical setting), prayer (when addressing a deity) or exaggerated (incl. Prayer is the act of attempting to communicate with a Deity or spirit See also List of deities A deity is a Postulated Preternatural or Supernatural Being, who is always mock) ceremonial.
Romanian dumneavoastră when used for the second-person singular formal takes plural verbs but singular adjectives, similar to French vous. Romanian or Daco-Romanian ( dated: Rumanian or Roumanian; self designation limba română, ˈlimba roˈmɨnə is a Romance It is used roughly in the same manner as in Continental French and shows no signs of disappearing. It is also used as a more formal voi. It originates from domnia voastră - your lordship. As it happens with all subjective pronouns dumneavoastră is many times omitted from sentences, its use being implied by verbs in the second person plural form.
The form dumneata (originating from domnia ta - thy lordship) is less distant than dumneavoastră and somewhat midway between tu and dumneavoastră. The verb is conjugated, as for tu, in the second person singular form. Dumneata is favored by older people towards younger people and peers. Its use is gradually declining. A even more colloquial form of dumneata is mata.
Furthermore, there is an even more familiar term than "tu" used in some regions of Romania – matale. It is used only with immediate family members, and is spelled and pronounced the same in all cases, similar to "dumneavoastră. " It is conjugated in the second-person singular, like "tu. "
Russian distinguishes between familiar ty (ты) and respectful vy (вы), which is also used familiar address for several people. (Respectful Vy may be capitalized, while plural vy is not. ) Generally, ty is used among friends and relatives, but the usage depends not only on the closeness of the relationship but also on age and the formality of the situation (e. g. , work meeting vs. a party). Children always use ty to address each other and are addressed in this way by adults but are taught to address adults with vy. Younger adults typically also address older adults outside the family as vy regardless of intimacy, and may be addressed as ty in return. When talking to each other young people often start with the formal vy when talking to each other but may transition to ty very quickly in an informal situation. Among older people ty is often reserved for closer acquaintances. Unless there is a substantial difference in age, the choice of the form is symmetric: if A uses ty to address B, then B also uses ty to address A. While people may transition quickly from vy to ty, such transition presumes mutual agreement. Use of ty without consent of the other person is likely to be viewed as poor conduct or even as an insult, particularly if the other party maintains using vy.
Historically, the rules have been in favor of more formal usage; as late as the 19th century, it was accepted in many circles (generally among the more educated) that vy is to be used between close friends, between husband and wife, and when addressing one's parents (but not one's children), all of which situations today would strongly call for using ty.
The choice between ty and vy is closely related, yet sometimes different, from the choice of the addressing format - that is, the selection from the first name, patronymics, last name, and the title to be used when addressing the person. A patronym, is a component of a Personal name based on the name of one's father Normally, ty is associated with the informal addressing by first name only (or, even more informally, by the patronymics only), whereas vy is associated with the more formal addressing format of using the first name together with patronymics (roughly analogous to "title followed by last name" in English) or the last name alone or with a title (the last name is almost never used together with either of the other two names to address someone, although such combinations are routinely used to introduce or mention someone).
The informal form of the second-person singular in Scottish Gaelic is thu (emphatic: thusa), used when addressing a person the speaker knows well, or when addressing a person younger or relatively the same age as the speaker. Scottish Gaelic ( Gàidhlig) is a member of the Goidelic branch of Celtic languages. When addressing a superior, an elder, or a stranger, or in conducting business, the form sibh (emphatic: sibhse) is used. (Sibh is also the second-person plural). This distinction carries over into prepositional pronouns: for instance, agad and agaibh (at you), riut and ruibh (with you), umad and umaibh (about you), etc. In some languages an inflected preposition, or conjugated preposition, is a word formed from the contraction of a Preposition with a Personal pronoun
Use of ti is limited to friends and family, and used among children. In any formal use vi is used only; ti can be used among peers in a workplace, but rarely in official documents. It is a common missconception even among native speakers to always capitalize Vi when used in formal tone but Vi is capitalized only in direct personal correspondence between two persons.
In Spanish, the respectful form requires verbs to be conjugated in the third person singular; this is because the form usted evolved from the title vuestra merced (your grace) which naturally took the third person like the Portuguese você. Spanish dialects and varieties are the regional variants of the Spanish language, some of which are quite divergent from each other especially in pronunciation and vocabulary Grammatical person, in Linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event such as the speaker the Addressee, or others In some cases, if a younger person speaks to someone who is relatively older, the younger of the pair will address the elder with usted, perhaps combining it with Don. However an altered form of vuestra merced, su merced (which in colloquial language has been corrupted to sumercé), has survived in the rural areas located in the plateau that surrounds Colombia's capital city, Bogotá. In Geology and Earth science, a plateau, also called a high plateau or tableland, is an area of highland, usually consisting Colombia (kəˈlʌmbɪə officially the Republic of Colombia () is a country in northwestern South America. Bogotá —officially named Bogotá DC (DC for " Distrito Capital " which means "Capital District" formerly called Santa Fe de Bogotá
In most dialects close friends are referred to as tú, and venerable old ladies are usted, but there is a wide grey area in the middle. Even that is not universally true: in the Spanish dialects of some parts of Latin America (for example, in many parts of Colombia and Guatemala, as well as Chiapas, the southernmost state of Mexico), tú is almost never used, not even with close friends or relatives, which are usted. Colombia (kəˈlʌmbɪə officially the Republic of Colombia () is a country in northwestern South America. Guatemala (República de Guatemala) is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west the Pacific Ocean to the southwest Chiapas is the southernmost state of Mexico, located towards the southeast of the country The United Mexican States ( or commonly Mexico (ˈmɛksɪkoʊ () is a federal constitutional Republic in North America. Similarly in the Rioplatense Spanish variant used in most of Argentina and Uruguay tú is generally replaced by vos (see voseo). Rioplatense Spanish ( Spanish: Español rioplatense, although locally known as castellano rioplatense For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Argentina topics. Uruguay.(official full name in República Oriental del Uruguay;, Oriental Republic of Uruguay) is a country located in the southeastern part of South America In Spanish, voseo is the use of the second person singular Pronoun vos instead of tú. The use of tú has its highest prevalence in Spain, as well as Mexico and Peru since these were the administrative centers of the Spanish Empire and so more readily kept up with changes in fashions in Spain (although Mexican and Peruvian Spanish are certainly not identical to the European dialects). Peru (Perú Piruw Piruw officially the Republic of Peru ( reˈpuβlika del peˈɾu is a country in western South America. The Spanish Empire (Imperio Español was one of the largest Empires in history and one of the first Global empires In the 15th and 16th centuries Notably the Spanish-speakers in the United States tend to follow Mexican conventions because most are Mexican immigrants or descendants thereof. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the
The history behind tú-vos-usted is that for a time all three forms existed in Spain including during the colonization of the Americas. The Americas are the lands of the Western hemisphere or New World, consisting of the Continents of North America and South America In most of Spain the vos form died out and is now largely regarded as an archaic expression and this attitude has been adopted in most of Mexico, Peru, and other countries. Some countries, like Argentina, have preserved the vos form instead regarding tú as being the archaic term.
In the plural, Spanish presents the T-form vosotros and the V-form ustedes, which uses verbs in the second and third person plural, respectively. However, only Northern Spain has retained this distinction, while in the Canaries and Latin America, ustedes is the only form used in all contexts. The Canary Islands ( English pronunciation kəˈnæriː ˈaɪləndz Spanish: Islas Canarias, ˈizlas kaˈnarjas are a Spanish In Andalusia and Extremadura, ustedes is used as well, but combined with the verb forms corresponding to vosotros in standard European Spanish. Andalusia (Andalucía is an autonomous community of Spain. It is the most populous and the second largest in terms of land area Extremadura is an autonomous community of western Spain whose capital city is Mérida.
In Swedish, there has in the last two centuries been a marked difference between usage in Finland-Swedish and in Sweden. Swedish ( is a North Germanic language spoken by more than nine million people predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along the Finland Swedish is a general term for the closely related cluster of Dialects of Swedish spoken in Finland by Swedish-speaking Finns as their "Sverige" redirects here For other uses see Sweden (disambiguation and Sverige (disambiguation.
In Finland-Swedish, the second person plural form Ni (noted as formal above) was indeed the traditional respectful address to a single person up to the 1970s or so.
In mainland Swedish, the polite Ni was known from earlier epochs, but had come to be considered somewhat careless, bullying or rude; instead, an intricate system had evolved in order to prudently step around pronouns almost altogether:
Parts of this system began to erode around the Second World War or so, but the essentials held up into the 1960s.
As the twentieth century progressed, this circumlocutive system of addressing, with its innumerable ambiguities and opportunities for unintentional offence, was more and more felt as a nuisance. An early way out was to carry the circumlocutions one degree further—finding impersonal ways of saing what was needful, avoiding both personal pronoun and title. (Får det lov att vara en kopp kaffe?, approximately 'Would a cup of coffee be allowed, please?'; Så det är till att resa?, approximately 'So, it's about travelling?'). But that soon proved of little avail. For one thing, you still had to address the person you talked with directly from time to time in the conversation, otherwise you would really have sounded impolite—and over time, it became de rigueur to do so more and more often, till it was a system with both longish titles used instead of personal pronouns and impersonal circumlocutions; and for another, the impersonal constructions soon acquired their own gradations, to be observant upon—e. g. , that in the second example above being perceived as more and more rustic, ending up rude.
Then in the 'sixties, things happened fast. First, authorities and influential circles tried rehabilitating the Ni in a so-called "ni reform"—but most people could not bring themselves to feel civil using that. Then, almost overnight and dubbed the "du reform", the system broke down and
These rules still apply, with marginal exceptions.
In a few circles of younger people, mostly in the larger cities, the use of the extinct Ni for polite address has gained ground again—notably among some shop assistants and waiters for addressing customers in shops and guests in restaurants. . It may also occur that a young person can not bring him- or herself to address a venerable (and perhaps upper-class) old person du, and then takes recourse to the ni. Also, Ni has become a fashionable address in some circles of younger businessmen. But whether this is a fashion, coquettery on some parts, a sign of uncertainty in a time of social change, or a beginning of something, is much too early to say. The vast majority of swedes, including younger people in most or all situations, stick to the du as of this writing (2007).
In order to "alleviate the intrusion" in writing, e. g. in letters or in advertisement, the Du can be capitalized. That usage was most widespread in the early days of universal du address; it has become slightly more common again simultaneously with the partial Ni revival.
Finland-Swedish has undergone a similar development to mainland Swedish since the 1960s, but slower and slightly less. There, one may have to reckon with influence from the Finnish language, still slightly more conservative. Finnish ( or suomen kieli) is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland (92% As of 2006) and by ethnic Finns outside
Swedish, also, has verbs for the addresses: dua 'to say du ', and nia 'to say ni '.
In Thai, first, second, and third person pronouns vary in formality according to the social standing of the speaker and the referent and the relationship between them. For a non-exhaustive list of Thai second person pronouns, see http://www.into-asia.com/thai_language/grammar/you.php.
In contemporary Turkish, T-V distinction is strong. Turkish ( tr Türkçe IPA) is a language spoken by over 63 million people worldwide making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Friends and family members speak to one another using the second singular person "sen" as well as adults use "sen" to address minors. In formal situations (meeting people first time, business, customer-clerk, colleagues) second plural "siz" is used widely. In very formal situations double plural second person "sizler" may be used to refer to a very respected person. Rarely, third plural conjugation of the verb (but not the pronoun) may be used to emphasize utmost respect. In imperative, there are three forms: second singular person for informal, 2nd plural person for formal and double plural 2nd person for very formal situations: "gel" (second singular, informal), "gelin" (second plural, formal), "geliniz" (double second plural, very formal). The very formal forms are not frequently used.
In the extinct Ubykh language, the T-V distinction was most notable between a man and his mother-in-law, where the plural form sʸæghʷa supplanted the singular wæghʷa very frequently, possibly under the influence of Turkish. Ubykh or Ubyx is a Language of the Northwestern Caucasian group, spoken by the Ubykh people up until the early 1990s Turkish ( tr Türkçe IPA) is a language spoken by over 63 million people worldwide making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. The distinction was upheld less frequently in other relationships, but did still occur.
The Uyghur language is notable for using four different forms, to distinguish both singular and plural in both formal and informal registers. Uyghur (/ ug-Latn Uyƣurqə/ug-Cyrl Уйғурчә, or / ug-Latn Uyƣur tili/ug-Cyrl Уйғур The informal plural silär originated as a contraction of sizlär, which uses a regular plural ending. In Old Turkic, as still in modern Turkish, siz was the original second-person plural. However, in modern Uyghur siz has become restricted to the formal singular, requiring the plural suffix -lär for the plurals.
Siz as the formal singular pronoun is characteristic of Ürümchi dialect, which is the Uyghur literary standard. In Turfan they say sili and in Kashgar dialect, özlär. Sili is also used in other areas sometimes, while in literary Uyghur özlär as a singular pronoun is considered a "hyperdeferential" level of respect; the deferential plural form is härqaysiliri.
Vietnamese does not have a clear concept of pronouns. Vietnamese pronouns can act as substitutions for Noun phrase. Any noun can be used to refer to people, especially kinship terms. Pronouns are sometimes not needed in a normal conversation, as the speaker can always refer to him/herself, the audience, and others directly by name, which might seem strange to English speakers. The nouns used to refer to people can reveal not only the level of formality, but also the social relationship between the speaker and the person being referred to, differences in age, and even the attitude of the speaker toward the person being referred to.
There is an informal second-person pronoun: mày. This term is always condescending and should only be used with someone who is both familiar with and subordinate to the speaker. Young people also utilize it frequently.
Some languages have a verb to describe the fact of using either a T or a V form. Some also have a related noun or pronoun.
| T verb | V verb | T noun | V noun | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bulgarian | (говоря/съм)на "ти" (govorya/sam)na "ti" | (говоря/съм)на "Вие" (govorya/sam)na "Vie" | на "ти" na "ti"(more like adverb) | на "Вие" na "Vie"(more like adverb) |
| Catalan | tutejar/tractar de tú/vós | tractar de vostè | ||
| Czech | tykat | vykat | tykání | vykání |
| Danish | dutte | |||
| Dutch | tutoyeren, jij/jouwen | vouvoyeren | tutoyeren | vouvoyeren |
| English | to thou | thouing | ||
| Esperanto | ciumi, "ci"-diri | *viumi, "vi"-diri | ciumado | viumado |
| Estonian | sinatama | teietama | ||
| Finnish | sinutella | teititellä | sinuttelu | teitittely |
| French | tutoyer | vouvoyer | tutoiement | vouvoiement |
| Frisian (West) | dookje | jookje | dookjen | jookjen |
| German | duzen | siezen | Duzen | Siezen |
| Hungarian | tegez | magáz | tegezés | magázás |
| Italian | dare del tu | dare del Lei | ||
| Korean | mareul nota; banmalhada | |||
| Lithuanian | tujinti | tujinimas | ||
| Polish | mówić per ty tykać (humorous) | mówić per pan/pani | mówienie per ty | mówienie per pan/pani |
| Portuguese | tutear | - | tuteio | - |
| Romanian | a tutui | a spune „dumneavoastră” | tutuire | plural de politeţe |
| Russian | тыкать (tykat') | выкать (vykat') | тыканье (tykanie) | выканье (vykanie) |
| Serbian | не персирати (ne persirati), бити на ти (biti na ti) | персирати (persirati), бити на ви (biti na vi) | неперсирање (nepersiranje) | персирање (persiranje) |
| Slovak | tykať | vykať | tykanie | vykanie |
| Slovene | tikati | vikati | tikanje | vikanje |
| Spanish | tutear | vosear, tratar de usted | tuteo | voseo |
| Swedish | dua | nia | duande | niande |
| Turkish | senli benli olmak/konuşmak | sizli bizli olmak/konuşmak | senli benli olmak/konuşmak) | sizli bizli olma/konuşmak |
| Ukrainian | тикати (tykaty) | викати (vykaty) | тикання (tykannia) | викання (vykannia) |
| Welsh | tydïo | tydïo | ||
| Yiddish | דוצן (dutsn) זײַן אױף דו (zayn af du) | אירצן (irtsn) זײַן אױף איר (zayn af ir) |