T–V distinction
The T–V distinction exists in some languages, and serves to convey formality or familiarity. Its name comes from the Latin pronouns tu and vos. The distinction takes a number of forms, and indicates varying levels of politeness, familiarity, courtesy, age or even insult toward the addressee. The field that studies and describes this phenomenon is sociolinguistics.
Many languages lack this type of distinction, instead relying on other morphological or discourse features to convey formality. Modern English no longer has a T–V distinction, with the exception of a few dialects. One of these used the pronouns thou and you, with the familiar thou disappearing from Early Modern English. Additionally, British commoners historically spoke to nobility and royalty using the third person rather than the second person, a practice which has since fallen out of use. English speakers today often employ semantic analogues to convey the mentioned attitudes towards the addressee, such as whether to address someone by given name or surname, or whether to use sir or ma'am. Under a broader classification, T and V forms are examples of honorifics.
The T–V distinction is expressed in a variety of forms. Two particularly common means are
- Addressing a single individual using the second-person plural forms in the language, instead of the singular.
- Addressing individuals with another pronoun with its own verb conjugations.
History and usage
Origin
In Latin, tu was originally the singular, and vos the plural, with no distinction for honorific or familiar. According to Brown and Gilman, usage of the plural to the Roman emperor began in the 4th century AD. They mention the possibility that this was because there were two emperors at that time, but also mention that "plurality is a very old and ubiquitous metaphor for power". This usage was extended to other powerful figures, such as Pope Gregory I. However, Brown and Gilman note that it was only between the 12th and 14th centuries that the norms for the use of T- and V-forms crystallised. Less commonly, the use of the plural may be extended to other persons, such as the "royal we" in English.Brown and Gilman argued that the choice of form is governed by either relationships of "power" or "solidarity", depending on the culture of the speakers, showing that "power" had been the dominant predictor of form in Europe until the 20th 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.
Early history: the power semantic
In the Early Middle Ages, the pronoun vos was used to address the most exalted figures, emperors and popes, who would use the pronoun tu to address a subject. This use was progressively extended to other states and societies, and down the social hierarchy as a mark of respect to individuals of higher rank, religious authority, greater wealth, or seniority within a family. The development was slow and erratic, but a consistent pattern of use is estimated to have been reached in different European societies by the period 1100 to 1500. Use of V spread to upper-class individuals of equal rank, but not to lower class individuals.This may be represented in Brown and Gilman's notation:
Modification: the solidarity semantic
Speakers developed greater flexibility of pronoun use by redefining relationships between individuals. Instead of defining the father–son relationship as one of power, it could be seen as a shared family relationship. Brown and Gilman term this the semantics of solidarity. Thus a speaker might have a choice of pronoun, depending on how they perceived the relationship with the person addressed. Thus a speaker with superior power might choose V to express fellow feeling with a subordinate. For example, a restaurant customer might use V to their favourite waiter. Similarly a subordinate with a friendly relationship of long standing might use T. For example, a child might use T to express affection for their parent.This may be represented as:
These choices were available not only to reflect permanent relationships, but to express momentary changes of attitude. This allowed playwrights such as Jean Racine, Molière, Ben Jonson, Christopher Marlowe and Shakespeare to express a character's inner changes of mood through outward changes of pronoun.
For centuries, it was the more powerful individual who chose to address a subordinate either with T or with V, or to allow the subordinate to choose. For this reason, the pronouns were traditionally defined as the "pronoun of either condescension or intimacy" and "the pronoun of reverence or formality". Brown and Gilman argue that modern usage no longer supports these definitions.
Modern history
Developments from the nineteenth century have seen the solidarity semantic more consistently applied. It has become less acceptable for a more powerful individual to exercise the choice of pronoun. Officers in most armies are not permitted to address a soldier as T. Most European parents cannot oblige their children to use V. The relationships illustrated above have changed in the direction of the following norms:The tendency to promote the solidarity semantic may lead to the abolition of any choice of address pronoun. During the French Revolution attempts were made to abolish V. In 17th century England the Society of Friends obliged its members to use only T to everyone, and some continue to use T to one another. In most Modern English dialects the choice of T no longer exists outside of poetry.
Changes in progress
It was reported in 2012 that use of the French vous and the Spanish usted are in decline in social media. An explanation offered was that such online communications support the philosophy of social equality, regardless of usual formal distinctions. Similar tendencies were observed in German, Persian, Chinese, Italian and Estonian.History of use in individual languages
English
The Old English and Early Middle English second person pronouns thou and ye were used for singular and plural reference respectively with no T–V distinction. The earliest entry in the Oxford English Dictionary for ye as a V pronoun in place of the singular thou exists in a Middle English text of 1225 composed in 1200. The usage may have started among the Norman French nobility in imitation of French. It made noticeable advances during the second half of the 13th century. During the 16th century, the distinction between the subject form ye and the object form you was largely lost, leaving you as the usual V pronoun. After 1600, the use of ye in standard English was confined to literary and religious contexts or as a consciously archaic usage.David Crystal summarises Early Modern English usage thus:
V would normally be used
- by people of lower social status to those above them
- by the upper classes when talking to each other, even if they were closely related
- as a sign of a change in the emotional temperature of an interaction
- by people of higher social status to those below them
- by the lower classes when talking to each other
- in addressing God or Jesus
- in talking to ghosts, witches, and other supernatural beings
- in an imaginary address to someone who was absent
- as a sign of a change in the emotional temperature of an interaction
In the 19th century, one aspect of the T–V distinction was restored to some English dialects in the form of a pronoun that expressed friendly solidarity, written as y'all. Unlike earlier thou, it was used primarily for plural address, and in some dialects for singular address as well. The pronoun was first observed in the southern states of the US among African-American speakers, although its precise origin is obscure. The pronoun spread rapidly to White speakers in those southern states, and other regions of the US and beyond. This pronoun is not universally accepted, and may be regarded as either nonstandard or a regionalism.
Yous as a plural is found mainly in England, Scotland, parts of Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, northern Nova Scotia and parts of Ontario in Canada and parts of the northeastern United States, including in Boston, Philadelphia, New York, and scattered throughout working class Italian-American communities in the American Rust Belt. It also occurs in Scouse.
French
In Old French texts, the pronouns tu and vous are often used interchangeably to address an individual, sometimes in the same sentence. However, some emerging pattern of use has been detected by recent scholars. Between characters equal in age or rank, vous was more common than tu as a singular address. However, tu was sometimes used to put a young man in his place, or to express temporary anger. There may also have been variation between Parisian use and that of other regions.In the Middle French period a relatively stable T–V distinction emerged. Vous was the V form used by upper-class speakers to address one another, while tu was the T form used among lower class speakers. Upper-class speakers could choose to use either T or V when addressing an inferior. Inferiors would normally use V to a superior. However, there was much variation; in 1596 Étienne Pasquier in his comprehensive survey Recherches de la France observed that the French sometimes used vous to inferiors as well as to superiors "selon la facilité de nos naturels". In poetry, tu was often used to address kings or to speak to God.
German
In German, du is only used as an informal pronoun. It is only addressed to persons that one knows well, like family members and friends. It is also most commonly used among peers as a sign of equality, especially among young people. In formal situations with strangers and acquaintances, Sie is used instead.Scandinavian languages
In Swedish, du is nowadays used on both informal and formal occasions due to reform in the 1970s. This means one can address anyone including nobility and politicians with du. However, it is rarely used when addressing a member of the Swedish royal family. Du is also used in Danish and Norwegian. In Icelandic, the equivalent pronoun for the nominative second person singular is þú.Hindi/Urdu
Both use the plural forms, as deferential and unfamiliar pronoun and familiar but respectful pronoun when addressing a singular second person. Āp and tum utilize plural forms of verbs with them.Use of names
The boundaries between formal and informal language differ from language to language, as well as within social groups of the speakers of a given language. 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 used to 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. In Italian, Vincenzo Rossi can be addressed with the tu form or the Lei one, but complete addresses range from Tu, Vincenzo and Tu, Rossi to Lei, signor Vincenzo and Lei, Rossi and Lei, signor Rossi.Translation issues
The use of these forms may be an issue for compensating translation of dialogue into English if the translator does not wish to use the "thou" pronoun to translate. For example, a character in a French film or novel saying "Tutoie-moi !" might be translated "Do not be so formal!" or "Call me by my first name!"Conversely, when translating from English to a T–V language, the translator must decide again and again throughout the work which second-person form the reader would deem the more appropriate in a given situation. In the current German DVD release of Gone with the Wind, the translators of the subtitles and dubbing artists sometimes make opposite decisions; the actors' dubbed voices speak with the familiar form, while the subtitles for the same scene are more formal.
Singular, plural and other ways of distinction
In many languages, the respectful singular pronoun derives from a plural form. Some Romance languages have familiar forms derived from the Latin singular tu and respectful forms derived from Latin plural vos, sometimes via a circuitous route. Sometimes, singular V-form derives from a third-person pronoun; in German and some Nordic languages, it is the third-person plural. Some languages have separate T and V forms for both singular and plural, others have the same form and 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 and between various aspects of one language. For example, in Dutch, V form u is slowly falling into disuse in the plural and so one could sometimes address a group as T form jullie, which clearly expresses the plural when one would address each member individually as u, which has the disadvantage of being ambiguous. In Latin American Spanish, the opposite change has occurred—having lost the T form vosotros, Latin Americans address all groups as ustedes, even if the group is composed of friends whom they would call tú or voseo. In Standard Peninsular Spanish, however, vosotros is still regularly used in informal conversation. In some cases, the V-form is likely to be capitalised when it is written.
Table
The following is a table of the nominative case of the singular and plural second person in many languages, including their respectful variants :| Language | second-person singular familiar | second-person singular respectful | second-person plural familiar | second-person plural respectful |
| Afrikaans | ||||
| Albanian | ||||
| Amharic | | or | or | |
| Arabic | | antum others | antum antunna | antum antunna others |
| Aragonese | ||||
| Armenian | | | | |
| Assamese | | | ||
| Azerbaijani | ||||
| Basque | | | ||
| Belarusian | ||||
| Bengali | | | ||
| Bodo | ||||
| Breton | ||||
| Bulgarian | ||||
| Catalan | | | ||
| Mandarin Chinese | s nǐmen t | various | ||
| Czech | ||||
| Danish | ||||
| Dutch | | |||
| Early Modern English | | | | |
| English | you | you | you | you |
| Esperanto | ||||
| Estonian | ||||
| Faroese | ||||
| Filipino | ||||
| Finnish | ||||
| French | / | / | ||
| Frisian | ||||
| Scottish Gaelic | / | / | / | / |
| Galician | ||||
| Georgian | ||||
| German | Ihr Er/Sie/Es | Ihr | ||
| Modern Greek | ||||
| Gujarati | ||||
| Hindi | | |||
| Hungarian | | | ||
| Icelandic | ||||
| Ido | ||||
| Indonesian | | Anda sekalian | ||
| Interlingua | ||||
| Italian | ||||
| Japanese | various | various | various | various |
| Javanese | | | ||
| Kannada | ||||
| Kazakh | ||||
| Korean | – ; | – | ||
| Ekoka !Kung | a | i!a | i!a | i!a |
| Kurmanji | تو | هون هنگۆ تو | هون هنگۆ | هون هنگۆ |
| Sorani | ێوه | ێوه | ێوه | |
| Kyrgyz | ||||
| Ladino | ||||
| Latvian | ||||
| Lithuanian | ||||
| Lombard | ||||
| Malay | , , , | , . | , , , | , |
| Malayalam | ||||
| Macedonian | ||||
| Maltese | , | , | ||
| Marathi | tū | tumhī, āpaṇ | तुम्ही tumhī | तुम्ही tumhī, āpaṇ |
| Mongolian | ||||
| Nepali | , | |||
| Norwegian | / | / | /dere | / |
| Norwegian | / | / | / | / |
| Odia | tu tumē | āpaṇa | tumemane | apōṇōmane |
| Persian | to | šomā | šomā | / šomā/šomâ-hâ |
| Polish | In the early period of the communist rule, a practice of using the second-person plural form as a formal way of addressing a single person was introduced but it did not catch on. | . | ||
| Portuguese in Portugal, Africa, and Asia-Pacific | ; o senhor/a senhora, ; vossa excelência | os senhores/as senhoras; vossas excelências | ||
| Portuguese in northern, southeastern and central-western Brazil. | , sometimes tu | o senhor/a senhora; seu /dona; vossa excelência | os senhores/as senhoras; vossas excelências | |
| Portuguese in southern and northeastern Brazil, some sociolects of coastal São Paulo, colloquial carioca sociolect and in Uruguay. | , sometimes | o senhor, a senhora | os senhores/as senhoras | |
| Punjabi | / tū̃ | / tusī̃ | / tusī̃ | / tusī̃ |
| Quenya | tyë | lyë | lë | lë |
| Romanian | , | / | ||
| Russian | narrowly reserved intimates | the unmarked norm the capitalised spelling Вы is used in formal correspondence | вы not capitalised | вы not capitalised |
| Rusyn | вы | |||
| Sanskrit | and also used in poetry/verse | | and | भवन्तः |
| Scots | thoo, mostly replaced by ye , Southern, Shetland | ye, you | ye, you | ye, you |
| Serbo-Croatian | ви / vi | |||
| Slovak | vy | |||
| Slovene | or ; vi | vi | ||
| Sorbian | , | wy | ||
| Sorbian | , | wy | ||
| Somali | idinka | |||
| Spanish | vos usted | tú , and / | masc. and fem. | vosotros, vosotras |
| Swedish | / | / | / | Ni/Er |
| Tagalog | kayó | kayó | ||
| Tajik | шумо or | |||
| Tamil | நீங்கள் | நீங்கள் | ||
| Telugu | మీరు | మీరు | ||
| Turkish | siz | siz, | ||
| Ubykh | wæghʷa | sʸæghʷaalha | sʸæghʷaalha | sʸæghʷaalha |
| Ukrainian | / | ви | ви | |
| Urdu | | تم لوگ | آپ لوگ | |
| Uyghur | sen | siz or sili | siler | sizler |
| Uzbek | ||||
| Welsh | or | or | chi or chwi | chi or chwi |
| Yiddish | איר | איר |
In specific languages
Related verbs, nouns and pronouns
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. The English words are used to refer only to English usage in the past, not to usage in other languages. The analogous distinction may be expressed as "to use first names" or "to be on familiar terms ".| Language | T verb | V verb | T noun | V noun |
| Assamese | তই-তইকৈ মাত , তোমা-তুমিকৈ মাত | আপোনা-আপুনিকৈ মাত | তই-তই কৰা , তোমা-তুমি কৰা | আপোনা-আপুনি কৰা |
| Basque | hika | zuka berorika | ||
| Bengali | তুইতোকারি করা | আপনি-আজ্ঞে করা | তুইতোকারি | |
| Breton | teal / mont dre te / komz dre te | c'hwial / mont dre c'hwi / komz dre c'hwi | ||
| Bulgarian | на "ти" na "ti" | на "Вие" na "Vie" | на "ти" na "ti" | на "Вие" na "Vie" |
| Catalan | tutejar / tractar de tu / vós | tractar de vostè | tuteig, tutejament | |
| Chinese | 稱"你" ' / 說"你" ' | 稱"您" ' / 說"您" ' | ||
| Czech | tykat | vykat | tykání | vykání |
| Danish | at være dus | at være Des | ||
| Dutch | tutoyeren; jijen, jouen, jijjouwen | vouvoyeren | tutoyeren | vouvoyeren |
| English | to thou | to you | thouing | youing |
| Esperanto | cidiri | vidiri | cidiro | vidiro |
| Estonian | sinatama | teietama | sinatamine | teietamine |
| Faroese | at túa, at siga tú | at siga tygum | ||
| Finnish | sinutella | teititellä | sinuttelu | teitittely |
| French | tutoyer | vouvoyer; very rarely vousoyer / voussoyer | tutoiement | vouvoiement; very rarely vousoiement / voussoiement |
| Frisian | dookje | jookje | dookjen | jookjen |
| German | duzen | siezen | Duzen | Siezen |
| Swiss German | Duzis machen | Siezis machen | Duzis | Siezis |
| Greek | Μιλώ στον ενικό | Μιλώ στον πληθυντικό | Πληθυντικός ευγενείας | |
| Hungarian | tegez | magáz | tegezés | magázás |
| Icelandic | þúa | þéra | þúun | þérun |
| Interlingua | tutear | vosear | tuteamento | voseamento |
| Italian | dare del tu / tuteggiare | dare del Lei / dare del Voi | - | |
| Indonesian | mengamukan ; berkamu ; menggunakan kamu | mengandakan ; beranda ; menggunakan Anda | pengamuan; penggunaan kamu | pengandaan; penggunaan Anda |
| Korean | 말을 놓다 ; 반말하다 | 말을 높이다 ; 존댓말하다 ; | 반말 | 높임말 ; 존댓말 |
| Lithuanian | tujinti | tujinimas | ||
| Norwegian | å være dus | å være dis | ||
| Occitan | tutejar | vosejar | tutejament | vosejament |
| Polish | mówić per ty tykać | mówić per pan / pani | mówienie per ty | mówienie per pan / pani |
| Portuguese | tratar por tu, você; chamar de tu, você | tratar por senhor / senhora / senhorita; chamar de senhor / senhora / senhorita | – | o senhor / a senhora |
| Romanian | a tutui | a domni | tutuire | plural de politeţe |
| Russian | обращаться на "ты" быть на "ты" тыкать | обращаться на "вы" быть на "вы" выкать | тыканье | выканье |
| Serbian | не персирати , бити на ти , тикати | персирати , бити на ви , викати | неперсирање , тикање | персирање , викање |
| Slovak | tykať | vykať | tykanie | vykanie |
| Slovene | tikati | vikati | tikanje | vikanje |
| Upper Sorbian | ty prajić, tykać | wy rěkać / prajić, wykać | tykanje | wykanje |
| Lower Sorbian | ty groniś, tykaś | wy groniś, wykaś | ty gronjenje, tykanje | wy gronjenje, wykanje |
| Spanish | tutear, vosear | ustedear; tratar de usted | tuteo, voseo | ustedeo |
| Swedish | dua | nia | duande | niande |
| Turkish | senli benli olmak / konuşmak | sizli bizli olmak / konuşmak | senli benli olmak / konuşmak | sizli bizli olma / konuşmak |
| Ukrainian | тикати , звертатися на "ти" | викати , звертатися на "ви" | тикання , звертання на ти | викання , звертання на ви |
| Welsh | tydïo | galw chi ar X | tydïo | galw chi ar X |
| Yiddish | דוצן זײַן אױף דו זײַן פּער דו | אירצן זײַן אױף איר | דוצן אַריבערגיין אױף דו | אירצן |