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Why Did People Stop Saying "Thou"?

By Mignon Fogarty, Grammar Gir l.

We know language changes—we don't say thee and t hou anymore - but have you ever wondered why? Often, it's not clear, but there's a particularly satisfying answer when it comes to these two pronouns. Transcript:

A couple of weeks ago, after I talked about how the pronoun you fills so many roles, I started wondering why we stopped using thee and thou.

It turns out that English used to have formal and informal pronouns like many other languages. German has Sie and du , French has vous and tu , Spanish has usted and tú , and during Shakespeare's time, English had thou and you and thee and you. Thee and Thou Were English's Informal Pronouns Since thee and thou have survived mainly in religious and poetic writing, you may be surprised to learn that thee and thou were the informal pronouns. Yup. You was formal, and thou was informal.

In a book called The Personal Pronouns in the Germanic Languages , Stephen Howe says that in the fifteenth to sixteenth centuries, thou was generally used to address someone who was socially inferior or an intimate. For example, parents called their children thou , and children called their parents you , but then the use of thou sharply decreased in the seventeenth century, starting in London. Thou was used the longest in areas that were farthest from London, and in fact, it's still used in a few regional dialects including those in Yorkshire and Cumbria, which are both quite a bit north of London. When Social Status Became Unclear, People Started Using You More

The reason people stopped using thou (and thee ) was that social status—whether you were considered upper class or lower class—became more fluid during this time. You had social climbers striving to talk like the upper class, so they used you all the time instead of thou , and since you couldn't be as sure as you used to be about who was in what class, it was safer to use you instead of thou because you didn't want to risk accidentally offending someone in the upper class by using the wrong pronoun. You didn't want to call someone thou when you should have used you ! What Do the Quakers Have to do With Thee and Thou ?

Sometimes questions come up about whether the Quakers were involved in the loss of thee and thou . The Quakers actually used those pronouns longer than almost everyone else. They favored what they called “plain language,” and they aimed to be egalitarian, embrace humility, and avoid markers of class and status. They believed that addressing a social superior as you fanned the flames of vanity. As an aside, they also refused to use titles such as mister or your ladyship, and this could get them in trouble if they ended up in court because they also refused to address a judge as your honor.

Although I didn't find anything definitively convincing, a couple of sources speculate that anti-Quaker sentiment could have hastened the demise of thee and thou. Since fewer and fewer people were using the pronouns, they became associated with Quaker-speak, so if you didn't like the Quakers, you were probably even less likely to use thee and thou . Thee and Thou Became Insults

Plays and legal documents from the time do show that people were using thee and thou as insults too. The attorney-general at Sir Walter Raleigh's trial taunted Raleigh by saying “All that he did was at thy instigation, thou viper; for I thou thee, thou traitor.” And a 1913 article in Harper's Magazine recounts a story from George Fox, the founder of the Quakers, on the trouble he encountered when using thou . “We were often beset and abused, and sometimes in danger of our lives for using these words to some proud men, who would say, ‘What! You ill-bred clown, do you thou me? '” It's hard to understand now, but at the time, it was almost unthinkable to call a superior thou . So it seems that English lost its informal pronouns because people were afraid of offending those who thought of themselves as upper class and because some people were actively using the pronouns thou and thee as insults.

It's interesting that more recently it's the formal pronouns that are being used less often in languages such as Spanish and German. It seems that our values are different now - today, we value informality more than formality.

The sources I found include much more detail and nuance about how thee and thou used to be used, more about where they remain, more examples of how they were used as insults in plays and legal proceedings, and more about the Quakers' attitudes on language. It's great reading if you're interested, so don't skip the sources below.

Why Did People Stop Saying "Thou"? |||||你 |||||du |||||you (singular, informal) |||||tu Proč lidé přestali říkat „Ty“? Warum haben die Menschen aufgehört, „Du“ zu sagen? ¿Por qué se dejó de decir "tú"? Pourquoi a-t-on cessé de dire "tu" ? Perché si è smesso di dire "tu"? なぜ人々は「あなた」と言わなくなったのですか？ 사람들은 왜 '당신'이라는 말을 그만두었을까요? Kodėl žmonės nustojo sakyti "tu"? Waarom zeiden mensen niet meer "Gij"? Dlaczego ludzie przestali mówić "ty"? Porque é que as pessoas deixaram de dizer "tu"? Почему люди перестали говорить "ты"? İnsanlar Neden "Sen" Demeyi Bıraktı? Чому люди перестали говорити «ти»? 为什么人们不再说“你”？為什麼人們不再說“你”？

By Mignon Fogarty, Grammar Gir l. |米尼翁|福加提||语法女孩| Von||||| |First name||Grammar Girl|Grammar Expert| |Маньон|Фогарти|Грамматика(1)|Грамматика Гир| Autor: Mignon Fogarty, Grammar Gir l. ミニョン・フォガーティ著、文法Girl。 Миньон Фогарти, Grammar Gir l. Yazan: Mignon Fogarty, Dilbilgisi Gir l.

We know language changes—we don't say thee and t hou anymore - but have you ever wondered why? |||||||你||你|你||||||| People today||||||||||||||||| |||||||тебя|||тебя||||||| Víme, že se jazyk mění – už neříkáme ty a ty – ale napadlo vás někdy proč? 私たちは言語の変化を知っています—私たちはあなたとあなたをもう言いません—しかし、あなたはなぜ疑問に思ったことはありますか？ Мы знаем, что язык меняется — мы больше не говорим «ты» и «ты», но задумывались ли вы когда-нибудь, почему? Often, it's not clear, but there's a particularly satisfying answer when it comes to these two pronouns. ||||||||befriedigend||||||||Pronomen Často to není jasné, ale pokud jde o tato dvě zájmena, existuje obzvláště uspokojivá odpověď. 多くの場合、それは明確ではありませんが、これらの2つの代名詞に関しては、特に満足のいく答えがあります。 Часто это не совсем понятно, но когда речь идет об этих двух местоимениях, ответ особенно радует. Transcript: 成绩单トランスクリプト： Транскрипт: Transkript:

A couple of weeks ago, after I talked about how the pronoun you fills so many roles, I started wondering why we stopped using thee and thou. |||||||||||你||充当|||||||||||你||你 |||||||||||||fills||many|||||why||stopped|||| Před pár týdny, poté, co jsem mluvil o tom, jak zájmeno ty plní tolik rolí, jsem začal přemýšlet, proč jsme přestali používat ty a ty. Nachdem ich vor einigen Wochen darüber gesprochen hatte, dass das Pronomen du so viele Funktionen erfüllt, habe ich mich gefragt, warum wir nicht mehr "du" und "du" verwenden. Néhány héttel ezelőtt, miután arról beszéltem, hogy a te névmás olyan sok szerepet tölt be, elkezdtem azon töprengeni, hogy miért hagytuk abba a te és a te használatát. 数週間前、あなたがどのように多くの役割を果たしているかについて話した後、なぜ私たちはあなたとあなたの使用をやめたのか疑問に思い始めました。 Пару недель назад, после того как я рассказал о том, что местоимение you выполняет так много ролей, я задумался, почему мы перестали использовать thee и thou. Birkaç hafta önce, sen zamirinin ne kadar çok rolü yerine getirdiğinden bahsettikten sonra, neden sen ve sen zamirlerini kullanmayı bıraktığımızı merak etmeye başladım.

It turns out that English used to have formal and informal pronouns like many other languages. |||||||||||pronouns|||| Ukazuje se, že angličtina měla dříve formální a neformální zájmena jako mnoho jiných jazyků. 英語には、他の多くの言語と同様に、公式および非公式の代名詞がありました。 Acontece que o inglês costumava ter pronomes formais e informais, como muitas outras línguas. İngilizcede de diğer birçok dilde olduğu gibi resmi ve gayri resmi zamirler olduğu ortaya çıktı. German has Sie and du , French has vous and tu , Spanish has usted and tú , and during Shakespeare's time, English had thou and you and thee and you. ||您||||||||||您||你||||||||||||| |||||||||||||||||||||du, dich||||dir|| ||||||||||||вы||ты||||||||||||| ドイツ語にはSieとduがあり、フランス語にはvousとtuがあり、スペイン語にはustedとtúがあり、シェイクスピアの時代には、英語にはあなたとあなたとあなたとあなたがいました。 O alemão tem Sie e du , o francês tem vous e tu , o espanhol tem usted e tú , e no tempo de Shakespeare, o inglês tinha thou e you e thee e you. Thee and Thou Were English's Informal Pronouns あなたと汝は英語の非公式代名詞でした Thee ve Thou İngilizcenin Gayri Resmi Zamirleriydi Since thee and thou have survived mainly in religious and poetic writing, you may be surprised to learn that thee and thou were the informal pronouns. |||||||||||||||||||||你|||| あなたと汝は主に宗教的で詩的な文章で生き残ってきたので、汝と汝が非公式の代名詞であったことを知って驚くかもしれません。 Yup. うん。 You was formal, and thou was informal. ||||ty|| Byl jsi formální a byl jsi neformální. あなた（You）はフォーマルであり、「thou」はフォーマルではなかった。

In a book called The Personal Pronouns in the Germanic Languages , Stephen Howe says that in the fifteenth to sixteenth centuries, thou was generally used to address someone who was socially inferior or an intimate. |||||||||日耳曼的||||||||||||||||||||||||| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||Vertrauten V knize nazvané Osobní zájmena v germánských jazycích Stephen Howe říká, že v patnáctém až šestnáctém století jste byli obecně používáni k oslovování někoho, kdo byl společensky nižší nebo důvěrný. In einem Buch mit dem Titel The Personal Pronouns in the Germanic Languages sagt Stephen Howe, dass du im fünfzehnten bis sechzehnten Jahrhundert im Allgemeinen verwendet wurde, um jemanden anzusprechen, der sozial unterlegen oder ein Vertrauter war. ドイツ語系諸語の代名詞という本で、スティーブン・ハウは、15世紀から16世紀にかけて、「thou」は一般的に社会的に劣る人や親しい人に対して使用されていたと述べています。 For example, parents called their children thou , and children called their parents you , but then the use of thou sharply decreased in the seventeenth century, starting in London. |||||||||||||||||||suddenly and significantly|||||||| Zum Beispiel nannten Eltern ihre Kinder thou , und Kinder nannten ihre Eltern you , aber im 17. Jahrhundert ging der Gebrauch von thou stark zurück, beginnend in London. たとえば、親は子供を「thou」と呼んでいましたが、子供は親を「you」と呼んでいました。しかし、17世紀に入るとロンドンを中心に「thou」の使用が急激に減少し始めました。 Thou was used the longest in areas that were farthest from London, and in fact, it's still used in a few regional dialects including those in Yorkshire and Cumbria, which are both quite a bit north of London. |||||||||最远的|||||||||||||方言||||||坎布里亚||||||||| |||||||||am weitesten|||||||||||||||||||||||||||| |||||||||most distant|||||||||||||||||||||||||||| Thou wurde am längsten in Gebieten verwendet, die am weitesten von London entfernt waren, und tatsächlich wird es immer noch in einigen regionalen Dialekten verwendet, darunter in Yorkshire und Cumbria, die beide ziemlich nördlich von London liegen. 汝はロンドンから最も遠い地域で最も長く使用されており、実際、ロンドンのかなり北にあるヨークシャーやカンブリアを含むいくつかの地域の方言でまだ使用されています。 When Social Status Became Unclear, People Started Using You More ||状态||||||| ||||nejasen||||| Quando lo stato sociale è diventato poco chiaro, le persone hanno iniziato a usarti di più 社会的地位が不明確になると、人々はあなたをもっと使い始めました

The reason people stopped using thou (and thee ) was that social status—whether you were considered upper class or lower class—became more fluid during this time. Der Grund dafür, dass die Leute aufhörten, du (und dich) zu verwenden, war, dass der soziale Status – ob du nun zur Oberschicht oder zur Unterschicht gehörst – während dieser Zeit fließender wurde. 人々があなた（そしてあなた）の使用をやめた理由は、あなたが上流階級と見なされようと、下層階級と見なされようと、社会的地位がこの時期により流動的になったためです。 You had social climbers striving to talk like the upper class, so they used you all the time instead of thou , and since you couldn't be as sure as you used to be about who was in what class, it was safer to use you instead of thou because you didn't want to risk accidentally offending someone in the upper class by using the wrong pronoun. |||攀登者|努力奋斗||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||意外地||||||||||| ||||streben||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| Es gab Aufsteiger, die danach strebten, wie die Oberschicht zu reden, also benutzten sie dich die ganze Zeit statt du, und da du nicht mehr so sicher sein konntest, wer in welcher Klasse war, war es sicherer, dich zu benutzen statt du, weil du nicht riskieren wolltest, jemanden aus der Oberschicht versehentlich mit dem falschen Pronomen zu beleidigen. Voltak olyan szociális hegymászók, akik úgy próbáltak beszélni, mint a felső osztály, ezért mindig téged használtak helyetted, és mivel nem lehettél olyan biztos, mint korábban, hogy ki melyik osztályba tartozik, biztonságosabb volt téged használni. helyetted, mert nem akartad megkockáztatni, hogy véletlenül megsérts valakit a felsőbb osztályból a rossz névmás használatával. 社会階級の登山家が上流階級のように話そうと努力していたので、彼らはあなたの代わりにいつもあなたを使っていました。間違った代名詞を使って上流階級の誰かを誤って怒らせる危険を冒したくなかったからです。 You didn't want to call someone thou when you should have used you ! あなたはあなたがあなたを使うべきだったときに誰かに電話をかけたくありませんでした！ What Do the Quakers Have to do With Thee and Thou ? Was haben die Quäker mit dir und dir zu tun? クエーカー教徒はあなたとあなたと何の関係がありますか？

Sometimes questions come up about whether the Quakers were involved in the loss of thee and thou . |||||||Religious group||||||||| Manchmal tauchen Fragen auf, ob die Quäker am Verlust von dir und du beteiligt waren. 時々、クエーカー教徒は汝と汝の喪失に関与していたのかという質問が出る。 Иногда возникают вопросы о том, были ли квакеры причастны к утрате тебя и тебя. The Quakers actually used those pronouns longer than almost everyone else. They favored what they called “plain language,” and they aimed to be egalitarian, embrace humility, and avoid markers of class and status. |偏爱||||简单|||||||平等主义的||||||||| ||||||||||||equal for all|embrace|||||||| ||||||||||||egalitarny||||||||| Sie bevorzugten das, was sie „Klartext“ nannten, und sie strebten danach, egalitär zu sein, Bescheidenheit anzunehmen und Kennzeichen von Klasse und Status zu vermeiden. Они отдавали предпочтение тому, что они называли «простым языком», и стремились быть эгалитарными, придерживаться смирения и избегать маркеров класса и статуса. They believed that addressing a social superior as you fanned the flames of vanity. |||应对||||||煽动||火焰||虚荣 |||addressing||||||encouraged||||self-importance |||||||||podsycałeś|||| Sie glaubten, dass die Ansprache eines gesellschaftlichen Vorgesetzten die Flammen der Eitelkeit anfachte. 彼らは、あなたが虚栄心の炎を煽るように社会的上司に話しかけると信じていました. As an aside, they also refused to use titles such as mister or your ladyship, and this could get them in trouble if they ended up in court because they also refused to address a judge as your honor. |||||拒绝|||||||||阁下||||||||||||||||||||||||法官 ||||||||||||||wasza dostojność|||||||||||||||||||||||| Abgesehen davon weigerten sie sich auch, Titel wie Mister oder Euer Ladyschaft zu verwenden, und dies könnte ihnen Ärger einbringen, wenn sie vor Gericht landen, weil sie sich auch weigerten, einen Richter als Ihre Ehre anzusprechen. 余談ですが、彼らはまた、ミスターやレディシップなどの称号を使用することを拒否しました。

Although I didn't find anything definitively convincing, a couple of sources speculate that anti-Quaker sentiment could have hastened the demise of thee and thou. 虽然||||任何东西|明确地||||||推测||||情绪|||加速||消亡|||| |||||definitively|||||||||Quakerism||||hastened||demise|||| Obwohl ich nichts definitiv Überzeugendes fand, spekulieren einige Quellen, dass die Anti-Quäker-Stimmung den Untergang von dir und du beschleunigt haben könnte. 決定的に説得力のあるものは何も見つかりませんでしたが、いくつかの情報源は、反クエーカー感情があなたとあなたの終焉を早めた可能性があると推測しています. Since fewer and fewer people were using the pronouns, they became associated with Quaker-speak, so if you didn't like the Quakers, you were probably even less likely to use thee and thou . Da immer weniger Leute die Pronomen benutzten, wurden sie mit der Quäkersprache in Verbindung gebracht. Wenn Sie also die Quäker nicht mochten, war es wahrscheinlich noch weniger wahrscheinlich, dass Sie dich und du benutzten. 代名詞を使用する人がますます少なくなったため、それらはクエーカー語と関連付けられるようになりました。そのため、クエーカー教徒が嫌いな場合は、おそらく thee and thou を使用する可能性がさらに低くなりました. Thee and Thou Became Insults ||||侮辱 Dir und Du wurdest Beleidigungen

Plays and legal documents from the time do show that people were using thee and thou as insults too. 当時の劇や法的文書は、人々があなたとあなたを侮辱としても使用していたことを示しています. The attorney-general at Sir Walter Raleigh's trial taunted Raleigh by saying “All that he did was at thy instigation, thou viper; for I thou thee, thou traitor.” And a 1913 article in Harper's Magazine recounts a story from George Fox, the founder of the Quakers, on the trouble he encountered when using thou . |检察总长|||||拉尔夫|审判|嘲讽|拉利赫|||||||是|||煽动||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| |lawyer|||||||||||||||||your|instigation||traitor||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| サー・ウォルター・ローリーの裁判で司法長官はローリーを罵倒し、次のように述べた。私はあなた、あなたは裏切り者だからです。また、Harper's Magazine の 1913 年の記事では、クエーカー教徒の創始者であるジョージフォックスが thou を使用する際に遭遇したトラブルについての話を詳述しています。 “We were often beset and abused, and sometimes in danger of our lives for using these words to some proud men, who would say, ‘What! |||||虐待||||||||||||||||||| |||beset||||||||||||||||||||| 「私たちはしばしば取り乱し、虐待され、時には命の危険にさらされることもありました。誇り高い男性にこれらの言葉を使ったからです。 You ill-bred clown, do you thou me? 育ちの悪いピエロ、あなたは私ですか？ '” It's hard to understand now, but at the time, it was almost unthinkable to call a superior thou . 今となってはわかりにくいが、当時は「お前を目上の者」と呼ぶなんて考えられないことだった。 So it seems that English lost its informal pronouns because people were afraid of offending those who thought of themselves as upper class and because some people were actively using the pronouns thou and thee as insults. そのため、英語は非公式の代名詞を失ったようです。これは、人々が自分自身を上流階級と考えている人々の気分を害することを恐れ、一部の人々が積極的に代名詞のあなたとあなたを侮辱として使用していたためです。

It's interesting that more recently it's the formal pronouns that are being used less often in languages such as Spanish and German. 最近では、スペイン語やドイツ語などの言語であまり使用されていないのが正式な代名詞であることは興味深いことです。 It seems that our values are different now - today, we value informality more than formality. 現在、私たちの価値観は異なっているようです。今日、私たちは形式よりも非公式を重視しています。

The sources I found include much more detail and nuance about how thee and thou used to be used, more about where they remain, more examples of how they were used as insults in plays and legal proceedings, and more about the Quakers' attitudes on language. |||||||||subtlety|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| 私が見つけた情報源には、あなたとあなたがどのように使用されていたか、それらがどこに残っているか、演劇や法的手続きで侮辱としてどのように使用されたかのより多くの例、および言語に対するクエーカー教徒の態度についての詳細とニュアンスが含まれています。 . As fontes que encontrei incluem muito mais pormenores e nuances sobre a forma como o "tu" e o "tu" costumavam ser usados, mais sobre onde permanecem, mais exemplos de como eram usados como insultos em peças de teatro e processos legais, e mais sobre as atitudes dos Quakers em relação à linguagem. It's great reading if you're interested, so don't skip the sources below. 興味のある方はぜひお読みください。以下のソースを飛ばさないでください。如果您有兴趣，这本书非常值得一读，因此请不要跳过下面的资源。