YOU

'''You''' () is the second-person
personal pronoun (subject case) in Modern English.

Contents

Usage of you

Etymology

Plural forms in other European languages

You are Time Magazine's Person of the Year for 2006

References

See also

Usage of you

In standard English, ''you'' is both singular and plural; it always takes a verb form that originally marked the word as plural, such as ''you are''.This was not always so.
Early Modern English distinguished between the plural ''you'' and the singular ''thou''. This distinction was lost in modern English due to the importation from France of a Romance linguistic feature which is commonly called the T-V distinction. This distinction made the plural forms more respectful and deferential; they were used to address strangers and social superiors. This distinction ultimately led to familiar ''thou'' becoming obsolete in standard English (and Dutch), although this did not happen in other languages such as French. Ironically, the fact that ''thou'' is now seen primarily in literary sources such as King James Bible (often as words from God) or Shakespeare (often in dramatic dialogs, e.g. "Wherefore art thou Romeo?") has led many modern anglophones to erroneously perceive it as more ''formal'', not familiar (case in point: in '', Darth Vader addresses the Emperor saying, "What is thy bidding, my master?").
Because ''you'' is both singular and plural, various English dialects have attempted to revive the distinction between a singular and plural ''you'' to avoid confusion between the two uses. This is typically done by adding a new plural form; examples of new plurals sometimes seen and heard are ''y'all''/''you-all'' (primarily in the southern United States and African American Vernacular English), ''you guys'' (in the U.S., particularly in Midwest, Northeast, and West Coast, and in Australia), ''youse''/''youse guys'' (Scotland, Northern England, Australia, New Zealand, New York City region, Philadelphia, Michigan's Upper Peninsula; also spelt without the E), and ''you-uns''/''yinz'' (Western Pennsylvania, The Appalachians). English spoken in Ireland, known as Hiberno-English, uses the word ''ye'' as the plural form, or ''yous''. Although these plurals are useful in daily speech, they are generally not found in Standard English. Among them, ''you guys'' is considered most neutral in the U.S.^[1] It is the most common plural form of ''you'' in the U.S. except in the dialects with ''y'all'', and has been used even in the White House.^[2]
''You'' is also unusual in that, being both singular and plural, it has two reflexive forms, ''yourself'' and ''yourselves.'' However, in recent years singular ''themself'' is sometimes seen: see ''singular they''.

Etymology

''You'' is derived from Old English ''ge'' or '' (both pronounced roughly like Modern English ''yea''), which was the old nominative case form of the pronoun, and ''eow'', which was the old accusative case form of the pronoun. In Middle English the nominative case became ''ye'', and the oblique case (formed by the merger of the accusative case and the former dative case) was ''you''. In early Modern English either the nominative or the accusative forms have been generalized in most dialects. Most generalized ''you''; some dialects in the north of England and Scotland generalized ''ye'', or use ''ye'' as a clipped or clitic form of the pronoun.
''Ye'' and ''you'' are cognate with Dutch ''jij'' and ''jou'', German ''ihr'', Gothic ''jus'' and Old Norse ''ér''. (Modern Icelandic þér is a variant form due to alteration of phrases like ''háfiþ ér'' (you have) into ''háfi þér'' etc.) The specific form of this pronoun is unique to the Germanic languages, but the Germanic forms ultimately do relate to the general Indo-European forms represented by Latin ''vos''.
Note that in the early days of the printing press, the letter ''y'' was used in place of the thorn (''þ''), so many modern instances of ''ye'' (such as in "Ye Olde Shoppe") are in fact examples of ''the'' and not of ''you''.

Plural forms in other European languages

Similar to English, ''u'' in Dutch is taken as a polite form for both plural and singular, while ''jij'' (singular) and ''jullie'' (plural) are considered informal. (Actually, Dutch lost its original ''thou'' form, ''du'', just like English did; the forms ''U'', ''jij'', and ''jullie'' are actually more analogous to English ''you'', ''ye'', and ''y'all'' respectively). However, Dutch society traditionally values equality, making the use of ''u'' come across as somewhat distant and uncomfortable. French has kept the system intact. ''Vous'' is still used as formal and plural, while ''tu'' is used for informal singular. Russian uses this system also: ''vy'' (вы) is formal/plural and ''ty'' (ты) is informal singular. This kind of system is also found in other languages, like Finnish and Swedish. In modern Swedish though, the term ''ni'' (plural for you) is rarely used to address a single person, not even in formal circumstances. The term used is ''du'' (you, singular).
While English, Dutch, French and Russian use or have used the plural forms as the polite forms, other European languages use forms deriving from the third person. German, for example, uses the third person plural pronoun ''sie'', capitalized ''Sie'', as its formal pronoun (in other words, ''Sie'' is grammatically identical to ''They''). Danish and Norwegian languages similarly use ''De''. Italian has separate forms for singular (''Lei'') and plural (''Loro''), which are derived from the Italian words for ''she'' and ''they'' respectively; a partial similarity to the German system (especially since the German word for ''she'' is 'also' ''sie'', but conjugates differently from ''Sie''). However, sometimes the French system is also used in Italy, using the plural pronoun ''voi'' as singular. In Hungarian, ''te'' is informal, while there are different, synonymous words for formal (''ön'' and ''maga'' being the two most commonly used).
Spanish and Portuguese use pronouns derived from third person phrases which originally meant ''your mercy'', ''sir'' or ''madam'', along with their plural forms. For Spanish, they are ''usted'' (pl. ''ustedes''), and for Portuguese, ''você'' (pl. ''vocês''), ''o senhor'' (pl. ''os senhores'') and ''a senhora'' (pl. ''as senhoras''). ''Você'' is often employed informally in Brazil, though the original singular pronoun ''tu'' is more commonly used in the South, the Northeast and some rural regions (this may be due to foreign influence in some locations), but ''o senhor'', ''a senhora'' and their plurals are still used and always formal. In some Spanish speaking areas (especially in Latin America), the original second person singular pronoun ''tú'' has been dropped entirely, thus erasing the distinction between formal and informal address. In others, it was replaced with an old form of the second person plural pronoun, ''vos'', now used as an informal counterpart to ''usted''. See voseo. Modified versions of ''vos'', ''vosotros'' and ''vosotras'', are still used in Spain as informal second person plural pronouns, while the singular there is still ''tú'', used informally. Portuguese has moved farther away from the original paradigm; the plural pronoun ''vós'' has disappeared in Brazil and is no longer used in ordinary speech in Portugal.

You are Time Magazine's Person of the Year for 2006

References

1. Another View of You Guys, , George, Jochnowitz, American Speech, 1983
2. 'You-guys': It riles Miss Manners and other purists, but for most it adds color to language landscape Delia M. Rios

See also

★ English personal pronouns

★ Thou

★ Generic you

★ Y'all

★ Yinz