Since French is one of the official languages of Canada, I have taken courses ranging from elementary to university on it. I envy the romantic languages because having subject and object versions of "you" makes it clearer to know when one is addressing a single person or a larger group. Because English uses "you" to refer to both single people and groups, I get confused when it used whether or not the speaker is referring to me personally or not. (Must be an autistic thing.)
And then, of course, French as spoken in the main Canadian province where it is the dominant language- Quebec- is very different from how it is spoken in France and elsewhere...
David, these are great observations. Distinct "yous" for singular and plural would be amazingly helpful, and while I've never been diagnosed with autism, I think I understand how and why this can cause confusion - I am in a similar boat, and have always thought it was kind of silly that English didn't offer a more sensible way of dealing with this (as opposed to the "utter ambiguity" tactic).
I will have to wait until I'm revisiting French in a couple years, but I want to dive into those differences and maybe even visit Quebec once I have something of an ear for them.
In Danish, "you" is "du" (or "De" if you're very respectful to an older person but it's honestly never used these days - I think even an older person would take offense that you're "aging" them by using it.)
In Russian, it's "ты" (very hard to write the correct sound in English using available letters - it's a bit like "tee" but rougher - Google does a good job of showing the pronunciation.)
In Ukrainian, it's "ти" (which is spelled differently but pronounced essentially the same as the Russian version.)
So it looks like the roots of all of them go to the same place.
I was really pleased when I stumbled across that you/ye thou/thee tu/te connection. It was like a final piece of a puzzle that traced all the way back to PIE.
Russian and Ukrainian are on my list! It's gonna be a few years, but I am very interested in that language family.
Hmmmm, interesting! Growing up, I can't say that I fully understood all of Shakespeares works. I was simply to ill to but I did understand Romeo and Juliet. I'd watch the 1968 version over and over, not only because of the romance but because something calming, familiar, etc. came from listening to that way of speaking, watching how they were living, etc. In ALL honesty at that time in my life, I didn't even fully understand Romeo and Juliet. I just loved the feeling listening to it & watching it gave me. That sounds rather odd but it's actually very true. You're absolutely right! ALOT of people don't use thee or thou. etc. I don't think some use some of the things that I do at times. I say at times because I know that somedays, I seem rather idiotic one could say. Still, sometimes, certain words just pop right out of me. Which is VERY interesting because now that DNA can be found, I learned that my 11th great-aunt is Mary Queen of Scots, which means that many of my ancestors most likely lived exactly as they did in that movie or partially like it. Maybe somethings are passed down through DNA? Maybe that's what gave me that feeling of familiarity? It's odd and It's sad really because I don't even speak all historical words perfectly as some historians, etc. do. I'm just me.. Anyway, interesting post.
'Tis a shame I never got into Shakespeare when it was offered in high school. I think it was just too much for me to dive into the language without the proper context, but now things are very different. When I see a sentence, I feel like the language itself tells a very interesting story - like, each word comes from somewhere interesting, and went through a ton of changes that tell an even more rich tale.
I understand that Shakespeare has contributed an astounding amount of new words to English, or at least they were new to print thanks to him.
Since French is one of the official languages of Canada, I have taken courses ranging from elementary to university on it. I envy the romantic languages because having subject and object versions of "you" makes it clearer to know when one is addressing a single person or a larger group. Because English uses "you" to refer to both single people and groups, I get confused when it used whether or not the speaker is referring to me personally or not. (Must be an autistic thing.)
And then, of course, French as spoken in the main Canadian province where it is the dominant language- Quebec- is very different from how it is spoken in France and elsewhere...
David, these are great observations. Distinct "yous" for singular and plural would be amazingly helpful, and while I've never been diagnosed with autism, I think I understand how and why this can cause confusion - I am in a similar boat, and have always thought it was kind of silly that English didn't offer a more sensible way of dealing with this (as opposed to the "utter ambiguity" tactic).
I will have to wait until I'm revisiting French in a couple years, but I want to dive into those differences and maybe even visit Quebec once I have something of an ear for them.
In Danish, "you" is "du" (or "De" if you're very respectful to an older person but it's honestly never used these days - I think even an older person would take offense that you're "aging" them by using it.)
In Russian, it's "ты" (very hard to write the correct sound in English using available letters - it's a bit like "tee" but rougher - Google does a good job of showing the pronunciation.)
In Ukrainian, it's "ти" (which is spelled differently but pronounced essentially the same as the Russian version.)
So it looks like the roots of all of them go to the same place.
I was really pleased when I stumbled across that you/ye thou/thee tu/te connection. It was like a final piece of a puzzle that traced all the way back to PIE.
Russian and Ukrainian are on my list! It's gonna be a few years, but I am very interested in that language family.
Hmmmm, interesting! Growing up, I can't say that I fully understood all of Shakespeares works. I was simply to ill to but I did understand Romeo and Juliet. I'd watch the 1968 version over and over, not only because of the romance but because something calming, familiar, etc. came from listening to that way of speaking, watching how they were living, etc. In ALL honesty at that time in my life, I didn't even fully understand Romeo and Juliet. I just loved the feeling listening to it & watching it gave me. That sounds rather odd but it's actually very true. You're absolutely right! ALOT of people don't use thee or thou. etc. I don't think some use some of the things that I do at times. I say at times because I know that somedays, I seem rather idiotic one could say. Still, sometimes, certain words just pop right out of me. Which is VERY interesting because now that DNA can be found, I learned that my 11th great-aunt is Mary Queen of Scots, which means that many of my ancestors most likely lived exactly as they did in that movie or partially like it. Maybe somethings are passed down through DNA? Maybe that's what gave me that feeling of familiarity? It's odd and It's sad really because I don't even speak all historical words perfectly as some historians, etc. do. I'm just me.. Anyway, interesting post.
'Tis a shame I never got into Shakespeare when it was offered in high school. I think it was just too much for me to dive into the language without the proper context, but now things are very different. When I see a sentence, I feel like the language itself tells a very interesting story - like, each word comes from somewhere interesting, and went through a ton of changes that tell an even more rich tale.
I understand that Shakespeare has contributed an astounding amount of new words to English, or at least they were new to print thanks to him.