Thou

This article is about the pronoun. For other uses, seeThou (disambiguation).

"Thee" redirects here. For other uses, seeThee (disambiguation).

Most modern English speakers encounter "thou" predominantly in the works ofShakespeare;in the works of other Renaissance, medieval and early modern writers; and in theKing James BibleorDouay-Rheims Bible.

The wordthou(/ðaʊ/) is asecond-personsingularpronouninEnglish.It is now largelyarchaic,having been replaced in most contexts by the wordyou,although it remains in use in parts ofNorthern Englandand inScots(/ðu:/).Thouis thenominativeform; theoblique/objectiveform isthee(functioning as bothaccusativeanddative); thepossessiveisthy(adjective) orthine(as an adjective before a vowel or as a possessive pronoun); and thereflexiveisthyself.Whenthouis thegrammatical subjectof afinite verbin theindicative mood,the verb form typically ends in-(e)st(e.g. "thou goest", "thou do(e)st" ), but in some cases just-t(e.g., "thou art"; "thou shalt" ). Some modern or dialect speakers of thou use thee as the subject and conjugate the word with is/was, e.g.thee is, thee was, thee has, thee speaks, thee spoke, thee can, thee could, thee shall.However, this is not considered standard.

Originally,thouwas simply the singular counterpart to the plural pronounye,derived from anancient Indo-Europeanroot. InMiddle English,thouwas sometimes represented with ascribal abbreviationthat put a small "u" over the letterthorn:þͧ (later, in printing presses that lacked this letter, this abbreviation was sometimes rendered as yͧ). Starting in the 1300s,thouandtheewere used to express familiarity, formality, or contempt, for addressing strangers, superiors, or inferiors, or in situations when indicating singularity to avoid confusion was needed; concurrently, the plural forms,yeandyou,began to also be used for singular: typically for addressing rulers, superiors, equals, inferiors, parents, younger persons, and significant others.In the 17th century,thoufell into disuse in the standard language, often regarded as impolite, but persisted, sometimes in an altered form, inregional dialectsofEnglandandScotland,as well as in the language of such religious groups as theSociety of Friends.The use of the pronoun is also still present in Christian prayer and in poetry.

Early English translations of the Bible used the familiar singular form of the second person, which mirrors common usage trends in other languages. The familiar and singular form is used when speaking toGodinFrench(inProtestantismboth in past and present, inCatholicismsince the post–Vatican IIreforms),German,Spanish,Italian,Portuguese,Scottish Gaelicand many others (all of which maintain the use of an "informal" singular form of the second person in modern speech). In addition, the translators of theKing James Versionof the Bible attempted to maintain the distinction found inBiblical Hebrew,AramaicandKoine Greekbetween singular and plural second-person pronouns and verb forms, so they usedthou,thee,thy,andthinefor singular, andye,you,your,andyoursfor plural.

In standardModern English,thoucontinues to be used in formal religious contexts, in wedding ceremonies ( "I thee wed" ), in literature that seeks to reproduce archaic language, and in certain fixed phrases such as "fare thee well".For this reason, many associate the pronoun with solemnity or formality. Many dialects have compensated for the lack of a singular/plural distinction caused by the disappearance ofthouandyethrough the creation of new plural pronouns or pronominals, such asyinz,yousandy'allor the colloquialyou guys.Yeremains common in some parts of Ireland, but the examples just given vary regionally and are usually restricted to colloquial speech.

Grammar

Becausethouhas passed out of common use, its traditional forms are often confused by those imitating archaic speech.

Declension

The Englishpersonal pronounshave standardizeddeclensionaccording to the following table:

Personal pronouns in Early Modern English

		Nominative	Oblique	Genitive	Possessive
1st person	singular	I	me	my/mine	mine
	plural	we	us	our	ours
2nd person	singular informal	thou	thee	thy/thine	thine
	singular formal	ye, you	you	your	yours
	plural
3rd person	singular	he/she/it	him/her/it	his/her/his (it)	his/hers/his
	plural	they	them	their	theirs

Conjugation

Verb forms used afterthougenerally end in-est(pronounced/ᵻst/) or-stin theindicative moodin both thepresentand thepasttenses.These forms are used for bothstrongandweak verbs.

Typical examples of the standard present and past tense forms follow. Theein the ending is optional; early English spelling had not yet been standardized. In verse, the choice about whether to use theeoften depended upon considerations ofmeter.

• to know:thou knowest,thou knewest
• to drive:thou drivest,thou drovest
• to make:thou makest,thou madest
• to love:thou lovest,thou lovedst
• to want:thou wantest,thou wantedst

Modal verbs also have-(e)stadded to their forms:

• can:thou canst
• could:thou couldst
• may:thou mayest
• might:thou mightst
• should:thou shouldst
• would:thou wouldst
• ought to:thou oughtest to

A few verbs have irregularthouforms:

• to be:thou art(orthou beest),thou wast/wɒst/(or subjunctivethou wert;originallythou were)
• to have:thou hast,thou hadst
• to do:thou dost/dʌst/(orthou doestin non-auxiliaryuse) andthou didst
• shall:thou shalt
• will:thou wilt

A few others are not inflected:

• must:thou must

In Proto-English,the second-person singular verb inflection was-es.This came down unchangedfromIndo-Europeanand can be seen in quite distantly related Indo-European languages:Russianзнаешь,znayesh,thou knowest;Latinamas,thou lovest. (This is parallel to the history of the third-person form, in Old English -eþ, Russian, знает,znayet,he knoweth, Latinamathe loveth.) Theanomalous developmentfrom -es to modern English -est, which took place separately at around the same time in the closely relatedGermanandWest Frisianlanguages, is understood to be caused by an assimilation of theconsonantof the pronoun, which often followed the verb. This is most readily observed in German: liebes du → liebstu → liebst du (lovest thou).

There are some speakers of modern English that use thou/thee but use thee as the subject and conjugate the word with is/was, i.e.thee is, thee was, thee has, thee speaks, thee spoke, thee can, thee could.However this is not considered standard.

Comparison

Early Modern English	ModernWest Frisian	Modern German	Modern Dutch	Modern English
Thou hast	Do hast [douˈhast]	Du hast [duːˈhast]	Jij hebt [jɛiˈɦɛpt]	You have
She hath	Sy hat [sɛiˈhat]	Sie hat [ziːˈhat]	Zij heeft [zɛiˈɦeːft]	She has
What hast thou?	Wat hasto? [vatˈhasto]	Was hast du? [vasˈhastduː]	Wat heb je? [ʋɑtˈɦɛpjə]	What do you have? (What have you?)
What hath she?	Wat hat sy? [vatˈhatsɛi]	Was hat sie? [vasˈhatziː]	Wat heeft zij? [ʋɑtˈɦeːftsɛi]	What does she have? (What has she?)
Thou goest	Do giest [douˈɡiəst]	Du gehst [duːˈɡeːst]	Jij gaat [jɛiˈɣaːt]	You go
Thou doest	Do dochst [douˈdoχst]	Du tust [duːˈtuːst]	Jij doet [jɛiˈdut]	You do
Thou art (variantthou beest)	Do bist [douˈbɪst]	Du bist [duːˈbɪst]	Jij bent [jɛiˈbɛnt]	You are

InDutch,the equivalent of "thou",du,also became archaic and fell out of use and was replaced by the Dutch equivalent of "you",gij(laterjijoru), just as it has in English, with the place of the informal plural taken byjullie(compareEnglishy’all).

In thesubjunctiveandimperative moods,the ending in-(e)stis dropped (although it is generally retained inthou wert,the second-person singular past subjunctive of the verbto be). The subjunctive forms are used when a statement is doubtful or contrary to fact; as such, they frequently occur afterifand the poeticand.

If thou be Johan, I tell it thee, right with a good advice...;

Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart...

I do wish thou wert a dog, that I might love thee something...

And thou bring Alexander and his paramour before the Emperor, I'll be Actaeon...

O WERT thou in the cauld blast,... I'd shelter thee...

In modern regional English dialects that usethouor some variant, such as inYorkshireandLancashire,it often takes the third person form of the verb-s.This comes from a merging ofEarly Modern Englishsecond person singular ending-stand third person singular ending-sinto-s(the latter a northernvariationof-þ(-th)).

The presentindicativeformart( "þu eart") goes back toWest SaxonOld English (seeOEDs.v. beIV.18) and eventually became standard, even in the south (e.g.in Shakespeare and the Bible). For its influence also fromthe North,cf.Icelandicþú ert.The preterite indicative ofbeis generallythou wast.

Etymology

Thouoriginates fromOld Englishþū,and ultimately viaGrimm's lawfrom theProto-Indo-European*tu,with the expectedGermanicvowellengthening in accented monosyllabic words with anopen syllable.Thouis thereforecognatewithIcelandicandOld Norseþú,GermanandContinental Scandinaviandu,Latinand all majorRomance languages,Irish,Kurdish,LithuanianandLatviantuortú,Greekσύ(sy),Slavicты /tyor ти /ti,Armenianդու(dow/du),Hindiतू (tū),Bengali:তুই (tui),Persianتُو(to) andSanskritत्वम् (tvam). A cognate form of this pronoun exists in almost every other Indo-European language.

History

Old and Middle English

þ^u,abbreviation forthou,fromAdam and Eve,from a ca. 1415 manuscript, England

InOld English,thouwas governed by a simple rule:thouaddressed one person, andyemore than one. Beginning in the 1300sthouwas gradually replaced by the pluralyeas the form of address for a superior person and later for an equal. For a long time, however,thouremained the most common form for addressing an inferior person.

The practice of matching singular and plural forms with informal and formal connotations is called theT–V distinctionand in English is largely due to the influence of French. This began with the practice of addressingkingsand otheraristocratsin theplural.Eventually, this was generalized, as in French, to address any social superior or stranger with a plural pronoun, which was felt to be more polite. In French,tuwas eventually considered either intimate or condescending (and to a stranger, potentially insulting), while the plural formvouswas reserved and formal.

General decline in Early Modern English

Fairly suddenly in the 17th century,thoubegan to decline in the standard language (that is, particularly in and around London), often regarded as impolite or ambiguous in terms of politeness. It persisted, sometimes in an altered form, particularly inregional dialectsofEnglandandScotlandfarther from London,as well as in the language of such religious groups as theSociety of Friends.Reasons commonly maintained by modern linguists as to the decline ofthouin the 17th century include the increasing identification ofyouwith "polite society" and the uncertainty of usingthoufor inferiors versusyoufor superiors (withyoubeing the safer default) amidst the rise of a new middle class.

In the 18th century,Samuel Johnson,inA Grammar of the English Tongue,wrote: "in the language of ceremony... the second person plural is used for the second person singular", implying thatthouwas still in everyday familiar use for the second-person singular, whileyoucould be used for the same grammatical person, but only for formal contexts. However, Samuel Johnson himself was born and raised not in the south of England, but in theWest Midlands(specifically,Lichfield,Staffordshire), where the usage ofthoupersists until the present day (see below), so it is not surprising that he would consider it entirely ordinary and describe it as such. By contrast, for most speakers ofsouthern British English,thouhad already fallen out of everyday use, even in familiar speech, by sometime around 1650.Thoupersisted in a number of religious, literary and regional contexts, and those pockets of continued use of the pronoun tended to undermine the obsolescence of the T–V distinction.

One notable consequence of the decline in use of the second person singular pronounsthou,thy,andtheeis the obfuscation of certain sociocultural elements ofEarly Modern Englishtexts, such as many character interactions inShakespeare's plays, which were mostly written from 1589 to 1613. Although Shakespeare is far from consistent in his writings, his characters primarily tend to usethou(rather thanyou) when addressing another who is a social subordinate, a close friend or family member, or a hated wrongdoer.

Usage

Use as a verb

Many European languages contain verbs meaning "to address with the informal pronoun", such as Germanduzen,the Norwegian noundusrefers to the practice of using this familiar form of address instead of the De/Dem/Deres formal forms in common use, Frenchtutoyer,Spanishtutearandvosear,Swedishdua,Dutchjijen en jouen,Ukrainianтикати (tykaty),Russianтыкать (tykat'),Polishtykać,Romaniantutui,Hungariantegezni,Finnishsinutella,etc. Although uncommon in English, the usage did appear, such as at the trial of SirWalter Raleighin 1603, when SirEdward Coke,prosecuting for the Crown, reportedly sought toinsultRaleigh by saying,

I thou thee, thou traitor!

In modern English:I "thou" you, you traitor!

here usingthouas a verb meaningto call (someone) "thou" or "thee".Although the practice never took root in Standard English, it occurs in dialectal speech in the north of England. A formerly common refrain inYorkshire dialectfor admonishing children who misused the familiar form was:

Don't thee tha them as thas thee!

In modern English:Don't you "tha" those who "tha" you!

In other words:Don't use the familiar form "tha" towards those who refer to you as "tha".( "tha" being the local dialectal variant of "thou" )

And similar inLancashire dialect:

Don't thee me, thee; I's you to thee!

In standard English:Don't "thee" me, you! I'm "you" to you!

See further theWiktionary page onthouas a verb.

Religious uses

Christianity

Many conservative Christians use "Thee, Thou, Thy and Thine when addressing God" inprayer;in thePlymouth BrethrencatechismGathering Unto His Name,Norman Crawford explains the practice:

The English language does contain reverential and respectful forms of the second person pronoun which allow us to show reverence in speaking to God. It has been a very long tradition that these reverential forms are used in prayer. In a day of irreverence, how good to display in every way that we can that "He (God) is not a man as I am" (Job 9:32).

When referring to God, "thou" (as with other pronouns) is often capitalized, e.g. "For Thou hast delivered my soul from death" (Psalm 56:12–13).

AsWilliam Tyndaletranslated the Bibleinto English in the early 16th century, he preserved the singular and plural distinctions that he found in hisHebrewandGreekoriginals. He usedthoufor the singular andyefor the plural regardless of the relative status of the speaker and theaddressee.Tyndale's usage was standard for the period and mirrored that found in the earlierWycliffe's Bibleand the laterKing James Bible.But as the use ofthouin non-dialect English began to decline in the 18th century,its meaning nonetheless remained familiar from the widespread use of the latter translation.TheRevised Standard Versionof the Bible, which first appeared in 1946, retained the pronounthouexclusively to addressGod,usingyouin other places. This was done to preserve the tone, at once intimate and reverent, that would be familiar to those who knew the King James Version and read thePsalmsand similar text in devotional use.TheNew American Standard Bible(1971) made the same decision, but the revision of 1995 (New American Standard Bible, Updated edition) reversed it. Similarly, the 1989Revised English Bibledropped all forms ofthouthat had appeared in the earlierNew English Bible(1970). TheNew Revised Standard Version(1989) omitsthouentirely and claims that it is incongruous and contrary to the original intent of the use ofthouinBible translationto adopt a distinctive pronoun to address the Deity.

The1662Book of Common Prayer,which is still an authorized form of worship in theChurch of Englandand much of theAnglican Communion,also uses the wordthouto refer to the singular second person.

Quakerstraditionally usedtheeas an ordinary pronoun as part of theirtestimony of simplicity—a practice continued by certainConservative Friends;the stereotype has them sayingtheefor both nominative and accusative cases.This was started at the beginning of the Quaker movement byGeorge Fox,who called it "plain speaking", as an attempt to preserve theegalitarianfamiliarity associated with the pronoun. Most Quakers have abandoned this usage. At its beginning, the Quaker movement was particularly strong in the northwestern areas of England and particularly in thenorth Midlandsarea. The preservation oftheein Quaker speech may relate to this history.Modern Quakers who choose to use this manner of "plain speaking" often use the "thee" form without any corresponding change in verb form, for example,is theeorwas thee.

InLatter-day Saintprayer tradition, the terms "thee" and "thou" are always and exclusively used to addressGod,as a mark of respect.

Islam and Baháʼí Faith

In many of the Quranic translations, particularly those compiled by theAhmadiyya,the termsthouandtheeare used. One particular example isThe Holy Quran - Arabic Text and English translation,translated byMaulvi Sher Ali.

In the English translations of thescriptureof theBaháʼí Faith,the termsthouandtheeare also used.Shoghi Effendi,the head of the religion in the first half of the 20th century, adopted a style that was somewhat removed from everyday discourse when translating the texts from their originalArabicorPersianto capture some of the poetic and metaphorical nature of the text in the original languages and to convey the idea that the text was to be considered holy.

Literary uses

Shakespeare

Like his contemporaries,William Shakespeareusesthouboth in the intimate, French-style sense, and also to emphasize differences of rank, but he is by no means consistent in using the word, and friends and lovers sometimes call each otheryeoryouas often as they call each otherthou,sometimes in ways that can be analysed for meaning, but often apparently at random.

For example, in the following passage fromHenry IV,Shakespeare hasFalstaffuse both forms with Henry. Initially using "you" in confusion on waking he then switches to a comfortable and intimate "thou".

Prince:Thou art so fat-witted with drinking of old sack, and unbuttoning thee after supper, and sleeping upon benches after noon, that thou hast forgotten to demand that truly which thou wouldest truly know. What a devil hast thou to do with the time of the day?...

Falstaff:Indeed, you come near me now, Hal... And, Iprithee,sweet wag, when thou art a king, as God save thy Grace – Majesty, I should say; for grace thou wilt have none –

While inHamlet,Shakespeare uses discordant second person pronouns to express Hamlet's antagonism towards his mother.

Queen Gertrude:Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.[she means King Claudius, Hamlet's uncle and stepfather]

Hamlet:Mother, you have my father much offended.[he means King Hamlet, his late father]

More recent uses

Except where everyday use survives in some regions of England,the air of informal familiarity once suggested by the use ofthouhas disappeared; it is used often for the opposite effect with solemnritualoccasions, in readings from theKing James Bible,in Shakespeare and in formal literary compositions that intentionally seek to echo these older styles. Since becoming obsolete in most dialects of spoken English, it has nevertheless been used by more recent writers to address exalted beings such as God,askylark,Achilles,and evenThe Mighty Thor.InThe Empire Strikes Back,Darth Vaderaddresses theEmperorwith the words: "What is thy bidding, my master?" In Leonard Cohen's song "Bird on the Wire",he promises his beloved that he will reform, saying" I will make it all up to thee. "In Diana Ross's song,"Upside Down",(written byChic'sNile RodgersandBernard Edwards) there is the lyric "Respectfully I say to thee I'm aware that you're cheatin'." In "Will You Be There",Michael Jacksonsings, "Hold me / Like the River Jordan / And I will then say to thee / You are my friend." Notably, both Ross's and Jackson's lyrics combinetheewith the usual formyou.

The converse—the use of the second person singular ending-estfor the third person—also occurs ( "So sayest Thor!" ―spoken by Thor). This usage often shows up in modernparodyandpastichein an attempt to make speech appear either archaic or formal. The formsthouandtheeare often transposed.

Current usage

Youis now the standard English second-person pronoun and encompasses both the singular and plural senses. In some dialects, however,thouhas persisted,and in others thou is retained for poetic and/or literary use. Further, in others the vacuum created by the loss of a distinction has led to the creation of new forms of the second-person plural, such asy'allin theSouthern United Statesoryousby some Australians and heard in what are generally considered working class dialects in and near cities in the northeastern United States. The forms vary across the English-speaking world and between literature and the spoken language.It also survives as afossil wordin the commonly-used phrase "holier-than-thou".

Persistence of second-person singular

In traditional dialects,thouis used in the English countries ofCumberland,Westmorland,Durham,Lancashire,Yorkshire,Staffordshire,Derbyshireand some western parts ofNottinghamshire.TheSurvey of Anglo-Welsh Dialects,which began in 1968,found thatthoupersisted in scattered sites acrossClwyd,Dyfed,PowysandWest Glamorgan.Such dialects normally also preserve distinct verb forms for the singular second person, for examplethee coost(standard English:you could,archaic:thou couldst) in northern Staffordshire. Throughout rural Yorkshire, the old distinction between nominative and objective is preserved.The possessive is often written asthyin local dialect writings, but is pronounced as an unstressedtha,and the possessive pronoun has in modern usage almost exclusively followed other English dialects in becomingyoursor the localwordyour'n(fromyour one):

		Nominative	Objective	Genitive	Possessive
Second person	singular	tha	thee	thy (tha)	yours / your'n

The apparent incongruity between the archaic nominative, objective andgenitiveforms of this pronoun on the one hand and the modern possessive form on the other may be a signal that the linguistic drift of Yorkshire dialect is causingthato fall into disuse; however, a measure of local pride in the dialect may be counteracting this.

Some other variants are specific to certain areas. InSheffield,the initial consonant was pronounced as /d/, which led to the nickname of the "dee-dahs" for people from Sheffield.In Lancashire and West Yorkshire,ta[tə]was used as an unstressed shortening ofthou,which can be found in the song "On Ilkla Moor Baht 'at",althoughK.M. Petytfound this form to have been largely displaced from urban West Yorkshire in his 1970-1 fieldwork.

In rural NorthLancashirebetween Lancaster and theNorth Yorkshireborderthais preserved in colloquial phrases such as "What wouldthalike forthitea? "(What would you like for your dinner), and"'appenthawaint "(" perhaps you won't "–happenbeing thedialectword forperhaps) and "thaknows "(you know). This usage in Lancashire is becoming rare, except for elderly and rural speakers.

A well-known routine by comedianPeter Kay,fromBolton, Greater Manchester(historically in Lancashire), features the phrase "Has tha nowt moist?” (Have you got nothing moist?).

The use of the word "thee" in the song "I Predict a Riot"byLeedsbandKaiser Chiefs( "Watching the people get lairy / is not very pretty, I tell thee" ) caused some commentby people who were unaware that the word is still in use in theYorkshire dialect.

The word "thee" is also used in the songUpside Down"Respectfully, I say to thee / I'm aware that you're cheating".

The use of the phrase "tha knows" has been widely used in various songs byArctic Monkeys,a popular band from High Green, a suburb of Sheffield.Alex Turner,the band's lead singer, has also often replaced words with "tha knows" during live versions of the songs.

The use persists somewhat in theWest Country dialects,albeit somewhat affected. Some ofthe Wurzels' songs include "Drink Up ThyZider"and" Sniff Up Thy Snuff ".

Thoohas also been used in theOrcadianScotsdialect in place of the singular informalthou.InShetland dialect,the other form ofInsular Scots,duanddeeare used. The word "thou" has been reported in theNorth Northern ScotsCromarty dialectas being in common use in the first half of the 20th century and by the time of its extinction only in occasional use.

See also

• T–V distinction

General and cited references

• Baugh, Albert C. and Thomas Cable.A History of the English Language,5th ed.ISBN0-13-015166-1
• Burrow, J. A., Turville-Petre, Thorlac.A Book of Middle English.ISBN0-631-19353-7
• Daniel, David.The Bible in English: Its History and Influence.ISBN0-300-09930-4.
• Shorrocks, Graham (1992). "Case Assignment in Simple and Coordinate Constructions in Present-Day English".American Speech.67(4): 432–444.doi:10.2307/455850.JSTOR455850.
• Smith, Jeremy.A Historical Study of English: Form, Function, and Change.ISBN0-415-13272-X
• "Thou,pers. pron., 2nd sing."Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. (1989).Oxford English DictionaryArchived2006-06-25 at theWayback Machine.
• Trudgill, Peter. (1999) Blackwell Publishing.Dialects of England.ISBN0-631-21815-7

Further reading

• Brown, Roger and Gilman, Albert.The Pronouns of Power and Solidarity,1960, reprinted in:Sociolinguistics: the Essential Readings,Wiley-Blackwell, 2003,ISBN0-631-22717-2,978-0-631-22717-5
• Byrne, St. Geraldine.Shakespeare's use of the pronoun of address: its significance in characterization and motivation,Catholic University of America, 1936 (reprinted Haskell House, 1970)OCLC2560278.
• Quirk, Raymond.Shakespeare and the English Language,in Kenneth Muir and Sam Schoenbaum, eds, A New Companion to Shakespeare Studies*, 1971, Cambridge UP
• Wales, Katie.Personal Pronouns in Present-Day English.ISBN0-521-47102-8
• Walker, Terry.Thou and you in early modern English dialogues: trials, depositions, and drama comedy,John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2007,ISBN90-272-5401-X,9789027254016

External links

• A Grammar of the English TonguebySamuel Johnson– includes description of 18th century use
• Contemporary use ofthouin YorkshireArchived2007-07-16 at theWayback Machine
• Thou:The Maven's Word of the Day
• You/Thou in Shakespeare's WorkArchived2007-02-25 at theWayback Machine(archived forum discussion)
• A Note on Shakespeare's GrammarArchived2007-05-23 at theWayback Machineby Seamus Cooney
• The Language of Formal Prayer by Don E. Norton, Jr.- LDS