You
Encyclopedia
You is the second-person
personal pronoun
, both singular
and plural
, and both nominative
and objective case, in Modern English
. The oblique/objective form you functioned originally as both accusative and dative). The possessive forms of you are your (used before a noun) and yours (used in place of a noun).The reflexive forms are yourself (singular) and yourselves (plural).
, you is both singular and plural; it always takes a verb
form that originally marked the word as plural, (i.e. you are, in common with we are and they are). This was not always so. Early Modern English distinguished between the plural you and the singular thou
. As in many other European languages, English at the time had a T-V distinction
, which 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 modern English, although this did not happen in other languages such as French
. Because thou is now seen primarily in literary
sources such as King James Bible (often directed to God
, who is traditionally addressed in the familiar) or Shakespeare (often in drama
tic dialogs, e.g. "Wherefore art thou Romeo
?"), it is now widely perceived ahistorically as more formal, rather than familiar.
Everyday speech among large sections of the population in Northern England commonly used and still uses dialect versions of thou, thee, thy, and thine. In South and West Yorkshire, for example, they are expressed as tha', thee, thi' and thine. In a South Yorkshire mining village in the late 1940s, among males only the village schoolteachers, doctor, parson and children in school exclusively used the 'you' form in the singular. Children who had grown up in households where 'tha' was the norm were forcibly reminded of the standard English at school and quickly became 'bilingual' using 'you' at school and in formal settings, and 'tha' at home and with friends. There was a distinct difference in usage between males and females, possibly due to women (who were almost exclusively homebound at that time) constantly hearing standard English on the BBC radio and at the cinema, and copying it as being more genteel. Younger women and girls used the 'you' form in most public speech, and the dialect form 'tha' rarely except perhaps in anger or exasperation. Very old women who had spent most of their lives unexposed to radio or cinema, used 'tha' in most circumstances except, sometimes, when dealing with officialdom. In the same village in the 2000s the dialect form is now mainly used in familiar interpersonal relationships, even among people who have received higher education.
s 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
, or 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, in Canada, and in Australia; regardless of the genders of those referred to), you lot (in the UK), youse (in Scotland, the north east of England and New Zealand
), yous (in Liverpool
and some parts of Ireland
), youse guys (in the U.S., particularly in New York City region, Philadelphia, Michigan's Upper Peninsula and rural Canada; also spelt without the E), and you-uns/yinz
(Western Pennsylvania, The Appalachians). English spoken in Ireland
, known as Hiberno-English
, sometimes uses the word ye as the plural form, or yous (also used in Australia, however not the form ye). 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.
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
.
You is also unusual in that, being both singular and plural, it has two reflexive
forms, yourself and yourselves. However, in recent years third person singular themself is sometimes seen (see singular they
) in addition to the third person plural reflexive form themselves.
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 form had been generalized in most dialect
s. 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
(þ)ér. (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 can be derived from PIE *yū(H)s (2nd plural nominative). It is most widespread in the Germanic languages
, but has cognates in other branches of Indo-European languages
such as Ved.
yūyám, Av.
yūš, Gk.
humeis, Toch. yas/yes, Arm.
dzez/dzez/cez, OPruss. ioūs, Lith.
jūs, Ltv.
jūs, Alb.
juve, ju. In other Indo-European languages the form derived from (second person plural oblique) began to prevail: Lat.
vōs, Pol.
wy, Russ.
вы [vy].
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
" (definite article
) and not of "you". This use of letters in printing may have indirectly helped to contribute to the displacement of thou by you, and the use of you in the nominative case.
Grammatical person
Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns...
personal pronoun
Personal pronoun
Personal pronouns are pronouns used as substitutes for proper or common nouns. All known languages contain personal pronouns.- English personal pronouns :English in common use today has seven personal pronouns:*first-person singular...
, both singular
Singular
A grammatical number denoting a unit quantity Singular may also refer to:* Gravitational singularity, a location where the quantities that are used to measure the gravitational field become infinite...
and plural
Plural
In linguistics, plurality or [a] plural is a concept of quantity representing a value of more-than-one. Typically applied to nouns, a plural word or marker is used to distinguish a value other than the default quantity of a noun, which is typically one...
, and both nominative
Nominative case
The nominative case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or the predicate noun or predicate adjective, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments...
and objective case, in Modern English
Modern English
Modern English is the form of the English language spoken since the Great Vowel Shift in England, completed in roughly 1550.Despite some differences in vocabulary, texts from the early 17th century, such as the works of William Shakespeare and the King James Bible, are considered to be in Modern...
. The oblique/objective form you functioned originally as both accusative and dative). The possessive forms of you are your (used before a noun) and yours (used in place of a noun).The reflexive forms are yourself (singular) and yourselves (plural).
Usage
In standard EnglishEnglish language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, you is both singular and plural; it always takes a verb
Verb
A verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...
form that originally marked the word as plural, (i.e. you are, in common with we are and they are). This was not always so. Early Modern English distinguished between the plural you and the singular thou
Thou
The word thou is a second person singular pronoun in English. It is now largely archaic, having been replaced in almost all contexts by you. It is used in parts of Northern England and by Scots. Thou is the nominative form; the oblique/objective form is thee , and the possessive is thy or thine...
. As in many other European languages, English at the time had a T-V distinction
T-V distinction
In sociolinguistics, a T–V distinction is a contrast, within one language, between second-person pronouns that are specialized for varying levels of politeness, social distance, courtesy, familiarity, or insult toward the addressee....
, which 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 modern English, although this did not happen in other languages such as French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
. Because thou is now seen primarily in literary
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
sources such as King James Bible (often directed to God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
, who is traditionally addressed in the familiar) or Shakespeare (often in drama
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...
tic dialogs, e.g. "Wherefore art thou Romeo
Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular archetypal stories of young, teenage lovers.Romeo and Juliet belongs to a...
?"), it is now widely perceived ahistorically as more formal, rather than familiar.
Everyday speech among large sections of the population in Northern England commonly used and still uses dialect versions of thou, thee, thy, and thine. In South and West Yorkshire, for example, they are expressed as tha', thee, thi' and thine. In a South Yorkshire mining village in the late 1940s, among males only the village schoolteachers, doctor, parson and children in school exclusively used the 'you' form in the singular. Children who had grown up in households where 'tha' was the norm were forcibly reminded of the standard English at school and quickly became 'bilingual' using 'you' at school and in formal settings, and 'tha' at home and with friends. There was a distinct difference in usage between males and females, possibly due to women (who were almost exclusively homebound at that time) constantly hearing standard English on the BBC radio and at the cinema, and copying it as being more genteel. Younger women and girls used the 'you' form in most public speech, and the dialect form 'tha' rarely except perhaps in anger or exasperation. Very old women who had spent most of their lives unexposed to radio or cinema, used 'tha' in most circumstances except, sometimes, when dealing with officialdom. In the same village in the 2000s the dialect form is now mainly used in familiar interpersonal relationships, even among people who have received higher education.
New plural forms
Because you is both singular and plural, various English dialectDialect
The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...
s 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
Y'all
Y'all is a contraction of the words "you" and "all". It is used as a plural second-person pronoun. Commonly believed to have originated in the Southern United States, it is primarily associated with Southern American English, African-American Vernacular English, and some dialects of the Western...
, or you-all (primarily in the southern United States
Southern United States
The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...
and African American Vernacular English
African American Vernacular English
African American Vernacular English —also called African American English; less precisely Black English, Black Vernacular, Black English Vernacular , or Black Vernacular English —is an African American variety of American English...
), you guys (in the U.S., particularly in Midwest, Northeast, and West Coast, in Canada, and in Australia; regardless of the genders of those referred to), you lot (in the UK), youse (in Scotland, the north east of England and New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
), yous (in Liverpool
Scouse
Scouse is an accent and dialect of English found primarily in the Metropolitan county of Merseyside, and closely associated with the city of Liverpool and the adjoining urban areas such as the boroughs of south Sefton, Knowsley and the Wirral...
and some parts of Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
), youse guys (in the U.S., particularly in New York City region, Philadelphia, Michigan's Upper Peninsula and rural Canada; also spelt without the E), and you-uns/yinz
Yinz
Yinz is a second-person plural pronoun used mainly in southwest Pennsylvania and Pittsburgh, but it is also found throughout the Appalachians....
(Western Pennsylvania, The Appalachians). English spoken in Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
, known as Hiberno-English
Hiberno-English
Hiberno-English is the dialect of English written and spoken in Ireland .English was first brought to Ireland during the Norman invasion of the late 12th century. Initially it was mainly spoken in an area known as the Pale around Dublin, with Irish spoken throughout the rest of the country...
, sometimes uses the word ye as the plural form, or yous (also used in Australia, however not the form ye). Although these plurals are useful in daily speech, they are generally not found in Standard English
Standard English
Standard English refers to whatever form of the English language is accepted as a national norm in an Anglophone country...
. Among them, you guys is considered most neutral in the U.S.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
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
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
.
You is also unusual in that, being both singular and plural, it has two reflexive
Reflexive pronoun
A reflexive pronoun is a pronoun that is preceded by the noun, adjective, adverb or pronoun to which it refers within the same clause. In generative grammar, a reflexive pronoun is an anaphor that must be bound by its antecedent...
forms, yourself and yourselves. However, in recent years third person singular themself is sometimes seen (see singular they
Singular they
Singular they is the use of they to refer to an entity that is not plural, or not necessarily plural. Though singular they is widespread in everyday English and has a long history of usage, debate continues about its acceptability...
) in addition to the third person plural reflexive form themselves.
Etymology
You is derived from Old EnglishOld English language
Old English or Anglo-Saxon is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons and their descendants in parts of what are now England and southeastern Scotland between at least the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century...
ge or (both pronounced roughly like Modern English
Modern English
Modern English is the form of the English language spoken since the Great Vowel Shift in England, completed in roughly 1550.Despite some differences in vocabulary, texts from the early 17th century, such as the works of William Shakespeare and the King James Bible, are considered to be in Modern...
yea), which was the old nominative case form of the pronoun, and eow, which was the old accusative case
Accusative case
The accusative case of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. The same case is used in many languages for the objects of prepositions...
form of the pronoun. In Middle English
Middle English
Middle English is the stage in the history of the English language during the High and Late Middle Ages, or roughly during the four centuries between the late 11th and the late 15th century....
the nominative case became ye, and the oblique case
Oblique case
An oblique case in linguistics is a noun case of synthetic languages that is used generally when a noun is the object of a verb or a preposition...
(formed by the merger of the accusative case and the former dative case
Dative case
The dative case is a grammatical case generally used to indicate the noun to whom something is given, as in "George gave Jamie a drink"....
) was you. In early Modern English either the nominative or the accusative form had been generalized in most dialect
Dialect
The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...
s. Most generalized you; some dialects in the north of England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
and Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
generalized ye, or use ye as a clipped or clitic
Clitic
In morphology and syntax, a clitic is a morpheme that is grammatically independent, but phonologically dependent on another word or phrase. It is pronounced like an affix, but works at the phrase level...
form of the pronoun.
Ye and you are cognate
Cognate
In linguistics, cognates are words that have a common etymological origin. This learned term derives from the Latin cognatus . Cognates within the same language are called doublets. Strictly speaking, loanwords from another language are usually not meant by the term, e.g...
with Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
jij and jou, German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
ihr, Gothic
Gothic language
Gothic is an extinct Germanic language that was spoken by the Goths. It is known primarily from the Codex Argenteus, a 6th-century copy of a 4th-century Bible translation, and is the only East Germanic language with a sizable Text corpus...
jus and Old Norse
Old Norse
Old Norse is a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300....
(þ)ér. (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 can be derived from PIE *yū(H)s (2nd plural nominative). It is most widespread in the Germanic languages
Germanic languages
The Germanic languages constitute a sub-branch of the Indo-European language family. The common ancestor of all of the languages in this branch is called Proto-Germanic , which was spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age northern Europe...
, but has cognates in other branches of Indo-European languages
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major current languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and South Asia and also historically predominant in Anatolia...
such as Ved.
Vedic Sanskrit
Vedic Sanskrit is an old Indo-Aryan language. It is an archaic form of Sanskrit, an early descendant of Proto-Indo-Iranian. It is closely related to Avestan, the oldest preserved Iranian language...
yūyám, Av.
Avestan language
Avestan is an East Iranian language known only from its use as the language of Zoroastrian scripture, i.e. the Avesta, from which it derives its name...
yūš, Gk.
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
humeis, Toch. yas/yes, Arm.
Armenian language
The Armenian language is an Indo-European language spoken by the Armenian people. It is the official language of the Republic of Armenia as well as in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The language is also widely spoken by Armenian communities in the Armenian diaspora...
dzez/dzez/cez, OPruss. ioūs, Lith.
Lithuanian language
Lithuanian is the official state language of Lithuania and is recognized as one of the official languages of the European Union. There are about 2.96 million native Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania and about 170,000 abroad. Lithuanian is a Baltic language, closely related to Latvian, although they...
jūs, Ltv.
Latvian language
Latvian is the official state language of Latvia. It is also sometimes referred to as Lettish. There are about 1.4 million native Latvian speakers in Latvia and about 150,000 abroad. The Latvian language has a relatively large number of non-native speakers, atypical for a small language...
jūs, Alb.
Albanian language
Albanian is an Indo-European language spoken by approximately 7.6 million people, primarily in Albania and Kosovo but also in other areas of the Balkans in which there is an Albanian population, including western Macedonia, southern Montenegro, southern Serbia and northwestern Greece...
juve, ju. In other Indo-European languages the form derived from (second person plural oblique) began to prevail: Lat.
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
vōs, Pol.
Polish language
Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
wy, Russ.
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
вы [vy].
In the early days of the printing press
Printing press
A printing press is a device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium , thereby transferring the ink...
, the letter y
Y
Y is the twenty-fifth letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet and represents either a vowel or a consonant in English.-Name:In Latin, Y was named Y Graeca "Greek Y". This was pronounced as I Graeca "Greek I", since Latin speakers had trouble pronouncing , which was not a native sound...
was used in place of the thorn
Thorn (letter)
Thorn or þorn , is a letter in the Old English, Old Norse, and Icelandic alphabets, as well as some dialects of Middle English. It was also used in medieval Scandinavia, but was later replaced with the digraph th. The letter originated from the rune in the Elder Fuþark, called thorn in the...
(þ), so many modern instances of "ye" (such as in "Ye Olde Shoppe") are in fact examples of "the
THE
THE is a three-letter acronym that may refer to:*Technische Hogeschool Eindhoven , a Dutch university of technology...
" (definite article
Definite Article
Definite Article is the title of British comedian Eddie Izzard's 1996 performance released on VHS. It was recorded on different nights at the Shaftesbury Theatre...
) and not of "you". This use of letters in printing may have indirectly helped to contribute to the displacement of thou by you, and the use of you in the nominative case.