<story><title>Did English ever have a formal version of “you”?</title><url>http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/9780/did-english-ever-have-a-formal-version-of-you</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>moskie</author><text>This relates well to one of the fascinating things I realized while learning German: the fact that so many English and German words and sounds have phonetic connections, coming from their common Germanic ancestry.&lt;p&gt;For example, the letter &amp;quot;d&amp;quot; in German corresponding to &amp;quot;th&amp;quot; in English:&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  die&amp;#x2F;der&amp;#x2F;das -&amp;gt; the
  drei -&amp;gt; three
  Donner -&amp;gt; thunder
  Ding -&amp;gt; thing
  daher -&amp;gt; therefore
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
and, most relevant to this discussion:&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  du -&amp;gt; thou
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
I&amp;#x27;m sure this connection can be better explained than I&amp;#x27;m able to, but it was a mini-epiphany for me while studying the language.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>lupatus</author><text>Part of the explanation is the convoluted history of the people who lived in the British isles.&lt;p&gt;Originally, it was inhabited by gaelic-speaking Celts.  Some of their words that are still used today ():&lt;p&gt;plaide -&amp;gt; plaid&lt;p&gt;tàrmachan -&amp;gt; ptarmigan&lt;p&gt;triubhas  -&amp;gt; trousers&lt;p&gt;peata -&amp;gt; pet&lt;p&gt;Then, it was conquered by the Romans.  Latin words that found their way into English (&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Latin_words_with_English_derivatives&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;List_of_Latin_words_with_Engli...&lt;/a&gt;):&lt;p&gt;honor -&amp;gt; honor&lt;p&gt;imbecillus -&amp;gt; imbecile&lt;p&gt;inferus -&amp;gt; inferior&lt;p&gt;vulgus -&amp;gt; vulgar&lt;p&gt;Then, after the fall of the Romans, Britain was conquered by the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, who brought the old German words mentioned below.&lt;p&gt;After this, the area was Christianized, and the priests and proselytizers brought even more latin with them because that was the language of the Church.&lt;p&gt;After this, large portions of England were conquered by the Vikings, who introduced more Scandinavian-origin words that others have mentioned here.  In fact, King Canute was once simultaneously king of England, Denmark, and Norway.&lt;p&gt;After the Vikings, England was conquered by the Normans by William the Conqueror in the Battle of Hastings.  The Normans were Viking raiders who settled in northwestern France and who had turned in francophones.  They introduce french-origin words like:&lt;p&gt;boef -&amp;gt; beef&lt;p&gt;mouton -&amp;gt; mutton&lt;p&gt;veal -&amp;gt; veal&lt;p&gt;porc -&amp;gt; pork&lt;p&gt;After which, all these language influences congealed, vaguely, into the English we know and love today.&lt;p&gt;For this graphed: &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Origins_of_English_PieChart.svg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;File:Origins_of_English_PieCha...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Edited for formatting.</text></comment>
<story><title>Did English ever have a formal version of “you”?</title><url>http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/9780/did-english-ever-have-a-formal-version-of-you</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>moskie</author><text>This relates well to one of the fascinating things I realized while learning German: the fact that so many English and German words and sounds have phonetic connections, coming from their common Germanic ancestry.&lt;p&gt;For example, the letter &amp;quot;d&amp;quot; in German corresponding to &amp;quot;th&amp;quot; in English:&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  die&amp;#x2F;der&amp;#x2F;das -&amp;gt; the
  drei -&amp;gt; three
  Donner -&amp;gt; thunder
  Ding -&amp;gt; thing
  daher -&amp;gt; therefore
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
and, most relevant to this discussion:&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  du -&amp;gt; thou
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
I&amp;#x27;m sure this connection can be better explained than I&amp;#x27;m able to, but it was a mini-epiphany for me while studying the language.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>tikwidd</author><text>This is the result of the High German Consonant Shift [1]. English - many accents, at least - retain the dental fricatives (th-sounds) that were shifted to alveolar stops (d and t sounds) in High German. Dental fricatives are relatively rare sounds among the world&amp;#x27;s languages. Icelandic and European Spanish are the only languages I can think of that have dental fricative phonemes.&lt;p&gt;[1]: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_German_consonant_shift&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;High_German_consonant_shift&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>