Wit, unker, Git: The lost medieval pronouns of English intimacy
160 points - today at 10:10 AM
Sourcered_admiral
today at 2:03 PM
English used to have dual pronouns (what the article is a about), proper accusatives and genitives (she/her/hers, who/whom and the apostrophe-s genitive are survivors), formal/informal 2nd person pronouns (you / thou) and quite a few other things that come up when you learn French or Latin.
Yes/No and Yea/Nay used to mean different things too: "Is this correct?" could be answered "Yea, it is correct" whereas "Is this not a mistake?" could be answered "Yes, it is correct" (which you can also parse by taking the 'not' literally).
"Courts martial" and "secretaries general" are examples where the original noun-first word order remains.
The formal/informal second person thing is fascinating to me as a Portuguese speaker.
European Portuguese, like many (most?) Romance languages, has the informal/formal second person split. Brazilian Portuguese has dropped the informal second person (tu) and uses only the formal second person (vocĂŞ).
Now, because “thou” is archaic, it sounds overly stiff, and most English speakers assume it was the formal second person, but it was actually the informal form. So both Brazilian Portuguese and English underwent the same process and chose the same way.
In English particularly, people associate "thou" with the King James Bible and similar Christian texts ("Our Father, thou art in Heaven…") and might reasonably assume that if "thou" was used to address the literal God, it must have been the formal pronoun – but the familial, informal one was used exactly because of the "father" association! (OTOH there certainly are languages with a tu/vous distinction where children were expected to "vous" their own parents – not sure how much of a thing it is these days).
Another fun thing is that calling someone you don't know "thou" used to be an intentional insult ("you're not worthy of being called 'you'"), something that might be missed by a modern reader of Shakespeare or other EME texts.
Also, "você" is actually not originally a proper formal second person. Grammatically, "você" is a third person singular. It comes from "Vossa Mercê" (something like "Your Mercy" or "Your Grace"), shortened to "vossemeçê", to "você". The origin, and still today a common gramatical construction in Portuguese in any formal or semi-formal register, is to use a periphrase in the third person to increase politeness. I guess in English it also exists, but only on the most fully formal contexts ("Does that right honourable gentleman agree...").
esquivalience
today at 7:58 PM
As in 'please', from 'if you please'?
madcaptenor
today at 5:45 PM
Similarly, Spanish "vuestra merced" evolved to "usted".
I thought courts martial and secretaries general (and Knights Templar/Hospitaller, et al) were Anglo-Norman/French borrowings. Do you have any examples of native English phrases following that pattern?
drewstiff
today at 8:24 PM
Hards on
brandonhorst
today at 7:32 PM
AirPods Pro :)
FarmerPotato
today at 7:46 PM
Light fantastic
doobiedowner
today at 6:52 PM
Whoppers junior
triage8004
today at 3:09 PM
This sucks because yes its a mistake or no its not a mistake both fit
adammarples
today at 3:55 PM
they don't fit, because 'yes' was not supposed to be used in the context of 'yes it is a mistake', yea was. Having two words helped stop that ambiguity.
card_zero
today at 4:29 PM
It's confusing because it was stated wrongly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes_and_no#The_Early_English_f...
Yes contradicts the negative question. So "Is this not a mistake?" should be contradicted with "yes, it is a mistake" or affirmed with "no, it is not a mistake".
It's further confusing because we have the idiom of suggesting things politely in a tentative manner such as isn't this a mistake? which has lost its sense of negativity and has come to mean "this is a mistake, I think," as opposed to being parsed literally to mean "this is not-a-mistake, I think".
FarmerPotato
today at 8:00 PM
I'm trying to parse the extra "not" in archaic holdovers vs plain modern English. It seems to carry a subtext.
Modern "Are you happy now?" is said with sarcastic tone, to spoil happiness. Would be archaically "Are you not happy?" As if to dare contradiction. It's loaded, unlike when saying sympathetically "Are you unhappy?"
Others:
"Are you not entertained?"
"Are you not the very same Smith that dwelt at Haversham?"
"Prick me, do I not bleed?"
But commonly:
"Are you not a Christian?" most likely seems direct, but said in a formal sense, "rhetorically", an exhortation to act like one.
matt-attack
today at 6:07 PM
And we’ve literally born witness to yet another step in the trend of diluting our corpus of pronouns. The trend is very clearly from more articulate to less.
“They” and “their” for my whole lifetime were plurals. Now we’ve pretty much lost the mere clarity of knowing if the pronoun means 1 person or more than 1 person. Was watching “Adolescence” and the police mentioned “they” in regards to the victim of a crime. I was mistakenly under the impression that there weee multiple victims for much of the episode.
I’m very clearly slow to adapt to the new definitions.
The article points out that Chaucer used "they" to refer to singular unknown person, so the usage is very old. It seems more respectful than assuming they are male.
I find myself wrong all the time, and I'm glad for the lesson!
card_zero
today at 6:48 PM
Leaning on Chaucer isn't sufficient, because it was once a pronoun used for people:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_(pronoun)
So maybe we should bring back it, or ignore Chaucer as an authority.
etskinner
today at 7:26 PM
"They" has always (in our lifetimes) been used to refer to a singular person of unknown gender. For example "someone left their coat here. They must be cold"
psychoslave
today at 12:12 PM
My biggest side project is about grammatical gender in French, published as a research project on wikiversity[1].
It did made me go through many topics, like dual, exclusive/inclusive group person.
Still in a corner of my head, there is the idea to introduce some more pronouns to handle more subtilty about which first person we are expressing about[2]. The ego is not the present attention, nor they are that thing intertwined with the rest of the world without which nothing exists.
[1] https://fr.wikiversity.org/wiki/Recherche:Sur_l%E2%80%99exte...
[2] The project does provide an homogenized extended set of pronouns with 6 more than the two regular ones found in any primary school book. And completing all cases for all nouns is the biggest chunk that need to be completed, though it’s already done by now for the most frequent paradigms.
eigenspace
today at 11:58 AM
I found this article quite interesting, and couldn't help but feel there's something that's emotionally lost when we got rid of the dual-forms. The example from Wulf and Eadwacer where "uncer giedd" was translated to "the song of the two of us".
Somehow that just doesn't land the same.
heresie-dabord
today at 12:28 PM
> Somehow that just doesn't land the same.
I fear that a modern colloquial rendering would disappoint yet further:
our besties tune
FarmerPotato
today at 8:09 PM
Certes, challenging to translate!
"Our secret song"
"Our shared song" is looser, though context helps.
"They're playing our song" still captures the timeless feeling. But is wrong for the poem.
If you found this interesting, you might want to check out The History of the English Language podcast.
I’m surprised how much I’m enjoying it. And I can’t believe I have 195 episodes left.
iterateoften
today at 2:54 PM
We still have in English: us-two and you-two and we-two.
Same number of syllables.
Maybe “Song of just us two”
Like it’s common to hear “You two better stay out of trouble”
Or “it was us two in the apartment alone…”
Or “them two are pretty good together ”
trinix912
today at 5:21 PM
Slovene still has the grammatical dual and we still have (and use) pronouns that could literally be translated as "we two" (midva/midve) and "you two" (vidva/vidve) and so on. I've been told it used to be the same in most other Slavic languages.
There are still some remnants of this in Serbian and Croatian, e.g. the semi-dual "nas dvoje / nas dva".
frogulis
today at 11:13 AM
Boy that unc/uncer looks tantalisingly close to modern German uns/unser. Wiktionary seems to have it descending from a different PIE root, nĚĄs vs nĚĄh -- I'm not at all familiar with PIE though.
Curiously, Old English unc is actually not related to German uns, at least, not after the Germanic language family had already formed. Old English at some point underwent a sound change[1] where the -n- sound disappeared before fricatives (sounds like s, f, v, z, sh, etc...). So "us" comes from an older common form "uns", which German inherited basically unchanged. This sound change also explains other correspondences between English and German where the n is missing, like mouth-Mund, tooth-Zahn, other-ander, goose-Gans or five-fĂĽnf.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingvaeonic_nasal_spirant_law
nĚĄ is just the "not" prefix. The "ero" is the real root. The prefix applies to the root first, and then the other pieces have their meanings, usually. (Its a reconstructed language. There are both exceptions and things we don't know.)
"nĚĄ-s-ero-" is sort of < "not" next-is-plural "mine" >.
So, plural-(invert mine). Or roughly close to "we".
"nĚĄ-h-ero-" is sort of < "not" next-is-inclusive-plural "mine" >.
So, plural-(group (invert mine)). Or roughly close to "us".
But both are pretty close to the same meaning. High German maintained a lot of PIE, and is very close in a lot of ways. Though... Welsh is closer.
I've never heard of it being based on that root before. Do you have a source?
As a born German, now more native English speaker (left at 8), I agree. But, unless I'm very wrong, uns/unser in modern German is not restricted to 2 people either - it can mean 2 or more, as in "unsere Gemeinde" (our church, referring to something shared by hundreds of people)?
eigenspace
today at 11:50 AM
That was my first thought too! So many things in old-english are very very close to modern German, so it's sometimes surprising to see these false-friends.
shermantanktop
today at 2:32 PM
Oh, you mean “Falsche Freunde”?
I have no idea how to say that idiomatically in German, but it struck me that those are both “true” friends.
pantalaimon
today at 2:21 PM
Same with Ic - Ich
Also sad is the fact that “you” is now used for “thee” and “thou” and such. The older variants could distinguish between “you” plural and “you” singular
ksherlock
today at 12:20 PM
W'all have got y'all for plural you.
madcaptenor
today at 2:17 PM
Before I moved to the South I (a non-Southerner) did not feel comfortable saying "y'all". But "you guys" seemed sexist. I have since spent a decade in the South and I have not picked up much of the dialect, but I definitely say "y'all" now.
"W'all" would be nice to have. I guess it's not a thing because it sounds too much like the things that separate rooms.
"Guys" (without a "the" in front of it) is uncontroversially gender-neutral in most contexts in at least some parts of the US. I'm not sure whether folks worried about it are from places where it's definitely not, or places where it's not used much at all so they're not aware that it's a non-issue in (at least many) places where it is.
I do prefer "y'all", though. I think it's the best one we've got, of the options ("yous" being another big one, and ew, gross)
I also love the nuance of "y'all" and "all y'all".
saltcured
today at 2:39 PM
Have you yet progressed to y'all being singular and all y'all being plural?
madcaptenor
today at 2:53 PM
No. As far as I can tell, singular "y'all", when it exists, is an implied plural. What you might hear as singular "y'all" is, say, when you go into a restaurant and say "do y'all have Coke?" to the server - that doesn't refer to just the server but to the restaurant as a whole. But I'm not a linguist and also I don't spend much time among people with heavier Southern dialect, so you shouldn't believe what I say.
saltcured
today at 5:26 PM
I've had it explained to me as a western/eastern divide among southerners. As you head through Texas, more people think you need "all y'all" for plurals.
That's something those western southerners told me. I don't know if a linguist would agree, but that seems to be the understanding of some actual language users...
All I know is that there is a second boundary somewhere through TX, NM, and AZ, because I've never met a native Californian who would say "y'all" non ironically.
pessimizer
today at 3:48 PM
No, you've got it right. A lot of people trying to be cute and make southern language seem more alien than it is are over-"correcting."
When southern people say y'all to one person, they're really addressing you and your family (even though you might be the only one there.) If I ask "how y'all doing?" I want to know how you and yours are doing.
> If I ask "how y'all doing?" I want to know how you and yours are doing.
I just want people to stop asking me how I'm doing if they don't care.
It took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out that "How's it going" is a greeting, not an interrogative, and I want that change undone forever.
saltcured
today at 6:23 PM
What's interesting is you may reply, "hey, how are you?", and lots of people may be satisfied with that. Neither party actually answers how they are, yet the handshake is complete.
I refuse out of principle, but agree, that works.
I just use "Howdy".
Which is short for "How do you do?"
Good point! I guess my principles only extend so far.
i tried to stop using y'all when i got my first job at MSFT, having grown up in the South; then 10 years later I realized it's perfect for Corporate America given it's gender neutral
kevin_thibedeau
today at 6:24 PM
I grew up saying it and consciously eradicated it around 3rd grade. I probably shouldnt've but it would seem forced to do it now.
madcaptenor
today at 5:22 PM
meanwhile, my New Jersey-born boss uses "you guys" despite herself being female and having lived in the South longer than I have
You, y'all (small close group), y'all all (larger, further group), and "all y'all" — Southeast Texas (coastal) dialect form that showed up about 25 yrs ago. I suspect it might've been there all along, but only became acceptable at that point?
Another 100+ years, and this'll be some solid grammar.
gibspaulding
today at 1:32 PM
Don’t forget you’uns or yinz!
I struggled with this when I was a school teacher. English lacks a good way to clarify you are addressing a group vs one person, which comes up a lot in a classroom. “Class, you…” is clunky, “You guys…” has obvious issues, and y’all or any other contraction is generally considered bad grammar. I generally went with y’all. Kids would laugh about it, but that seemed to help get their attention.
Surely, you knew all of your students' names and if you were addressing one person, you could've used their name. Addressing the class as merely "class" seems adequate as well. I'm having a hard time thinking of a situation where you are forced to use "you" ambiguously.
madcaptenor
today at 2:18 PM
What if you're addressing part of the class, though? Like "y'all in the back, you need to get back to your work".
"You in the back" has the same level of specificity. Other options include (again) naming names or calling out a more specific location "You in the back row".
madcaptenor
today at 2:54 PM
No, because "you in the back" could refer to just one person in the back, instead of several. So "y'all in the back" is more specific. (Of course names are an option in this context.)
(Of course names are an option in this context.)
Yes, this is a case where you aren't forced to use "you" ambiguously in that context.
No, because "you in the back" could refer to just one person in the back, instead of several.
If you meant to address one person, you'd have said that one person's name, instead of voluntarily introducing ambiguity to the situation. Context & body language also makes this obvious. If you meant one person, you'd be making eye contact with one person instead of a group of people, etc. Students also know if they're paying attention or not. "The back" is not a specific area.
“Now, chat, settle down.”
AndrewKemendo
today at 1:40 PM
That has to be more than 25 years
I grew up in Houston saying all that in the 80s
Same here, frankly. I just didn't want to make an aggressive generalization that I couldn't support. I've got video of the usage from 2001.
pessimizer
today at 3:50 PM
It's probably closer to 250 years than 25.
Forms of it persists in regional dialects, its not super common anymore but in Yorkshire I still here "dees" and "thas", "yous" also persist as another form of the plural you.
iterateoften
today at 2:38 PM
Interesting that in English we had special pronoun for plurals of exactly 2, but in Russian for instance they have special case declensions for plurals less than 5.
Is that significant? I have no idea. Is there a language with special case for exactly 2 with another case for a “few” and with yet another for “a lot”? Interesting to compare different cultures.
Whereas modern English only distinguishes grammatical number by singular/plural (and Old English had dual), some languages even have trial (three).
Russian distinguishes paucal (few) from plural (many). It’s not super common but there are some other languages that do it.
andrewshadura
today at 4:02 PM
It’s not just 5, it’s also 21 to 25, 31 to 35 etc. However, some Slavic languages (e.g. Slovak and Czech) don’t do that, and only have those special numerals for under 5.
You two add
You two commit
You two push
u2 add
u2 commit
u2 push
postepowanieadm
today at 1:18 PM
Us3
Arabic has dual subject pronouns. I wonder if the concept developed independently or if there was any influence somehow?
Arabic is on the Semitic branch of the hypothesised proto-Indo-European language, which has dual number: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_(grammatical_number)
So you'd expect to see languages from western Europe to south Asia that either have the dual concept, or have an attested ancestor that did.
another-dave
today at 2:59 PM
Within Indo-European languages, Irish has the concept of the dual. It's used with things that come in pairs like "mo dhá láimh" - my two hands.
Interestingly, to say one-handed you'd say "leath-lámh", where _leath_ means half, so half the <thing that's usually one of a pair>.
Semitic languages are Afroasiatic, not Indoeuropean.
markus_zhang
today at 11:13 AM
For anyone curious as me:
git means You two.
stoneman24
today at 11:32 AM
I wonder how it evolved into the modern British slang of “git”. To quote Wikipedia [0]
“modern British English slang, a git (/ɡɪt/) is a term of insult used to describe someone—usually a man—who is considered stupid, incompetent, annoying, unpleasant, or silly.“.
And
“ Git is a popular open-source software for version control created by Linus Torvalds. Torvalds jokingly named it "git" after the slang term, later defining it as "the stupid content tracker".”
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Git_(slang)
OneLeggedCat
today at 8:09 PM
I (an American) had only heard the slang version in Holy Grail, and didn't know the slang meaning, and finally am now seeing your comment. Now to lookup the meaning of "manky..."
Octoth0rpe
today at 11:58 AM
> Torvalds jokingly named it "git" after the slang term, later defining it as "the stupid content tracker".”
I think the better Torvalds quote was when he said "I name all my projects after myself"
talideon
today at 11:41 AM
There appears to be nothing linking Old English "git" with Modern English "git". Also, OEng "git" would've been pronounced more like "yit".
vintermann
today at 11:35 AM
"Listen baby, they're playing uncer song..."
"Git should get a room!"
rbonvall
today at 12:36 PM
Of course. It's distributed.
youtwo commit -m "Refactoring translations"
Pair programming are wit?
Another fun pronoun distinction I have seen is having two forms of "we" - one including the person you are talking to, and one excluding them.
(To clarify this was in Hokkien, not Anglo-Saxon).
postepowanieadm
today at 1:21 PM
Like "us but not you"? That's mean.
We already use this with "we", it's just not clear from the word if 'you' are included or not. Example: "We had eggs for breakfast".
shermantanktop
today at 2:35 PM
Not when you’re delivering an insult to everyone present.
Yeah it iw called the exclusive form lol.
But if you think about it seems normal... "we went to the city" is not really mean.