This video is all about you. And thou. And thy.
And thee. And ye. By the end of it you'll know how all of those were used and even where you can
still use them. I welcome thee. So let's start off with thou, which you might have come across
in certain niche literature like the works of Shakespeare or the King James Bible. Well you
may be surprised to learn that thou is not just a fancy old-fashioned way of saying 'you'. It's more
interesting than that. So you know how lots of other languages have two or maybe more ways of
saying 'you', but included is a formal version and an informal version? Well English used to have
that too. In Early Modern English thou was used as the informal version. You would use it to people
on the same social level as you: your friends, your family and also for people who you kind
of look down on. Whereas 'you' was the formal version which you would use towards people who
you were at least supposed to show respect towards or you genuinely respected. It would be a bit like
today saying: "Mate, thou spendest far too much time on YouTube." Or: "Your Majesty, you really
shouldn't let the corgies do that on the carpet." 'Thou' for informal, 'you' for formal. Simple.
Except when you have to bring in 'thee'. So thou was used when the other person was the
subject of the sentence - so the person that was doing the thing. When they were the object of
the sentence - the person that the thing was being done to - you used 'thee' instead. Shakespeare
demonstrates this difference beautifully in one of his most famous sonnets, Sonnet 18. "Shall
I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate..." Object, subject.
And while we've got that up, we should talk about why there's this 'art' there. This is all
a question of conjugation. So when we use a verb, we change it depending on whether we're talking
about you doing it, me doing it, I doing it, he doing it, she doing it. And that was also
the case for thou. So let's get up a good old-fashioned conjugation table, the sort of thing
that sends a shiver down the spine of anyone who's tried to learn a language, and we'll conjugate
'to be'. So we say I am, he/she is, you are and thou art. Now actually, that's an unusual case
because there's a formula for what you do when you have 'thou' and you want to use it in the present
tense. What you normally do is you add 'st' or 'est' to the end of the verb. For
example, 'thou wouldst' or 'thou walkest'. That's far more common. There are a few other
notable exceptions, including 'thou shalt'. Thou shalt learn thy conjugation tables! Thy
and thine were the possessive forms of thou. Now we just need to go back to 'you'. So, I
told you that it was the formal version of 'you'. Well it was also the plural version of
'you'. So you would never use thou when referring to multiple people at once. You would always use
'you'. Well that sounds confusing... And just to add a little bit of extra confusion into the mix:
the 'you' was the object form. The subject form was 'ye'. So for example, when a visibly irritated
Jesus refers to his doubting disciples as "oh ye of little faith". Also, the difference between
ye and you is apparent in this other quote from the King James Bible. Subject, object. And it's at
this point that I want to talk to you about God... because he raises a confusing exception. You'll
have noticed that in many versions of the Bible, God gets referred to as 'thou', which makes no
sense, does it? I mean, thou is the informal and you can hardly get more high and mighty than
The Almighty. But there is a reason for it. Well the story goes that William Tyndale who
did the first Early Modern English translation of the Bible didn't like the fact that 'you' could
mean multiple people. He wanted to make it quite clear that there was only one god, so he went for
the unambiguously singular 'thou' instead. As I speak to you now, all of these different forms
have disappeared to just leave behind 'you'. And I for one am thankful for it. I mean,
using the wrong version of tu or vous in French can lead to all kinds of faux pas and
at least we don't have to have that awkward conversation they have in German about whether
or not it's time to switch to du. Viva la you. But as with almost everything in English, there
are exceptions. There are places where thou and thee are still used. First up, there are English
dialects where thou and thee are still used. For example, in parts of Yorkshire they still use them
both, although thou has become more of a 'tha' sound than a thou. There's a Yorkshire saying:
"If tha ever does owt for nowt, do it fer thi sen" - I hope no one from Yorkshire sees this
- meaning if you ever do anything for nothing, do it for yourself. You can also find similar
usages in other English dialects. The other place where you'll find thee and thou sometimes is with
Quakers. That particular branch of christianity has its own distinct way of speaking called
Quaker Plain Speech, which still uses thee and thou. It's the reason for this slogan for
quaker oats: "Nothing is better for thee than me." Now the quakers' use of thee and thou wasn't
typical even for the time when they first started speaking it, because they used thee and thou when
referring to any single individual regardless of rank. They were extremely egalitarian. Another
thing that's different to in Shakespeare's day is that they don't use the conjugation with the
'st' at the end of it. They actually conjugate verbs for thou the same as they conjugate
them for he and she. Also, for modern quakers, usage varies but quaker plain speech
sets it out like that. And that's it! I thank thee for watching and will
always read thy comments below the video. Now thou shalt like and subscribe - please
- and follow me on Twitter and TikTok. Goodbye.
