# Tu Formal/Informal



## Darkicity

Salve, I have a question about how to address someone formally. Is it really just "tu" for both informal and formal situations?


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## Cagey

Please give us an example of what you would say and tell us whom you want to address.  
Latin is sparing in its use of the personal pronoun, and how direct address would be handled depends on the context.


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## Darkicity

You are my teacher. Tu magistra meus es. If I'm not mistake  that is how you write BUT normally when speaking to a teacher it is a formal affair, no?


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## Pugnator

Well, it depend by time. On late latin was introduced the 2. plural (Vos) as allocative. A legend that is false say that it was introduced by Caesar but it was introduced later. This exist on almost all indo-european language(Also on English once there was 2 different form, Thou for singular and You for plural, but later the second form absorbed the first except on some christian religion that continue to use both).


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## Scholiast

salvete omnes!

Please permit me to clarify a couple of details. Because of the strictly inflected Latin verb-forms, use of the pronouns is, as Cagey remarked in his response (# 2), "sparing" (Latin does not like redundancy), except for special emphasis. _tu magistra mea es_ says, in effect, "_*You*_ [and no-one else] are my teacher".

Further, I can confirm Pugnator's point, if I have correctly understood what he is trying to say (in # 4), that classical Latin did not normally distinguish a "polite" 2nd person plural from the singular, as do modern French, Italian and German.

This was a development only in quite late antiquity, alien to Cicero or Caesar.

I hope this is helpful.

Σ


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## Darkicity

Scholiast said:


> salvete omnes!
> 
> Please permit me to clarify a couple of details. Because of the strictly inflected Latin verb-forms, use of the pronouns is, as Cagey remarked in his response (# 2), "sparing" (Latin does not like redundancy), except for special emphasis. _tu magistra mea es_ says, in effect, "_*You*_ [and no-one else] are my teacher".
> 
> Further, I can confirm Pugnator's point, if I have correctly understood what he is trying to say (in # 4), that classical Latin did not normally distinguish a "polite" 2nd person plural from the singular, as do modern French, Italian and German.
> 
> This was a development only in quite late antiquity, alien to Cicero or Caesar.
> 
> I hope this is helpful.
> 
> Σ


Ah! Yes it did. Thank you very much. So the formal was introduced later, ok. Gratias!


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## Darkicity

*magister


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## Pugnator

Darkicity said:


> *magister


Magister is male (Maestro) while Magistra is female (Maestra) so if you meant a female teacher magistra was correct while if you meant a male teacher magister is right.


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## Darkicity

I meant the male version since I used "meus" instead of "mea"


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## Ben Jamin

I think that deference was shown by using titles of respect in vocative (domine, magister) in a sentence.


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## fdb

Scholiast said:


> Latin did not normally distinguish a "polite" 2nd person plural from the singular, as do modern French, Italian and German.
> 
> 
> Σ



To be absolutely precise: French has a politeness form with the 2nd person plural (vous), Italian with the 3rd person singular (Lei), German with the 3rd person plural (Sie).


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## Pugnator

fdb said:


> To be absolutely precise: French has a politeness form with the 2nd person plural (vous), Italian with the 3rd person singular (Lei), German with the 3rd person plural (Sie).


Just  a sidenote, Neapolitan and Sicilian have a second person plural, Italian has both a 2nd person plural and a third female singular(lei) but on the North the 2nd plural is almost totally disappeared.  Exist  also a third plural in Italian but it is very archaic and now only used only with ironic meaning.


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## Darkicity

fdb said:


> To be absolutely precise: French has a politeness form with the 2nd person plural (vous), Italian with the 3rd person singular (Lei), German with the 3rd person plural (Sie).


I was actually referring to the Southern & antiquated way of being polite in Italy. But I was wrong about German, thank you for correcting me on that.


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