# Thou / thee / hath



## Nerialka

I look for outdated, outmoded forms of speach, like for instance, the use of "thou" and "thee" (is there a difference between the two?), "hath" instead of "has" (not sure if this is correct hehe)...

And also for medieval/old english "swearwords" equivalents of the french diantre, sacrebleu, morbleu, maraud, pendard, fichtre, etc...

The more the better ^.^, the goal beeing to add to the mood of a storytelling in a medieval fantastic setting.


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## beri

to behold : to look (is that old-fashioned?)


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## Nerialka

Mmm no idea 

And what about maraud, pendard, ect.?


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## Rhianydd

Also, thine = your/s
behold is more to see or to look _at_
ie. thine eyes are the most beautiful I did ever behold


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## Tremblay

Salut Nerialka, 

You asked about the difference between “thou” and “thee.”  Actually it’s quite simple.  “Thou” is the subject pronoun (equivalent to French “Tu”).  “Thee” is the object pronoun (equivalent to French “Te” or “Toi”).  Still today at some weddings you will here, “… with this ring, I thee wed.”  (Notice the object-verb order is the same as in French in this instance also.)  It’s nice; it sounds poetic.

There’s also “Ye,” which would equate to the French “Vous” in the plural.
Loosing “Ye” in English was really a tragic loss because now we are forced to say two words like “You All” or “Y’all” (Texas talk) or “You guys” or even “Yinz” (Pittsburgh talk) to convey a “you” in the plural.

Sorry…. can’t help you with any old “jurons.”


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## Virginie

I take thee, Robbie Williams, as my lawful wedded husband
  

Or in the bible:
Thou shalt not kill


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## Brioche

Tremblay said:
			
		

> Salut Nerialka,
> 
> You asked about the difference between “thou” and “thee.” Actually it’s quite simple. “Thou” is the subject pronoun (equivalent to French “Tu”). “Thee” is the object pronoun (equivalent to French “Te” or “Toi”). Still today at some weddings you will here, “… with this ring, I thee wed.” (Notice the object-verb order is the same as in French in this instance also.) It’s nice; it sounds poetic.
> 
> There’s also “Ye,” which would equate to the French “Vous” in the plural.
> Loosing “Ye” in English was really a tragic loss because now we are forced to say two words like “You All” or “Y’all” (Texas talk) or “You guys” or even “Yinz” (Pittsburgh talk) to convey a “you” in the plural.
> 
> Sorry…. can’t help you with any old “jurons.”


 

The difference between *ye* and *you *is the same as between *thou* and *thee*
*Ye *is subject, *you* is object.
This distinction is carefully maintained in the King James Bible.
However, the KJV translation was archaic when it was published in 1611.
If you read your Shakespeare, you'll see that the Bard muddles up ye/you.

*Mine* and *thine* are the original forms, and were shortened to *my* and *thy* except before vowels.  Thus "mine eyes".
Eventually, my and thy were used everywhere.

Something similar happened with *an*, which has remained *an* before vowels, but become *a* everywhere else.


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## Jean-Michel Carrère

Nerialka said:
			
		

> And what about maraud, pendard, etc.?


 
scoundrel, rascal, knave ...


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## Isotta

You may enjoy this mix and match Shakespearean insult kit:
http://www.pangloss.com/seidel/shake_rule.html

Isotta.


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## Starcreator

Isotta said:
			
		

> You may enjoy this mix and match Shakespearean insult kit:
> http://www.pangloss.com/seidel/shake_rule.html
> 
> Isotta.


 
I love that site! Excellent antiquated insults there...


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## Jad

Tremblay said:
			
		

> Loosing “Ye” in English was really a tragic loss because now we are forced to say two words like “You All” or “Y’all” (Texas talk) or “You guys” or even “Yinz” (Pittsburgh talk) to convey a “you” in the plural.


 
In the north of England/ireland, they say *yous/yas* for the plural

_Can I help yous?_


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## Kelly B

They say youse (c'mere, youse guys!) in Brooklyn, too (a borough of New York City.)


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## john_riemann_soong

Heh, but hard to find it in creoles.

I would clarify that "thou", etc. isn't Old English - it's used in early modern English, although at the time it was already very insulting (as in the French tu). In fact, I daresay it's because of the influence of the French over English at the time, that "thou" eventually was replaced with "you" for most purposes, unless you're speaking Yorkshire, because it's French that introduced the idea of T-V distinction to English.

But yes, "thou" existed in Old English and didn't change much - I suspect that's just the nature of pronouns, although "you" was "ge".


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## Robinou

Concerning Old English, thou was spelt þú (the accute accent stands for long vowel, though it would be better to write it with a macron) and ye was spelt ge.

As for the insulting thou, yes it was true at a certain time, not too early (when it was simply a 2nd person singular) and not really now anymore (since it's archaic, it seems more polite, even though it was the contrary)

Note that thou comes with a particular verb form in -(s)t : thou hast, thou shalt, thou lovest.

And 3rd person singular used to come with a special verb form as well, in th : hath, doth, loveth.

Hope it helps 

EDIT : oh God, I've just noticed that I had answered to an old topic... :s


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## Cadet Rousselle

Brioche said:


> Something similar happened with *an*, which has remained *an* before vowels, but become *a* everywhere else.


 
Speaking of the KJV, I notice *an* is used before the word *husband* which I found quite different from today's usage.

I suppose then in 1611 husband was pronounced with a silent , hence the *an* in lieu of *a*?


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## debutant

Cadet Rousselle said:


> Speaking of the KJV, I notice *an* is used before the word *husband* which I found quite different from today's usage.
> 
> I suppose then in 1611 husband was pronounced with a silent , hence the *an* in lieu of *a*?




Actually I believe it is correct even today (although no-one does it) to say "an husband", "an hotel", etc, i.e. treating "h" as a "sort of" vowel even though the "h" is vocalised.  I've always assumed it came from French but I don't know for sure.

So, I don't see any necessity for the "h" to be silent just because it had an "an" in front of it.


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## Louf

Isotta said:


> You may enjoy this mix and match Shakespearean insult kit:
> http://www.pangloss.com/seidel/shake_rule.html
> 
> Isotta.



I usually call my boss "varmint". 

canker-blossom? Yikes!


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## Cadet Rousselle

debutant said:


> So, I don't see any necessity for the "h" to be silent just because it had an "an" in front of it.


 
In English, the choice to use "a" or "an" is dependant on whether what follows is a consonnant or vowel/silent consonnant.

Note the following:

a banana / a*n* apple

a piece of toast / a*n* egg

a fool / a*n* idiot.

a closed door / a*n* open door

a referee / a*n* umpire

a horse / a*n* honour (voiced  vs voiceless )

There are the following exceptions that I know of, but I'm sure there are others also:

a universal gathering

a universe

a unicycle

Theoretically, it should use a*n* because it precedes a vowel, but for some reason it doesn't.

And it's not because un- is a special exception either, note the following:

a*n* unadulterated experience.

a*n* unforgettable face.

a*n* unco.

- Cadet


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## alisonp

debutant said:


> Actually I believe it is correct even today (although no-one does it) to say "an husband", "an hotel", etc, i.e. treating "h" as a "sort of" vowel even though the "h" is vocalised.


I *don't* believe it's correct, and never use it myself.  I think some people do use it, believing it to be 'posher' than 'a', but I think the dictionaries mark it as wrong, although used.


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## Louf

Cadet Rousselle said:


> In English, the choice to use "a" or "an" is dependant on whether what follows is a consonnant or vowel/silent consonnant.
> 
> <snip...>
> 
> There are the following exceptions that I know of, but I'm sure there are others also:
> 
> a universal gathering
> 
> a universe
> 
> a unicycle
> 
> Theoretically, it should use a*n* because it precedes a vowel, but for some reason it doesn't.
> 
> And it's not because un- is a special exception either, note the following:
> 
> a*n* unadulterated experience.
> 
> a*n* unforgettable face.
> 
> a*n* unco.
> 
> - Cadet



I think the difference is in the sound the letter "u" makes: 

In the first set (Universal, etc.), the sound is e-u and is preceded by a slight vocal pause (not quite a glottal pop but almost), which makes it behave as a mild consonant.

In the second set (unadulterated, etc.), the sound is that of the "shwaw" vowel, and it follows the "vowel rule".

Having said this, we hear more and more people these days putting very hard glottal pops where they don't belong, like before words that start with vowels, or even in the middle of words, before just about any vowel. One hears this especially in "gangster speech", and it appears to be used for emphasis. Well, lo. and behold! they systematically keep the "n" of "an" (or use the emphatic "thee" sound-form of the article "the" to similar effect) when they do this! Go figure.


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## jacob001

Just in reply to the earlier 'stuff' about 'ye':
According to the BBC History magazine, 'ye' actually meant 'the' and was pronounced just as we do 'the' today...
Also, (from about.com) 'thou' is the equivalent of 'vous'.

Verbs were used differently; basically, if it has 'upperclass' connotations these days, it cab be used (e.g. hello=I greet thee, from 'Ic grete þe.')

But, of course, back then high society spoke French! And where I live we spoke a variant of Cornish...

And, to confuse matters furthur, everything was pronounced differently: 
e.g:
I = _uh-ee_
'ed' = 'ai' e.g. 'head' = 'haid'
'er' = 'air' (like name for French 'r') e.g. 'mercy' = 'maircee'
'ei' = 'ay' e.g. 'neither' = 'nayther'
Sounds like a combination Devon and Scottish accent doesn't it?

EDIT: Whoops - didn't realise quite how old this post was! Sorry!


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## john_riemann_soong

It's "a university", because the u is initiated with the semivowel-approximant /j/. As an example, Chinese pinyin (yu, yi, etc.) actually represents this phenomenon, except that the initiation is less audible than in English.

In French the initiation doesn't take place at all, hence "l'euphonie".


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## Cadet Rousselle

Interesting indeed.

What about this phrase from Bunyan's: A Pilgrim's Progress:

"such a one as I am" 

Why wasn't a*n* used here?

-Cadet


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## charlie2

Cadet Rousselle said:


> Interesting indeed.
> 
> What about this phrase from Bunyan's: A Pilgrim's Progress:
> 
> "such a one as I am"
> 
> Why wasn't a*n* used here?
> 
> -Cadet


Because the rule is we don't look at whether the first letter is a _vowel_ or not, we look at the sound produced by the first letter. Here the sound is "w" which is not a "_vowel sound_".
Another classic example is _an_ honest man.


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## Louf

Here the sound is "w" which is not a "_vowel sound_".

I think it must be more complicated than this because the sound "w" _is_ a vowel sound...


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## Aupick

Louf said:


> I think it must be more complicated than this because the sound "w" _is_ a vowel sound...


Quote from Peter Roach, _English Phonetics and Phonology_:


> The most important thing to remember about [/w/ and /j/] is that they are phoneticaly like vowels but phonologically like consonants (in earlier works on phonology they were known as "semivowels"*). [...] In the same way *w* is closely similar to *u:*. [...] But despite this vowel-like character, we use them like consonants. For example, they only occur before vowel phonemes; this is a typically consonantal distribution.


* Roach discusses them in a chapter on "Nasals and other consonants".


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## charlie2

Thank you Aupick. (Nice to see you again.) 
Indeed it is more complicated than that.


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## Cadet Rousselle

charlie2 said:


> Because the rule is we don't look at whether the first letter is a _vowel_ or not, we look at the sound produced by the first letter. Here the sound is "w" which is not a "_vowel sound_".
> Another classic example is _an_ honest man.


 
I can't see how "an honest man" is a good example because the  in honest is voiceless, so it's as if you're saying "onest".

Example: * an horse

Why not an horse? Because horse retains the , it is voiced.

As for semi-vowels, I think there's something to that.

Both the "uni-" example and "a one" both uses semi-vowel approximants (y & w).

In short, to simplify this "rule" would it be correct to say in English that "an" is used before a word beginning with a proper vowel (exl. semi-vowels), "a" is used elsewhere?

-Cadet


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## Catani

Kelly B said:


> They say youse (c'mere, youse guys!) in Brooklyn, too (a borough of New York City.)


 
Also, sometimes, in Australia, too.

A bit beside the point, but in keeping with archaisms along the french lines, is "*bezmecu"* to describe a French person in general. it derives from "baise mon cul", somehow implying that the French were considered by those of the middle English era to be fawning or obsequious.


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## imperial scribe

Old English sounds strange to us because it is much more germanic. English stems from the German language and 1000 years ago english speakers had much more primal grammer system. For instance the verb "haben" in german means to have and in the "you form" it changes to "hast". So "Du hast" and "Thou hath" are pretty much in the same ballpark. Another factor is that old English follows German sentence structure. A simple modern sentence like "Do you run after dark?", in old English may sound like. "Does thou runst past daylight?"


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## mplsray

jacob001 said:


> Just in reply to the earlier 'stuff' about 'ye':
> According to the BBC History magazine, 'ye' actually meant 'the' and was pronounced just as we do 'the' today...


 
This is true, although it should be pointed out that in such deliberate archaisms as Ye Olde Antique Shoppe, the article is prononced [ji] ("yee," like the pronoun _ye_).



> Also, (from about.com) 'thou' is the equivalent of 'vous'.


 
Someone erred here. The pronoun _thou_ is equivalent to the French _tu,_ not _vous._


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## alisonp

imperial scribe said:


> A simple modern sentence like "Do you run after dark?", in old English may sound like. "Does thou runst past daylight?"


'Doest thou run', surely?  Inflecting both verb components seems like overkill to me


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## lucasf

is there an equivalent in old french to these old english words?  thou thee  or do we use "te" and "toi"


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## john_riemann_soong

Of course -- thou and tu are cognates of Proto-Indo-European.


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## Jad

jacob001 said:


> Just in reply to the earlier 'stuff' about 'ye':
> According to the BBC History magazine, 'ye' actually meant 'the' and was pronounced just as we do 'the' today...


 
This is because this kind of 'ye' was a simpler way of writing 'þe', which of course was pronounced 'the'. The letter thorn (þ) went out of fashion and this was reinforced by the fact that it didn't feature on keyboards after the invention of printing.


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## funnyhat

imperial scribe said:


> Old English sounds strange to us because it is much more germanic. English stems from the German language and 1000 years ago english speakers had much more primal grammer system. For instance the verb "haben" in german means to have and in the "you form" it changes to "hast". So "Du hast" and "Thou hath" are pretty much in the same ballpark. Another factor is that old English follows German sentence structure. A simple modern sentence like "Do you run after dark?", in old English may sound like. "Does thou runst past daylight?"


 
The examples you are giving are not actually from Old English (also known as Anglo-Saxon), but from Early Modern English.  Old English ceased to be spoken about 900 years ago, and is completely incomprehensible to anglophones today.


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## jmt_dh1

Jad said:


> This is because this kind of 'ye' was a simpler way of writing 'þe', which of course was pronounced 'the'. The letter thorn (þ) went out of fashion and this was reinforced by the fact that it didn't feature on keyboards after the invention of printing.



As a side-note, though, it's still alive and well in Icelandic, and crops up in the Shetlands too.


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