# Same form for a formal and an informal "you"



## MarX

Hello!

Are there any other languages beside English that have only a single word for "you"?

The closest example I've found so far is Swedish, where as far as I know "du" is used universally.

Thank you!


MarX


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## Lingvisten

Swedish has both "du" (informal), and "Ni" (formal). No language I know, besides English, has only one word.


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## MarX

Ähmm, I don't know who changed the title, but what I meant was a language where no various forms of pronouns exist for "you", they may differ according to number (singular or plural), but without such opposition such as German du & Sie, Spanish tú & usted, Dutch jij & U, etc.

In English you say "you" to everybody. And it happens that you also do it to more than one person.

I hope you get my message conveyed.


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## Outsider

If I understand you well, you wish to know which languages lack a distinction between a formal and an informal "you".

Irish is another language where this happens.


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## sam1978

In Italian we have the: "Tu" (informal) and "Lei" (formal).


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## cute angel

Hello ;

    For Arabic it's *انت /انتم* * Anta* for singular and *Antom* for plural also in French we have *tu* for sungular and *vous* for plural.


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## Hakro

Also English has two words: _thou_ and _you_, although the singular/informal word _thou_ is not used anymore except when talking to God.


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## Lemminkäinen

Norwegian has, strictly speaking, formal "you" pronouns, but they are outdated (fell out of use two-three decades ago). In other words, we use the same (informal) pronoun to each other: _du_.

However, the plural "you" is different, of course: _dere_.


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## elroy

Arabic, like English, has no formality distinction, even though there are five different forms of "you" (masculine singular, feminine singular, dual, masculine plural, and feminine plural).  As Arabic and English are the two languages I grew up with, using different forms of "you" depending on formality is still not entirely intuitive to me, even though I've learned several languages that have such a distinction.


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## Kannan91

cute angel said:


> Hello ;
> 
> For Arabic it's *انت /انتم* *Anta* for singular and *Antom* for plural also in French we have *tu* for sungular and *vous* for plural.


But French also makes a distinction for formality there - vous is used as a formal/respectful singular pronoun as well, so it does not fit the criterion for this thread.


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## MingRaymond

Mandarin:
你(ni3) and 您(nin2)

Cantonese:
你(nei3)
In Cantonese, we only use 你 in spoken language. Depends on the context, sometimes it can be a polite form. Also, due to the influence of Mandarin, 您 also exist, sometimes people write 您 when they write Cantonese(normally only informally on IM and blogs). The interesting thing is that 你 and 您 have the same pronunciation in Cantonese, so when spoken, they are the same. The conclusion is that Cantonese has only one 'you' when spoken.

MR


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## sokol

MarX said:


> In English you say "you" to everybody. And it happens that you also do it to more than one person.



But even though there's only 'you' in English you can nevertheless be on 'first name' terms or not, with anyone.

In my experience, though, with business contacts on the 'same level' (hierarchically) usually (at least with the British) you are at first-name-terms right from the beginning.

As for Norvegian and Swedish: is there still a first-name-terms difference even though nowadays only informal 'you' is used?

In Austria there were (and to a degree, in certain regions, still are) *three *different forms of formality: the informal 'you' = 'du' (2nd singular), the formal 'you' = 'sie' (3rd plural), and then something 'in between' = 'ihr' (2nd plural), the latter still used especially in rural regions but sometimes even in cities.

And last but not least there seems to be a very young trend here in Vienna especially (and sometimes used by the media when interviewing VIP's): the use of formal 'sie' but first-name-terms!
Most noticeably for example in a very popular show where it would always be: 'Andrea, Sie haben ...' = 'Andrea _(first name), _you _(formal 'you')_ have ...' This seems to be modeled on English.

So in Austria nowadays there coexist four levels of formality.


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## MarX

Thank you, guys!

So, so far, the languages where one form is used for "you" are:

English
Irish
Arabic
Cantonese
Swedish*
Norwegian*

In Spain, "usted" is also rarely used.
When I was there, I noticed that everybody tú'ed each other, even the professor and students at the uni.


*Theoretically there are formal forms in these languages, but they (almost) got out of use.


Further input is welcome! 


Grüsse,


MarK


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## Hakro

MarX said:


> *Theoretically there are formal forms in these languages, but they (almost) got out of use.


As I said in post #7, English is one of those "*Theoretically" languages.

And in Finland's Swedish the formal form is at least commonly accepted if not so commonly used anymore.


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## sokol

MarX said:


> In Spain, "usted" is also rarely used.
> When I was there, I noticed that everybody tú'ed each other, even the professor and students at the uni.



I don't think it would be correct to list Spanish here.

Although in Spain _tutear _seems to be much more common than in Latin America, it is not at all common to _tutear _all the time.


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## Orreaga

In *Basque* there is one form that is 2nd person neutral/polite, "*zu*" (sing.), "*zuek*" (pl.), although there is a different "very familiar/intimate" form only in the singular, "*hi*", which does not take 2nd person verb forms, but a modified 1st person form. At least that's what my textbook says... I'd appreciate confirmation from a native speaker.

In *Navajo* there is only one form, "*ni*" (sing.), "*nihí*" (pl.).


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## MarX

Hakro said:


> As I said in post #7, English is one of those "*Theoretically" languages.


In the case of English, the informal form is the one that fell out of use.
But I got what you mean.


Orreaga said:


> In *Navajo* there is only one form, "*ni*" (sing.), "*nihí*" (pl.).


*Navajo* added to the list!


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## Mjolnir

*Hebrew* has no formality distinction, and there are four different forms of "you" - masculine singular, feminine singular, masculine plural, and feminine plural.


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## Joannes

The story about Dutch:

The Old Dutch 2SG personal pronoun was *thu* (like English *thou*) which became *du* in Middle Dutch. As in many languages, the 2PL pronoun *ghi* got to be used as a formal address for the singular. *Du* got lost which made *ghi* the pronoun for the second person without marking singular/plural or formal/informal. (An atonic form of *du* was retained as an enclitic to verbs though, as in *hebde* 'have you' or *slaapte* 'sleep you'.) Later, the singular-plural distinction was made clear again by constructions like *gij allen* 'you all' and *gij lieden* 'you guys', the last of which resulted in *jullie*, which is the current 2PL form. (Compare the forms *y'all* and *youguys* as they are used in the States, and *vosotros* in Spanish, where at the time of *vosotros*'s evolvement, *vos* was used in the same way as *ghi* / English *you*.) *Gij* got replaced by *jij*, and later the form *u* evolved as a formal second person pronoun, out of *uwe edelheid* 'your nobility', in which *uwe* is the possessive form of *gij* (compare Spanish again where *usted* came from *vuestra merced*.)

There are however still some dialects that use *du*, like in Limburg. And in most of Belgium, *gij* is still the usual form for the second person singular, *jij* actually being considered quite formal and distant, as it is Standard Dutch.


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## modus.irrealis

Joannes said:


> Compare the forms *y'all* and *youguys* as they are used in the States


That's a good point and in fact, now that I think of it, I do have an informal vs. formal distinction in my spoken English but only in the plural forms where _you guys_ is definitely informal -- I couldn't imagine for example giving a presentation and addressing the audience as anything other than _you_, but if it's a group of friends, it will automatically be _you guys_.


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## MarX

Thank you very much for your info upon Dutch, Ioannes!! I never knew the history of Dutch you's.

Apparently it's usual that the second person plural pronoun became used as singular.
*You* is an example. Then there is *vos*, and *gij*, and in Indonesian the word *kamu* was originally plural. I never knew this until I looked closer in the Bible, where *kamu* is always used in a plural context, whereas *(eng)kau* is the singular form.

Indonesian is far from having only one form of "you". In the singular there are at least three ways of saying "you".


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## Orreaga

sokol said:


> there's even a thread here in this forum about why Argentinos_ se tutean en los foros_ - and if you read in the Spanish sections of this forum you will quickly learn that vos(ostros) (the LA form of usted and formal form of 'you') is widely used here.



Unless I've misundertood you, you seem to be saying _vos _is the formal form of _you _in Argentina, which is not the case. _Vos _in Argentina (and certain other places in Latin America) is the familiar form, used instead of _tú_, and the discussion about why Argentines _se tutean en los foros_ is about why they use the _tú _form instead of _vos_ in the forum. In places where voseo is the norm, _usted _is still used for formal speech (and _ustedes _for both formal and familiar plural, not _vosotros_).

In any case, Wikipedia has an article called _T-V distinction_ which could be of use.  It appears that this has been a widespread distinction in European languages for several centuries, stemming from issues of royalty, nobility and class distinctions, but not much is said about other language groups, even though the article makes use of annoying generalizations like "most languages...".  I don't believe they're including African languages or indigenous languages of the Americas when they talk about "most languages".


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## Outsider

Orreaga said:


> It appears that this has been a widespread distinction in European languages for several centuries, stemming from issues of royalty, nobility and class distinctions, but not much is said about other language groups [...] I don't believe they're including African languages or indigenous languages of the Americas when they talk about "most languages".


They mention also:

Amharic
Bengali
Chinese
Filipino
Indonesian
Japanese
Kannada
Kazakh
!Kung-ekoka (an African language)
Kurdish
Kyrgyz
Malay
Nepali
Oriya
Somali (another African language)
Tagalog
Tajik
Tamil
Telugu
Turkish
Ubykh
Urdu
Uyghur

T-V distinction article.


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## sokol

Orreaga said:


> Unless I've misundertood you, you seem to be saying _vos _is the formal form of _you _in Argentina, which is not the case. _Vos _in Argentina (and certain other places in Latin America) is the familiar form (...)


I'm sorry - I only browsed the thread about Argentines' usage of 'vos': and no, I didn't know that this is an informal form. Thank you for clarification and for correcting my mistake. I'll correct my post at once!


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## Orreaga

Outsider said:


> They mention also:
> 
> Amharic Bengali Chinese Filipino Indonesian Japanese Kannada Kazakh !Kung-ekoka (an African language) Kurdish Kyrgyz Malay Nepali  Oriya Somali (another African language) Tagalog Tajik Tamil Telugu Turkish Ubykh Urdu Uyghur
> 
> T-V distinction article.


In the list given, yes, there are several non-European languages mentioned (2 African languages out of 2000, no Native American languages), but in the article above the list there is the problematic phrase: "most languages use formal speech more frequently, and/or in different  circumstances than English." I think you have to be careful when saying anything about "most languages" unless you've done a survey of the 600+ indigenous languages of the Americas, approximately 2000 languages of Africa, not to mention the 800 or so languages of Papua New Guinea alone and languages spoken in other parts of the globe.


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## Outsider

I think that they're referring to the languages that have a T-V distinction. But you have a point that it can be misread.


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## Anatoli

MingRaymond said:


> Mandarin:
> 你(ni3) and 您(nin2)
> 
> Cantonese:
> 你(nei3)
> In Cantonese, we only use 你 in spoken language. Depends on the context, sometimes it can be a polite form. Also, due to the influence of Mandarin, 您 also exist, sometimes people write 您 when they write Cantonese(normally only informally on IM and blogs). The interesting thing is that 你 and 您 have the same pronunciation in Cantonese, so when spoken, they are the same. The conclusion is that Cantonese has only one 'you' when spoken.
> 
> MR


It's worth mentioning that even in formal *Chinese Mandarin* the polite form 您 [nín] is not so often used, 你 [nǐ] is used much more often, without being rude, also 您 doesn't have a plural form.

*Russian*, like French, German, etc has ты/вы (ty/vy)  (IPA:[tɨ], [vɨ]), which are very common, the latter one is also the plural form of "you". Other Slavic languages have a similar feature.

*Polish*, unlike other Slavic languages has "ty" and words Pan (m), Pani (f), Panna (seldom for "Miss"), Państwo (plural) - these words may differ in the _vocative_ case. The words derive from nouns and are used in 3rd person. "wy" is a plural form and is seldom used as the Russian "вы" in modern Polish.

*Japanese* usage of personal pronouns is restricted, names are preferred instead but there are a number of pronouns, which may be used. The most neutral, common and polite enough is 貴方 / あなた [anata], which can be used to address a single person you don't know. Besides, pronouns are too often omitted, if the context is known. Most Japanese pronouns are derived from some nouns and may have other meanings and usages. I would add Japanese to French/German group or make a separate one.


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## fer7

Hello! I can't see Spanish so sorry if it's repeated. 
In Spain, we use "tú" (informal) and "usted" (formal).

I saw something about the word "tutear": it's the way of calling each other "tú".

Hope it helped and sorry for my English mistakes. I'm only a learner!


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## Nanon

Surprisingly Brazilian Portuguese (at least some variants) has not been mentioned yet if I am not wrong. This is one of the ever-lasting topics of the Portuguese forum. Here is one of the related threads (I selected one with several posts in English).


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## Outsider

Nanon said:


> Surprisingly Brazilian Portuguese (at least some variants) has not been mentioned yet if I am not wrong. This is one of the ever-lasting topics of the Portuguese forum.


That's because in Brazilian Portuguese there are separate words for formal and informal "you":

informal sg.: você
formal sg.: o senhor / a senhora


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## Miguel Antonio

Outsider said:


> That's because in Brazilian Portuguese there are separate words for formal and informal "you":
> 
> informal sg.: você
> formal sg.: o senhor / a senhora


What I am going to say is the exact opposite of the question asked. I have yet to grasp the true nuances underlying the multi-tiered forms of addressing someone in Portugal:
_Tu _very, very informal (not even between parents and their children and viceversa, as in some cases I have often witnessed)
_Você _loosely informal
_O António, a Maria_ ???
_O senhor/a senhora _vaguely formal
_O senhor António, a dona Maria _a little more formal, perhaps?
_O senhor engenheiro/ a senhora doutora _to underpin social class distinction, I wonder?

Help me, Outsider!
O


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## Outsider

See if this thread helps.


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## Topsie

sokol said:


> But even though there's only 'you' in English you can nevertheless be on 'first name' terms or not, with anyone.
> ....
> Most noticeably for example in a very popular show where it would always be: 'Andrea, Sie haben ...' = 'Andrea _(first name), _you _(formal 'you')_ have ...' This seems to be modeled on English.
> 
> So in Austria nowadays there coexist four levels of formality.



In French too, you can call people by their first names and still say "vous" - it is less formal than giving them "Madame" or "Monsieur", but more formal than saying "tu". (I've often come across it in business environments)


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## flong3

English had a formal and an informal 'you.' You was the formal form and Thou was the informal form. Thou and associate words died out in the transition from Early Modern English to Modern English.


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## MarX

Anatoli said:


> *Japanese* usage of personal pronouns is restricted, names are preferred instead but there are a number of pronouns, which may be used. The most neutral, common and polite enough is 貴方 / あなた [anata], which can be used to address a single person you don't know. Besides, pronouns are too often omitted, if the context is known. Most Japanese pronouns are derived from some nouns and may have other meanings and usages.


That's very similar to the case in Indonesian. We have many ways to say "you", and many are derived from nouns, yet we often omit the pronoun if it's obvious from the context.


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## helixgrad

In Brazilian portuguese, we say usually "Você" (informal) and "o senhor/a senhora" (formal). There is also in some areas of Brazil "tu", but this is also informal, and is only another word for "você". It is good to note that in Brazil we conjugate the verb as if "tu", "o senhor/a senhora" and "você" were third person. There is a second person conjugation, but nobody uses it anymore. I think that is not the case in Portugal, where the second person conjugation is used.

One more for the list: in Latin, there is only one form: "tu". It doesn't matter if you are talking to a child or to a god.


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## dinji

It is difficult but not impossible to distinguish two separate questions:
1) Does a language have multiple forms for the personal pronoun in 2nd person singular (some times using formally 3rd person or plural forms), based on social distance or subjugation. This is the question of the thread.
2) Does the language provide for marking socially distance or subjugation?

In the case of Hebrew the language provides the possibilty to adress somebody socially respected as "adoni hanikhbad" (my respected mister) or "gvirti hanikhbedet" (my respected lady) but it does not make use of pronouns here.

In the case of Swedish and Finnish, the original system for showing respect and sometimes social distance was a third person singular with a noun based subject. "Magistern är så god och..."/ "Maisteri on niin hyvä ja....." or "Fröken är så snäll och..."/ "Neiti on nin hyvä ja..." or even to your own parents: "Kan pappa räcka mej brödet...".
This system is practically dead. Instead the remnants of a system marking distance originally based on superiority and sometime disrespect (2nd person plural Sw. "Ni" Fi. "Te") is still in existence and was for some time used to substitute for the death of the previous system. Thus most people in Finland today would think it is polite to use the 2nd person plural (Ni/Te) to a stranger, but for old people this sounds very rude: originally the 2nd person plural was only used from a superior social position and to show respect the third person singular was used with a noun describing the addressed person as a subject.

This effectively corresponds to the Portuguese polite form: "O senhor...".


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## Black4blue

In Turkish, we use _plural_ forms to make pronouns formal. There was formal forms of third singular person formerly, but it's very very rare now. So, we use plural form of _you (siz)_ to make the singular _you (sen)_ formal.


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## Istriano

MarX said:


> Hello!
> 
> Are there any other languages beside English that have only a single word for "you"?
> 
> The closest example I've found so far is Swedish, where as far as I know "du" is used universally.
> 
> Thank you!
> 
> 
> MarX




*Costa Rican Spanish*:
_Usted _(both formal and informal) _you__
Ustedes _(both formal and informal) _you _(pl)
---
Some dialects use _vos _along with usted.

Most (I'd say 75%) *Brazilian* *dialects*:
_você _(both formal and informal) _you_
_vocês _(both formal and informal) _you _(pl.)
---
_Você _is replacing the forms of respect like_ o senhor, or o cavalheiro._..
It's not unusual to use _você _instead of these forms, even in a
formal setting. People don't like being adressed to with _o senhor_
because they think_ o senhor _should be used with (very) old people only
and will answer you: O senhor está no Céu! (The Almighty is in Heaven).
So, in Brazilian Portuguese, _o senhor _is becoming more or less like sir in English...


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## apmoy70

Greek has a peculiarity. While in its Classical/Koine period, it formed different forms of informal and formal "you"-->
You (informal): «Σὺ» (su; Doric, tu) from PIE base *tu, _thou_.
You (plural/formal): «Ὑμεῖς» (hu'meis; Aeolic «ὕμμε», hummĕ) from PIE base *(y)us-(s)me, _you_.
In its Byzantine/Modern period uses the same "you"-->
You (informal): «Συ» or «εσύ» (si, or e'si)
You (plural/formal): «Σεις» or «εσείς» (sis, or e'sis); formed quite logically, it's the plural of «συ»


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## Serafín33

Istriano said:


> *Costa Rican Spanish*:
> _Usted _(both formal and informal) _you_


Yep, also found in many speakers in Guatemala and Colombia. 

(Which strikes me as very odd, how come _ustedeo_ would be found in these three unconnected countries? I understand why it isn't found in (at least _Urban_) Panama due to the large influence of Caribbean Spanish there, but why haven't I ever heard it in El Salvador or Honduras?)


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## Istriano

In Colombia (except for the Atlantic Coast where the ''classical'' usage is observed: _tú _= informal, _Vd_. = formal; _vos _= not used) people seem to use all three _tú, vos, Vd _informally, but _tú _is unheard of in some places like Santiago de Cali where only _vos _and _Vd _are used as informal pronouns. I believe that in Medellín and Bogotá they use all three pronouns informally: _vos, tú_ and _Vd _with no difference.


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## thisyearsgirl

Very true. Just because a language may have different formalities of "you" doesn't mean regional usage always follows the prescribed rules.
In Medellín, at least, _ustedeo_ is very common. While I was there, my friend's family usually all referred to each other this way. Even their puppy was _usted_. At first it was baffling to hear things like, "¡_Venga!_" or "_¡No me muerda o le pegue!_" (Don't bite me or I'll spank you!") when talking to a dog. It almost sounded to me like there was an implied "sir" or "mister" in there. As in, "I'll spank you, sir"!
As a speaker of modern English, I find the concept of different levels of formality of "you" stressful to deal with. When speaking Spanish, I find myself trying hard to find a balance between sounding educated and polite (unless with close friends), local usage, and my own level of comfort/understanding. Also in the US, schools tend to teach a neutral/Mexican Spanish which has more "classical" _tú/usted_ usage. _El voseo_ is practically never even mentioned. So while I _understand_ the difference I think if I were in Spain, I'd be uncomfortable _tuteando_ everyone, but in Bogotá, I'd feel awkward always using _usted_.
Istriano is correct. In Medellín, _vos, tú,_ and _usted_ all are used seemingly at random. At times I've been referred to by all three in the same conversation! When I asked my Paisa friend why, he attributed it to the fact that some _usted_ forms just "sound better" to him. So, except in stricly formal situations, it's completely subjective. Use whichever you'd like! However in Botogá, I don't believe _vos _is common. They use the _tú/usted _system except that _usted_ is used faaaar more often. It's also worth noting that in Botogá, you will most likely never hear two males refer to each other as _tú_, because it sounds "too initimate". That's also true of Medellín, but there two good male friends could also use _vos_ in addition to _usted_. I don't have any first hand knowledge how it works in the coastal or southern regions though.


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## LilianaB

Well, in Polish the story is even more complicated because you have to use Pan/Pani Sir/Madam in even not very formal situation, if you do not know the person and he or she is an adult. In Lithuanian there is also ponas and ponia but it is used differently only in certain contexts, otherwise the second person formal form is used. Is Madame and Monsieur still used in French?


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## L'irlandais

LilianaB said:


> ...Is Madame and Monsieur still used in French?


Hello,
Madame & Monsieur are both still widely used in French.  (However I'm not entirely sure I've understood you question correctly.)





Hakro said:


> Also English has two words: _thou_ and _you_, although the singular/informal word _thou_ is not used anymore except when talking to God.


Several people have mentioned that thou is no longer used.  While it's true that the formal "you" is almost uniquely used now-a-days ;  several regional dialects in England & Scotland still use the informal thou (though it's form is altered in some of those dialects) in everyday speech.  So the original post was some what flawed, to begin with.


Outsider said:


> If I understand you well, you wish to know which languages lack a distinction between a formal and an informal "you".
> 
> Irish is another language where this happens.


It's not so much that Irish lacks a distinction between formal and informal, rather that this distinction is little used today.  In modern day Irish we have retained the informal "Conas atá tú?" (How are you?) rather than the polite Classical Irish "Conas atá sibh?"  So "sibh" is now used only as a plural in Irish.  However Scottish Gaelic (a dialect) has retained the formal usage in some areas of Scotland.


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## LilianaB

Hi. Thank you. Do you have to refer to people in French as Madam and Monsieur each time you say something to them, if you do not know them well. This is the case in Polish, although some people do not agree with me and apparently the rules are less strict now which is a pity. Do you have to repeat the Madam and Monsieur almost in every sentence or only when you address them.


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## terredepomme

> Mandarin: 你 and 您


Although technically one would have the include the female form(妳) which differs only in writing.
More technically the "divine" form (祢) which is quite creative I would say.


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## AutumnOwl

Lingvisten said:


> Swedish has both "du" (informal), and "Ni" (formal). No language I know, besides English, has only one word.


For many Swedes, especially those of the baby boom generation and older that made the change from _Ni_ to _du_, the formal "Ni" in second person singular is not seen as a polite address but rather as a dismissive form of address.


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## ThomasK

Joannes said:


> The story about Dutch:
> 
> The Old Dutch 2SG personal pronoun was *thu* (like English *thou*) which became *du* in Middle Dutch. As in many languages, the 2PL pronoun *ghi* got to be used as a formal address for the singular. *Du* got lost which made *ghi* the pronoun for the second person without marking singular/plural or formal/informal. (An atonic form of *du* was retained as an enclitic to verbs though, as in *hebde* 'have you' or *slaapte* 'sleep you'.) Later, the singular-plural distinction was made clear again by constructions like *gij allen* 'you all' and *gij lieden* 'you guys', the last of which resulted in *jullie*, which is the current 2PL form.  *Gij* got replaced by *jij*, and later the form *u* evolved as a formal second person pronoun, out of *uwe edelheid* 'your nobility', in which *uwe* is the possessive form of *gij.*
> 
> There are however still some dialects that use *du*, like in Limburg. And in most of Belgium, *gij* is still the usual form for the second person singular, *jij* actually being considered quite formal and distant, as it is Standard Dutch.


Very interesting information, Joannes, giving an good summary of the origin of most pronouns. I'd add that in my dialect we use an *u *form as a possessive pronoun and as an object form as well. I'd also like to point out that dialects probably do not have polite pronouns; I think politeness is marked lexically (I could not do it otherwise). Maybe in one particular form of Dutch (verkavelingsvlaams) *gij *is some kind of in-between form, I think, not too direct and too formal. The jij is often considered unnatural indeed.


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## mataripis

In Tagalog , You= Ikaw  commonlly used in most grammars. It is informal form. If you knew the person very well and you heard his/her speech, you may say " Ikaw ba yang nagsasalitang iyan?(Are you the one speaking?)* When you are talking to someone, a stranger and you are not sure his status/position/rank, the word "You" here is "Kayo"= Kayo po ba ang natawag kanina?(Are you the one calling a while ago?)** But if you found someone mystical, the "you" here is "Sila"= Sino po Sila? (who are you/they?)


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## LilianaB

This is very interesting. What do you mean by someone mystical, a stranger, or like a ghost in a play, for example, a supernatural?


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## mataripis

LilianaB said:


> This is very interesting. What do you mean by someone mystical, a stranger, or like a ghost in a play, for example, a supernatural?


yes anything that is part of supernatural.e.g. visiting angels! a hermit etc.


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## granmogol704

Black4blue said:


> In Turkish, we use _plural_ forms to make pronouns formal. There was formal forms of third singular person formerly, but it's very very rare now. So, we use plural form of _you (siz)_ to make the singular _you (sen)_ formal.


The same happens in urdu.


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## granmogol704

Miguel Antonio said:


> What I am going to say is the exact opposite of the question asked. I have yet to grasp the true nuances underlying the multi-tiered forms of addressing someone in Portugal:
> _Tu _very, very informal (not even between parents and their children and viceversa, as in some cases I have often witnessed)
> _Você _loosely informal
> _O António, a Maria_ ???
> _O senhor/a senhora _vaguely formal
> _O senhor António, a dona Maria _a little more formal, perhaps?
> _O senhor engenheiro/ a senhora doutora _to underpin social class distinction, I wonder?
> 
> Help me, Outsider!
> O


I believe it could be useful to keep a distinction in mind: 1. titles of adress vs. 2. pronouns

1. titles of adress like _'Sir'_, _'Madame', 'Mister _Smith_', 'Miss _Jones_','Your Honor', 'The Right Honorable Earl of...',_ etc. etc are found in many languages to indicate respect

2. _personal pronouns _("I", "he", "we", "they", etc) to indicate respect on the other hand are found only in a few languages (eg. Spanish _'usted'_)

(Grammarians may call this distinction:
1."semantic" vs 2. "morphosyntatic"
(see T-V Distinction)

These few languages who posess personal pronouns to indicate respect also posesses titles of adress to indicate respect (eg. Spanish _'Señor', 'Señorita _Maria_', 'Don _Juan_' _etc etc) like the other languages - but I believe the topic of this thread are the _pronouns_, not the_ titles of adress ("Which languages possess prononuns to indicate respect?")

(vs "Which languages possess titles of adress"?)_

Brazilian Portuguese on the other hand is the only language I know where a _title of adress_  can be listed as a _pronoun_: _'
O Senhor'_(wich literaly means, _'Mister'_ or rather _'The Mister'_ (=_'The Respected Sir'_)
is usually listed with the pronouns ("I", "we", "they") as the respectful form of "you" (_'voce'_ being the informal of "you")

so that a list of pronouns in Brazilian could be:

_'eu'_="I"
_'nos'_="we"
_'ele'_="he"
_'voce'/'o Senhor'_="you"

etc

_'O senhor engenheiro'/'a senhora doutora' simply _adds to the pronoun (_'O senhor'_) the professional _title of adress _(as in English, where you may adress professionals by their titles: "_Doctor_, I have a question for you", or "_Professor_ Jones, let me introduce you to my wife" etc) something not necessarily related to personal pronouns

(in Portuguese and Spanish it is much more common I believe than in English to adress professionals by certain titles eg. _"Ingeniero, tengo una pregunta" - "Dígame, Contador" _(_"Engineer, I have a question" - "I'm listening, Accountant"_). Again, that is a different matter from the pronoun (although because such use of the professional title implies formality, naturally they would use the respectful pronoun for _'you' _(='_usted'_) instead of the informal (=_'tu'_)

(=_'vos'_ in Argentina and other minority areas)

_'O senhor tem uma pregunta?'_
could be translated as '_Do you have a question?'_
insatisfactorily, as the English 'you' would not reflect the respectful aspect of the Portuguese _'o Senhor' _

_'O senhor Antonio tem uma pregunta?'_
on the other hand could be translated satisfactorily as _"Do you have a question, Mr. Anthony?"
_
I ask, as I am not sure myself..
_
('O senhor Antonio tem uma pregunta?'_
could of course be translated literally_ "¿Does Master Anthony have a question?"_ (adressing Master Anthony) but it would sound something out of Shakespeare (whereas the Portuguese phrase I believe is standard contemporary Brazilian usage and does not have the servile/old connotation of English: _"¿Does Master Anthony have a question?" _but rather simplythe modern _"Do you have a question, Mr Anthony?"
_
Summarizing, this thread is about personal pronouns and - yes, Brazilian Portuguese could be considered one of the languages that has a personal pronoun to indicate respect (_'voce' _being the informal and_ 'o Senhor' _being the formal way of ="you")

But because _'Senhor' i_s also a title of adress ("Mister", "Sir") the distinction between _pronouns_ and_ titles of adress_ in Brazilian Portuguese can be blurred

(and at least I have not said anything yet about _'o Senhor'_ being also a form of "he" (3rd. person singular)!

I would say that _'o Senhor Antonio' _cannot be classified as a pronoun
whereas _'o Senhor'_ could be classified as a pronun (=formal "you"
vs _'voce' _=informal "you")

The decision when to use_ titles of adress _such as "Mister", "Miss", "Sir", or "Professor" in Portuguese (eg. _'Senhor Antonio'_) would be similar to the decision when to use titles of adress in English (eg. do you call the man teaching you Maths "Professor"? "Mr. Smith"? "Mike"? "buddy"? etc? It will depend on your degree of familiarity/friendship, contextual conventions, the pretensions of the adressee, etc etc.

As I said, that matter of the _titles of adress _I believe is not the subject of this thread - but rather "Which languages have personal pronouns to indicate respect?"

(and, in general, in those languages as Spanish and Portuguese that have pronouns to indicate respect, the rules when to use the formal or the informal pronoun are not written and vary with the historical times (the Western trend during all the 20th century having been towards informality) the ages of the speakers (senior citizens would still be more formal than younger ones, because they grew up in more formal times) the social context (very formal such as in a Courtroom or a classical conservatory, less informal such as in a Disco or a hip start up company where everyone calls each other "tu"). It varies from country to country (in some Latin American countries children still adress their father with "usted", whereas that respect would be unthinkable in other countries such as Argentina) and it will vary from speaker to speaker (a more formal or older boss will adress his employess with "usted" a more informal one with "tu" - a shy, retiring employee may feel he has to adress his boss (or any older person) with "usted" whereas a more confident fellow may use always "tu" etc. The use of "usted" vs "tu" is in general tied to the _old/formal_ vs _modern/informal _approach to life (one way of putting it broadly would be saying that _millenials _have basically dropped "usted" from their vocabulary, as pointed above in social media - a youthfull president like Argentina's Macri aiming for an unstructured and modern profile using the informal pronoun in his speeches) and the solution is to listen everytime to what is being used - who is using it to who - and play along..knowing that being around older folk "usted" more likely would appear, whereas around youngsters "tu" would be the norm). It is a constantly fluid question even for locals as revealed by the existence of old formulas such as _"¡Tuteame!"_ (_"Call me 'tu'!=i.e. "Don't be so formal with me!"_) or the threatening opposite_ "Usted a mi no me tutea!" _(_="You're not using 'tu' with me!=i.e. Who d'you think you are?"_) which are coming into disuse along many other issues re. formality among millenials (because they never use "usted")

(note: as stated, in Argentina "vos" is used instead of "tu" as the informal pronoun.
I write above about "tu" because it is the generic pronoun in Spanish ("vos" being mostly restricted to Argentina and a few other spots)


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## KalAlbè

Haitian Creole, only one form:

*Ou / W(contracted) = you*


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