HOW TO USE THOU ...as well as thee, thy, ye & you. 

It's crazy how we use those words today to sound "fancy" when in fact it was the opposite back then.

Thou hast done most marvelous well in thy presentation, and I thank thee.

I am not a native English speaker, but for me these forms were always clear to me. It follows the same pattern as first person words... I, Thou -> subject Me, Thee -> object My, Thy Mine, Thine I am surprised this was not mentioned

Can we take a moment to appreciate how Rob takes his fantastic pedantry outdoors? Nothing says "dedication" like standing out in the cold to deliver another fascinating history lesson. Love this guy!

An aunt of mine (from County Durham) told me of a moment in her youth when, being reprimanded by her boss for addressing him as "thou", replied defiantly "Divent thee thou me, and I'll not thou thee". I thought that was an absolute gem.

I really want to see "thou/thee" make a come back in every day English by the commonfolk.

I am a Quaker who no longer uses the "plain speech" (few Quakers do), but I know some who do. One point you didn't mention is that in American Quaker plain speech "thee", rather than "thou" is often used for the subject of a sentence. As in a sign in my meetinghouse which says "Thank thee for not smoking". In this usage, "is" is used ratherthan "art". For example "Thee is welcome, Friend". Some folks encountering this usage think it shows ignorance of proper 17th century grammar, but it was actually the usual Quaker speech pattern among American Quaker communities throughout the 18th and 19th centuries.

As one who was born and raised in a Quaker family that still uses plain speak as a family tradition, your (thy :) ) explanation was very interesting. We never used the word "thou" at all, though - we used thee as the subject form, too. Never knew of the subject (thou)/object (thee) distinction.

As a German , I just use „thou, thy, thee“ as I use „du, dein, dich“ in my mother tongue .

When I was taking German in high school, it was explained to me that you used the "du" form with God because there was an intimacy there. I assumed that English probably had the same theological reason for using the "thou" form when addressing God.

I know this is an older video but with regard to YE when it has the meaning of THE (i.e. when used in phrases like "Ye olde shoppe") that Y is not actually a Y. It is a Old Norse letter that was called thorn (Þ) in medieval English and was pronounced like the modern TH (it's still pronounced like that in Icelandic). When it's written in Gothic script it kinda looks like a Y, hence the confusion. So "Ye olde shoppe" should be actually pronounced "THE olde shoppe". However, like Rob said, when ye is used as a pronoun, it's pronounced like a regular letter Y.

I love how 'thou' and its conjugation make so much sense in the context of Germanic languages compared to today's you. Like in High German, the ending for 2.P.Sg. verbs ist -st as well. So when 'you can' becomes 'thou canst' again in English, it is much closer to High German 'Du kannst'.

In Ireland we use "ye" as a plural of "you"! We have no formal versions (don't think formal versions exist in Irish either) it's just nice to be able to differentiate between singular and plural!

You are like the Vsauce of the English language

As someone who's currently learning Spanish, that has formal and informal forms, I too really appreciate the simplicity of just having "you" in English. It removes a whole set of parameters when trying to speak and gives the ability to really focus on expressing whatever you want to say without risking offending your interlocutor. Much easier.

When I came to know people in County Cork, I was startled when they referred to me, even in writing as 'ye.' But sometimes they would use 'you' and now I see that was when it was an object. I never hear the ye in any other part of Ireland, but it does sound quite charming in County Cork. Thanks for explaining how ye and you are used.

I like the traditional Yorkshire saying "Don't thee thou me as I thous thee". It is used to put somebody in their place who has insufficient social status to use the word thou to address the person using this phrase.

I wish we still had these older features in english. It would make learning other European languages much easier because these concepts wouldn't feel so strange and foreign to start with.

I'm late to this one but have something to share. Having studied German I found it easier to understand Shakespeare because of the similarities to German. The "st" on the end of the verbs comes directly from German as does thou, thee, thine: Ich, Mich, Mein = I, Me, Mine Du, Dich, Dein = Thou, Thee, Thine (you, yours, yours (or sometimes 'yourn')) "Thou canst not go" = "Du kannst nicht gehen". And English does have a plural for "you" at least in parts of the US where we say "y'all".

I watched this video when it first came out... and now that I've played Baldur's Gate 3 and listened to the way Withers talks and (incorrectly) uses "thou", I'll never forgive you for educating me.

I’m going to have to send this to my English Linguistics teacher from Yorkshire 😂

I always assumed the English YOU leaves out the formalities by referring to everyone as in an informal context. My world just turned upside down.

Well Tha says thev disappeared, but I was raised in North Yorkshire and I’m older than thee and we still use them. Having said that, what a marvellous video. I enjoyed it immensely. Thank you Sir.

Can't believe this channel only has 100k followers. His level of research, intellect and subtle humor needs to be shared and viewed by more people. Keep up the good work Rob! We love thee (or thou). 🤔

I’m 62 years old and was brought up in 'homes for the elderly' in Lancashire. Thee, thine and thy were often still used by the elderly (often born and raised in the 19th century.), though probably not following any grammatical rules at all. As a proud Lancastrian I’m all for anyone butchering the Yorkshire accent, thems don’t talk posh like us do.

Now I finally understand. In Spanish the lord's prayer says: Padre Nuestro que estás en los cielos. (Estás is the familiar form because God is close to you) It's exactly the same in English: Our father who art in Heaven. Excellent explanation! Though art an excellent English teacher.

While reading Shakespeare in class, it sort was revealed to me that these words are similar if not the same to how in Spanish "you" is used. I had Spanish class before English (literature), I literally put what I learned in one class and made me read or understand Shakespeare better. Thou ~ tú Thee/Thy ~ te/ti Art ~ eres

Interesting that Brazilian Portuguese has had the same shift. The polite form of 'you' has become the standard.

I thank thee for that. I have never previously felt quite certain about the declension of thou and it was good to hear about the ending -est. I think the Amish also use Thee and thou on a regular basis. I am English and when I did my National service I was stationed in Germany and made friends with a German family. My father came to visit me and I took him to meet them. My father was a scientist who learnt to read and speak German pretty well, but as he needed it for his work (science) he had never bothered with "du". My friends has a six year old daughter and my father spoke to her and she look absolutely astonished, dropped the toy she was holding and rushed to her mother crying: "Mutti! Mutti! Er Siest mir! Er SIEST mir!!"

English took to using only the formal "you", whereas in Sweden we had a language reform in the 60s to use the informal "du" with everyone. But our formal language was a little different in that "ni" (plural) was usually used towards employees, subordinates, etc. If one wished to be respectful in Sweden back in the day, you would adress people by title or sometimes (if a married woman) a feminine version of your husband's title. "Would Miss Emily want some more tea?" "Welcome, Majoress, please sit down." So "ni" sounds condecending to some who lived during that time. In fact, when some young people who've been learning French or German in school wish to be polite to older people and use "ni" (plural form) they'll sometimes get an earful about how they didn't go through the du-reform to be called "ni"!

I must point out that the "informal" for God also prevails in Hindi. Hindi has three forms for "you": "tu" is singular, "tum" is plural ( and then there is the extra polite and formal "aap", probably due to Persian influence, also conjugated in the plural). "Tu" is only used for intimate friends and in slang and when abusing someone far, far below your station, and, curiously perhaps, between lovers when they communicate privately (as in French) - but never in polite conversation. It is considered very, very impolite to use "tu" - so much so that those learning the language can safely omit it altogether, and focus on "tum" and "aap". But strangely, this very "impolite" tu is used in two other cases - when speaking to one's mother (never ever to one's father, unless one wants to be spanked!) - and when addressing God. (No influence of Tyndale here, yet the end result is similar).

My father's grandparents, Wiltshire country folks, used thee and thou in daily speech. If there was a quarrel between them, the grandmother would say to her husband "don't thee and thou me"!

My first exposure to thee/thou/thy/etc. was from going to church as a kid, so I didn’t realize it was informal until we learned about Shakespeare in high school. As a kid, I thought it was just the one-and-only way they said “you,” but I did think it was weird that the Bible also used “you” sometimes. Thank you for clearing up this lifetime of confusion, because I’m sure I’m not the only person who encountered it in that order!

I like it, that you don't distinguish between formal and informal "you", but I really find useful to distinguish between singular and plural "you".

Thanks for mentioning the North of England. Defiantly we use thee, thou. When we do so it's not like a Shakespeare posh spoken sonnet. No, we speak it and it rolls off the tounge along with our accent. So fluent one would not notice that we are saying thou, thee because it just sounds like our accent. "shut duwer wilt thee, thou's lettin' draft in!"

I love these videos! Thank you for making them. I'm a writer who is fascinated by language. Every time that I have a question about something linguistic, I check and see if you'e made a video about it. Usually, you do not disappoint. Thanks for all of the time, effort, research and humor that you put into these videos.

I’ve just found you channel and it’s one of my top 10 favourite channels on RU-vid 1- the editing is amazing 2- the audio quality is great 3- the topics are very well picked and excellently explained

Very interesting! Use of thee and thou by Quakers is mostly continued today by the Ohio Quakers. North American Quakers also had a quirk that continues today. They often used "thee" as nominative and objective (e.g., How is thee doing today?), although published documents retained the use of "thou" for the nominative case. Friends who use "thee" today will mostly only use "thou" when speaking during meeting partially because they mostly quote from the KJV. Today, the use of thee/thy/thine by Quakers is partially a reminder that we retain a special spiritual fellowship, and we rarely use it with non-members. One way a Quaker might express unhappiness with another Quaker is to call that person "you", suggesting that the spiritual connection has been broken.

Have always used Ye and not You in Geordie dialect. Thou and thee were also used in North Durham and parts of South Northumberland in my childhood. 'Where have you been?' was said 'where 'st tha bin?'(Where hast thou been )

In Spanish there’s a verb for the act of making a relationship less formal. You start off with a stranger saying usted, but at some point you get to know each other enough that you can tutear, switch to using tu

One thing to note is that Shakespeare isn't always consistent in his use of thou/you; maybe it was weakening already or more than one person was doing the writing (!) The KJ Bible follows the old singular / plural distinction rather than class, and its language usage in general is about 50 years behind the times since a large part was nicked from Tyndale without attribution.

Your videos have got me hooked! I wish we hadn't lost our single/plural differentiation. I'm all for the way "you" is slowly evolving into "yous" and "y'all".

After living in Spain for many years I came to appreciate the formal and informal. Respect has gone out the window in English speaking countries, the formal tends to corrects that. It is also a handy way to let someone know you're displeased if you switch to formal, but nothing need be said which might cause unpleasantness

I personally know Quakers who still use plain speech among themselves. They do not say “thou” and, as you mention, they do not conjugate the verbs either. Instead they use ‘thee’ as subject as well as ‘object’. So, “Thee is kind” as well as “I will give a job to thee”

I grew up in an area (near Philadelphia) with a large number of Quakers, and my dad would refer to the Quakers greeting you by saying, "How is thee?" This usage now kind of makes sense to me. Thanks!

In Urdu we also have formal and informal versions of you Āp آپ (formal) Tum تُم (semi formal) Tu تُو (informal) And we also use Tu to refer to God in literature for the same reason, unambiguous singularity.

So it turns out that I knew all of this inherently. Despite years of learning French and German I still struggle with subject and object, but after watching this I turned to my wife to discuss it and we both rattled off three or 4 examples all correctly conjugated without thinking about them.

Czech is my native language and it's funny how all those conjugations, differentiation between object and subject, the singular, plural and the formal versions (that use the plural form) make _perfect_ sense to me, as opposed to just having one word, "you".

It's not just "informal" It's a more intimate, closer relationship which would use thee, thou, thine Quakers believe they are in a close relationship with each other and with God, so they use the informal

That thing on the ultra-formal “you” coinciding with the group-you still exists in German today 😊 it’s called Majestätsplural and the only difference is that the informal group-you is spelled “ihr” whereas the Majestätsplural is spelled “Ihr”, with a capital I 😁 👸🏻: Ihr habt schöne Zähne (you have nice teeth) 👯‍♀️: ihr habt schöne Zähne (same meaning in modern English)

The Quakers used to get in trouble in England for using "thou" when talking to officials and dignitaries. Their logic was that all people are equal before God, but the nobles and judges saw it as a sign of disrespect. They were also big supporters of abolition and women's rights before those ideas were popular. For a group that never had much of a headcount, they had a disproportionate impact on history. Pretty badass, in their own way.

At last! Ever since learning that "thou" was the singular/informal second person, I’ve wondered why they said "hallowed be thy name" and so forth. Many thanks for the most satisfying reason I’ve yet heard.

Stripping all those words down to just "you" does have some consequences, though. It makes the plurality of the second person pronoun unclear in many cases. Whether this issue is the full justification, or not, it certainly facilitates usages that sound strange to many like (in the US) you all, y'all, you ones, "yunz", you guys, etc.

Great explanation on the singular emphasis of the reference to God using Thou in the Bible!! “Thou shalt have no other gods before me!” I always thought it was because God is our Father and thou is used with family members ❤

Thou hast given me clear insight in the usage of these words. I cannot thank thee enough. 😊

I like to keep words alive. I often use daren’t and thou in conversation (amongst others).

I'm pleased to hear you point out that thou and thee still exist in a number of dialects. Only recently I was reading something (maybe even another RU-vid video) which claimed they died out centuries ago. Well I'm sure my hearing isn't that bad when listening to (e.g.) broad South Wiltshire. It's a shame these dialects are becoming rarer these days though.

For me as a German I have absolute no stress to follow the conjugation and declination tables. Makes total sense to me. :D But I have to admit that we had the formal/informal pronoun discussion at work just yesterday. XD I am working in a medical field that is still very eager to keep hierarchies. My boss is actually very emotionless if she is referred as Sie (formal) or du (informal) by the colleagues. But in the “old” times Sie was mandatory. It was believed that it was harder to say “Sie Idiot” than “du Idiot”/ that is was easier to keep being professional by using the formal language. Good news for German learners - using the formal pronoun is much much easer than the informal Du because the verb just looks like the infinitive form. Just start of with the formal pronoun and people will let you know if they are fine with the Du. ;)

I can’t get enough of these videos, where has this channel been all my life

Love that he's teaching us in a snow covered park, feeling cold, but still focused at the task at hand.

This is the most interesting English lesson I've had so far

I’m so lucky I got this in my recommended !! Educational and entertaining and you can tell you love what you’re doing ! Keep up the good work

This would have been a good place to explain "Mine" in places like Psalm 121 ("I will lift up mine eyes until the hills"). We still disambiguate a/an based on whether the next word starts with a vowel. It used to apply to my/mine, and I assume all the other possessive pronouns.

Another great video. When I teach French to my adult learners, I do mention thee and thou as an example of tu and toi. And I cite some Shakespearean sonnets to illustrate how he uses each and why, "... Is it Thy will that keeps open..." or, "What is your substance, whereof are you made?" and they are always so surprised! But I did not know about ye and you! So thank thee!

Very good recap, just a remark that I do not believe W. Tyndall actually had a choice. Not just English but (nearly) all Western languages use the informal 2nd person pronoun to talk to God and there is a reason for it: that in European languages, the formal singular 2nd person pronoun is a relatively late, development of medieval societies. The formal pronoun comes either from the plural or the 3rd person pronoun. It was (in many languages still is) a complicated, non-neutral, artificial way of addressing someone who shouldn't be just addressed directly, by using an unnatural pronoun and conjugation in the situation. Of course it was typically not used to address people who are close to you. And God is someone whom people address in the most direct way and who is (spiritually) the closest to one.

In the Southern US we still differentiate between "you" singular and "you" plural by the expedient contraction of "you all" to "y'all". "Y'all" is NEVER singular here, though often used as such by scriptwriters, transplanted Yankees, etc. We also differentiate between a part of a group (y'all) or the entire group (all y'all).

It's jarring hearing the King James Bible referred to as "niche" while the speaker is using the language I associate with that text alone 😂 I read that version multiple times as a child, so had no trouble with shakespeare later in school while everyone else was trying to figure it out. It's like being a native speaker in two dialects. But I never know if I'm using "thou" correctly any more, because it's been so long. Plus I have a friend who uses what I now know is Quaker Plain Speech sometimes, further complicating things! This was so interesting, thank you!

Haha, love the sanctimonious, self-righteous, pompous and smug expression at 4:00. All perfectly encapsulated in less than a second...Great comedy timing! Nice one Rob, great video.

I occasionally use the phrase "how be thou?" when greeting someone I know. BTW, my dad's family is from Yorkshire. 😉😂

Just knew your channel and I'm binge watching it now! Great content! Suggestion: a video about how English simplified the plural form of (most) words.

I’m so glad there are people like you in the world who actually knows this stuff 🤣. In high school I absolutely hated English class, but learning the exact same facts thru RU-vid 15 years later is truly enjoyable 😁

As a writer I did not know just how much I needed this information thou hast taught me and I thank thee. Thumbs up.

As you say, I am very glad we have lost the formal/informal second person, but I would prefer that we (and that is not the 'royal we', that can be singular) were still to retain the distinction on singular and plural 'you' and 'thou'.

I live in France and use the language, however when I write in English to one of my English children, I really miss an easy way to directly address just one without referring also to their siblings. So I use the single word 'tu' or 'vous', within the sentence which they do now comprehend well....... so alas we have lost something in simplifying our English vocabulary.

There I was thinking I was pretty up to speed on all this, but you reminded me that I never did learn the specific usage of "ye". I'm glad to know it's nominative and hopefully I'll remember that. I've always found the King James Version of the Bible to be a beautiful text, and videos such as this have made it much more accessible.

One of the more informative and fascinating videos that I have seen in long time. It reminded me of the southern US usage of "y'all" which is plural but is used with one person ONLY when the speaker means to include someone else when speaking to one person.

What an extremely interesting video. I shall certainly watch more of these in the future.

This video feels more current and meaningful to me than thou mayest imagine. I'm a native of the United States; a land so large and with so many regional dialects that many of us have to study other US dialects before traveling to a different part of our nation just to have somewhat of a grasp of the similarities and differences among terms such as "Y'all", You'uns" and "You guys". At least for myself and for mine own utterances, it's important to me that my words indicate my intention of friendliness and respect. Also, personal pronoun preferences are a hot topic in the US at this moment. Many Americans want to get rid of all gendered pronouns so that speech doesn't include a gender assignment...and as many are upset at the idea of calling everyone a "they" or "them". We don't yet have a solution to this language conflict. My partial solution is that most people have no objection to the first-person pronouns one would use in a personal conversation. We can all call ourselves "I" or "me", call the person to whom we speak "you", and perhaps once some rapport has developed, we can call the two of us "we". These are just tiny elements of speech, but they are elements that make a difference in how people hear the conversation; formal or informal, speaking about, at, or with someone, expressing a respectful request or an imperative command can all come down to which pronouns one uses. I pray that with these simple words I have conveyed to thee the import I find in this, thy chosen subject for examination. I thank you for both your choice of a good subject and for the respectful manner in which you approach it. Ya'll English folk is okay by me.

Rob, thank you for explaining the usage of “Thou.” I’d known that it used to be the informal form of “you,” but was confused as to why “Thou” was used in reference to God. Thanks to you, that’s been nicely cleared up. Keep up the great work!

Very very few Quakers use old English today. It had a major die out in the 1940s. Only a few old folks used it, and now practically none. A very fine presentation, thank Thee

So "thou" could be as the "vos" we use in Argentina. In spanish the way to say "you" is "tú", but in Argentina and Uruguay we have a different and exclusive way to say it, that is "vos". Also used on informal way. I have started to watch your videos since a couple of them, and are fantastic. I've learnt a lot. Keep on with your amazing work. Greetings from Argentina friend!

That was interesting. A lot of the uses of thou/thee/thy/thine I figured out through reading how they were used in the King James and Shakespeare. But the bit that I didn’t pick up was the plural ye as subject and plural they as object. That is confusing.

I'm so thankful for this video, cuz I'm not a native speaker so there are many things i don't know about your language and one of those was this, i was reading the bible and I found those words and I couldn't understand a lot because of those words, but now I got it. So thank you.

Amazingly enough I know all this just from being raised in Church, reading and teaching the KJV of the Bible. I have no idea what the grammar rules are specifically but I do know what sounds right next to these words and the right one just comes naturally.

one thing that struck me. In one of your other videos you mentioned how "Ye" was actually "The" with "Y" being very similar letter coming from runic, simply meaning "Th". And "You" seem awfully similar to "Thou" if you follow the same logic.

In the Spring of 1970 I was in Paris on Palm Sunday and heard some wonderful music from a small church. When I stopped in they were reading the Passion. This American high school kid's French wasn't all that good, but I followed along. I understood most of it but could not figure why they would _tutoier_ all the time. The French use _tu_ in speaking to god. This makes the Tyndale story a bit weak. When you speak to god you are speaking to your BFF. Have you done a will/shall episode? I so often have to explain the differences to my students (I teach singing and lots of texts from lots of periods come through). We _shall_ overcome. I _will_ prevail.

I am a 59-year-old Quaker from East Yorkshire. I went to a Quaker boarding school in York. Neither at home nor at school did we use anything but 'you'. I was brought up largely by my grandmother who was born in 1893 in Ilkley, North Yorkshire. Living to one hundred years old, she never left Yorkshire in her life. However, when my (southern English) husband met my grandmother, I had to translate for him; even though she used 'you', he scarcely understood a word she was saying. I had not realised how blithely one can slip unawares into dialect when 'back home', in any culture. Oρίστε! That was a very creditable Yorkshire of yours at 5'24". Bravo!

I've just recently found your channel but your videos are so fascinating!

Hey Rob. Was just wondering at the Ye, which you referred to in an earlier video. The `Y` was said to have ergonomically replaced `TH` from the AS Futhorc to accommodate natural change and the printing press. Is this another way of reading (?) the word Thou in it`s formal, You? Likewise with Ye and Thee? If that`s the case, would we ever be saying Yine? And, could we refer to thy as Thth or YY (I had a laugh at this one). In the Black Country, where I survive, natives are inclined still to use Thou or Yow, for You. As an aside, Ay, Bay or even Bisn`t is used for aren`t. Likewise Bist is used for are. It`s a wonderful world.

Thou, thee, thy = ty, cię, twój (in Polish). They are spoken almost the same, are used the same and of course mean the same. German examples of du, dich, dein are spoken far more differently, albeit they still bear somewhat recognizable similarity. A question arises: which is the original? As a speaker of several languages, I opt for Polish based on observation (and some History, too - king Harald and stuff). I see Poles learn to speak both EN and DE fast, yet know of no German or English who grasped Polish quickly. This might (mind you, might) suggest a one-way similarity. On the same token, I met French, American, English, and Germans who learned fluent Russian, Polish, Czech and even Hungarian - which I for one still cannot speak fluently to this day. To sum up, old English usage of thy, thee, thou stroke me as patently Polish when I first read it at the age of four, or five. You sounds formal, borderline unnatural to me. You is BTW far closer to the German du. Both have long [u:].

After having learned German for about 4 years now, I found this video incredibly intuitive. I wouldn't mind going back to that. It'd probably be easier for non native English speakers to learn too.

This was incredibly entertaining and educational video. And I love your sense of humour. Thank you so much! :) While English is only my 5th language and I've been learning it for the past 30-ish years, nobody has really explained the differences as clearly as this here video, so again, thank you.

I am surprised you started with the informal/formal distinction when the original thou/ye distinction was simply between singular and plural forms. The informal/formal distinction developed later, as it did in other languages such as French (tu/vous).

Great resource :) When I was a camp counselor last summer, I had a non-binary camper who used thou/she pronouns-so bringing back old pronouns as neopronouns :)

I had always hear that God was addressed as Thou because one is supposed to have a confessional/personal relationship with God. The unambiguously singular makes sense though, although the Trinity aspect might make one desire the plural . But as someone who studied German, it's fairly straightforward. Thou being tbe analog of du.

I've never read Shakespeare and I was rubbish at English in school, I never knew the English language could be so interesting, thank you.

I've noticed that in hymnody the usual modification of 'thy' to 'thine' when followed by a vowel is not always applied. Is it an informal rule? Is it purely a matter of taste? Was there a regional variation? Did it change over time? If thou beest of a kindly disposition, couldst thou explain this unto me? If thou wouldst, then forever would I be in thy debt both for imparting thy knowledge and for granting unto me thine understanding ( ,,,, or thy understanding).

Wait - would “thou” and “you” have rhymed??

I didn’t know that you was the formal 2nd person singular. I always assumed you was an evolution of thou. Cool. Thou hast taught me something.

It would be nice that the "thou and thee" were used once again. They sound great.