I grew up in a part of Yorkshire (East Riding) where 'thou' and 'thee' were commonly used. I am talking about the 50s and 60s. Thus, my grandfather would say, 'wesh thi mucky face', (wash your mucky face), 'face' incidentally with a diphthong, as in Geordie, sort of 'fey-ass'. 'Ast tha getten tooith-wark?' (have you got tooth-ache).

I just wondered if thou and thee still survive anywhere, in the UK, or elsewhere? It had a very nice feel to it, sort of intimate.

I can remember my Uncle using 'thou' and 'thee' back in the 1970's in Cumbria.
I thought it was grand!

mattwilson wrote:Well, I use them, but from a faux medieval linguistic fetish I have, dost thou approve?

Yes, I use them all the time. It's a mixture of irony and affection I suppose. But then today you find people using an incredible mixture of dialects, text-speak, and so on, partly ironically, and I suppose just playfully.

don't get me started wrote:I can remember my Uncle using 'thou' and 'thee' back in the 1970's in Cumbria.
I thought it was grand!

Now, in some parts of Yorkshire, that would 'I thowt it were grand'.

Just A Theory wrote:Thou & Thee refer to second person singular and have been largely replaced by a catch-all 'you'. Thee, however, has been replaced by 'youse' in the vernacular, I know of no substitute for 'thou' unfortunately.

That's brilliant. In scouse (Liverpool dialect) 'youse' is used for the plural I think. Also found in other dialects obviously, e.g. in the US. 'Youse guys'.

In Corby they use 'youse' for plural of 'you' and also as a replacement to 'thee'. Which I would guess they do the same in Scotland too?

I've never heard thou or thee in my short 22 years. Then, I am a midlander and we speak properly.

I was at a conference last year and Michael Swan was giving a talk and mentioned this. He mentioned that English seems to be trying to separate single and plural 'You', simultaneously in different regions of the anglosphere.
'Youse' or variants thereof, north of a line in Britain roughly from the Humber to the Mersey, and 'Y'all' in the American south, with 'You guys' elsewhere in America and Canada. I'm not sure what our antipodean cousins are up to regarding this...bound to be something colorful!!

Another pronominal feature of Cumbrian dialect is 'yersel', 'mesel', etc, appended much more frequently than the reflexive pronouns in other varieties of English.

"Come in and sit yersel down." (Directly parallel to German 'Setzen Sie sich.)
"I don't know, mesel, like."

mattwilson wrote:

mraltair wrote:In Corby they use 'youse' for plural of 'you' and also as a replacement to 'thee'. Which I would guess they do the same in Scotland too?

I've never heard thou or thee in my short 22 years. Then, I am a midlander and we speak properly.

I'm a midlander too, and I can attest to the truth in this statement. We do indeed speak properly.

Except those from:
Dudley
Birmingham
Cannock
Walsall
Wolverhampton
et al

Indeed sir, you are quite correct.

don't get me started wrote:I was at a conference last year and Michael Swan was giving a talk and mentioned this. He mentioned that English seems to be trying to separate single and plural 'You', simultaneously in different regions of the anglosphere.
'Youse' or variants thereof, north of a line in Britain roughly from the Humber to the Mersey, and 'Y'all' in the American south, with 'You guys' elsewhere in America and Canada. I'm not sure what our antipodean cousins are up to regarding this...bound to be something colorful!!

Another pronominal feature of Cumbrian dialect is 'yersel', 'mesel', etc, appended much more frequently than the reflexive pronouns in other varieties of English.

"Come in and sit yersel down." (Directly parallel to German 'Setzer sie sich.)
"I don't know, mesel, like."

In some parts of Yorkshire, 'sit yoursen down', but it may have died out. Around Manchester, 'I'm going there, me', is common, a sort of emphatic tag, also found in French, I think.

Interesting about plural you, yes, 'you guys' is catching on in the UK.

nunnington wrote:Interesting about plural you, yes, 'you guys' is catching on in the UK.

"You guys" is almost identical to how the current second person plural was formed in Dutch. Ghi/ji was originally the second person plural (as was you in English), then became used for both singular and plural, and then the distinction was made by adding "lieden" for the plural, which was later contracted to "jullie". So were just one step ahead of you guys.
The original second person singular "du" (equivalent of thou) is still found in some dialects.

I was taught that thees and thous represented the informal and formal second person singular. An equivalent in German is du and zu I believe. Of course, that does not account for 'thy' and 'thine.'

Youse is used in New Zealand as well.
I grew up being taught the 'thee' pronunciation of 'the' although at home we used 'thugh' caused all sorts of confusion when reading aloud the KJV or Shakespeare..