The word you in shakespeare

Modern English has only one second person pronoun: you. But Old English had two: thou for second person singular and you for second person plural. By the 13th century, however, people began employing you as a singular pronoun to convey politeness or formality.

At this stage, thou and you in English mirrored the French pronouns tu and vous or the Spanish tú and usted: one familiar, the other formal.

In the early-modern English of Shakespeare’s time, thou and you could indicate fine distinctions of social status and interpersonal relationships:

Thou	You
to social inferiors	to social superiors
to social equals (lower class)	to social equals (upper class)
in private	in public
to express familiarity or intimacy	to express formality or neutrality
to show scorn or contempt	to show respect or admiration

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Thou
A speaker could use the familiar thou to address their social inferiors or to indicate friendship and intimacy.

When some one of high rank addressed someone of lower rank (King to subject, parent to child, husband to wife, teacher to student), they would use thou. The subjects, children, wives, and students — on the other hand — would address their betters as you.

The hierarchical use of thou made it an excellent way to put someone in their place, condescending to or insulting them. Calling someone thou, implied — all by itself — that they were inferior.

But thou could express intimacy as well as superiority. Close friends, romantic partners, husbands and wives (in private) would all use thou to address each other.

Speakers also addressed God as thou, signaling a deep spiritual intimacy between the believer and the deity.

The thou-forms are thou, thee, thy, thine, thyself

You
Speakers used you to convey respect and formality, especially in public settings. You could also convey a distant or cold emotional register.

Upper-class folk tended to address each other as you, even when they were close. Conversely, the lower classes tended to use thou among themselves.

The you-forms are you, your, yours, yourself, yourselves

Shifting Between Thou and You
Characters in Shakespeare will sometimes shift from one form of pronoun address to another during a conversation. Such changes signal a shift in the relationship between the speakers.

For example, once blind Gobbo realizes that Lancelot is his son, he switches from cautious formality to warm familiarity:

GOBBO. I cannot think you are my son.

LANCELOT. I know not what I shall think of that, but I am Lancelot, the Jew’s man, and I am sure Margery your wife is my mother.

GOBBO. Her name is Margery indeed! I’ll be sworn if thou be Lancelot, thou art mine own flesh and blood.

The Merchant of Venice (2.2.81–86)

Benedict shifts from an intimate declaration of love to a more formal tone when he asks Beatrice a serious question:

BENEDICT. Tarry, good Beatrice. By this hand, I love thee.

BEATRICE. Use it for my love some other way than swearing by it.

BENEDICT. Think you in your soul the Count Claudio hath wronged Hero?

Much Ado About Nothing (4.1.322–27)

And Bernardo shifts from giving Francisco a piece of friendly advice to asking him a professional question:

BERNARDO. ’Tis now struck twelve. Get thee to bed, Francisco.
FRANCISCO. For this relief much thanks. ’Tis bitter cold,
      And I am sick at heart.
BERNARDO. Have you had quiet guard?

Hamlet (1.1.7–10)

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Thou and You in the Bible

The King James translation of the Bible (1611) uses thou and you as singular and plural pronouns — reverting to the original function of the pronouns and ignoring the subtle shades of meaning they had in early modern speech. So the Biblical usage would have sounded archaic even to its original 17th-century readers.

Because of its use in the Bible and in poetry, thou sounds stilted and old-fashioned to modern English speakers. But to Shakespeare and his contemporaries, thou was less stuffy or formal sounding than you.

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The word thou () is a second-person singular pronoun in English. It is now largely archaic, having been replaced in most contexts by the word you, although it remains in use in parts of Northern England and in Scots (/ðu/). Thou is the nominative form; the oblique/objective form is thee (functioning as both accusative and dative); the possessive is thy (adjective) or thine (as an adjective before a vowel or as a possessive pronoun); and the reflexive is thyself. When thou is the grammatical subject of a finite verb in the indicative mood, the verb form typically ends in -(e)st (e.g. «thou goest», «thou do(e)st»), but in some cases just -t (e.g., «thou art»; «thou shalt»).

Originally, thou was simply the singular counterpart to the plural pronoun ye, derived from an ancient Indo-European root. In Middle English, thou was sometimes represented with a scribal abbreviation that put a small «u» over the letter thorn: þͧ (later, in printing presses that lacked this letter, this abbreviation was sometimes rendered as yͧ). Starting in the 1300s, thou and thee were used to express familiarity, formality, or contempt, for addressing strangers, superiors, or inferiors, or in situations when indicating singularity to avoid confusion was needed; concurrently, the plural forms, ye and you began to also be used for singular: typically for addressing rulers, superiors, equals, inferiors, parents, younger persons, and significant others.^[3] In the 17th century, thou fell into disuse in the standard language, often regarded as impolite, but persisted, sometimes in an altered form, in regional dialects of England and Scotland,^[4] as well as in the language of such religious groups as the Society of Friends. The use of the pronoun is also still present in Christian prayer and in poetry.^[5]

Early English translations of the Bible used the familiar singular form of the second person, which mirrors common usage trends in other languages. The familiar and singular form is used when speaking to God in French (in Protestantism both in past and present, in Catholicism since the post–Vatican II reforms), German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Scottish Gaelic and many others (all of which maintain the use of an «informal» singular form of the second person in modern speech). In addition, the translators of the King James Version of the Bible attempted to maintain the distinction found in Biblical Hebrew, Aramaic and Koine Greek between singular and plural second-person pronouns and verb forms, so they used thou, thee, thy, and thine for singular, and ye, you, your, and yours for plural.

In standard modern English, thou continues to be used in formal religious contexts, in wedding ceremonies, in literature that seeks to reproduce archaic language, and in certain fixed phrases such as «fare thee well». For this reason, many associate the pronoun with solemnity or formality. Many dialects have compensated for the lack of a singular/plural distinction caused by the disappearance of thou and ye through the creation of new plural pronouns or pronominals, such as yinz, yous^[6] and y’all or the colloquial you guys. Ye remains common in some parts of Ireland, but the examples just given vary regionally and are usually restricted to colloquial speech.

Grammar[edit]

Because thou has passed out of common use, its traditional forms are often confused by those imitating archaic speech.^{[7][citation needed]}

Declension[edit]

The English personal pronouns have standardized declension according to the following table:^{[citation needed]}

Personal pronouns in Early Modern English

	Nominative	Oblique	Genitive	Possessive
1st person	singular	I	me	my/mine[# 1]	mine
plural	we	us	our	ours
2nd person	singular informal	thou	thee	thy/thine[# 1]	thine
singular formal	ye, you	you	your	yours
plural
3rd person	singular	he/she/it	him/her/it	his/her/his (it)[# 2]	his/hers/his[# 2]
plural	they	them	their	theirs

Conjugation[edit]

Verb forms used after thou generally end in -est (pronounced /-ᵻst/) or -st in the indicative mood in both the present and the past tenses. These forms are used for both strong and weak verbs.

Typical examples of the standard present and past tense forms follow. The e in the ending is optional; early English spelling had not yet been standardized. In verse, the choice about whether to use the e often depended upon considerations of meter.

• to know: thou knowest, thou knewest
• to drive: thou drivest, thou drovest
• to make: thou makest, thou madest
• to love: thou lovest, thou lovedst
• to want: thou wantest, thou wantedst

Modal verbs also have -(e)st added to their forms:

• can: thou canst
• could: thou couldst
• may: thou mayest
• might: thou mightst
• should: thou shouldst
• would: thou wouldst
• ought to: thou oughtest to

A few verbs have irregular thou forms:

• to be: thou art (or thou beest), thou wast (or thou wert; originally thou were)
• to have: thou hast, thou hadst
• to do: thou dost (or thou doest in non-auxiliary use) and thou didst
• shall: thou shalt
• will: thou wilt

A few others are not inflected:

• must: thou must

In Proto-English^{[clarification needed]}, the second-person singular verb inflection was -es. This came down unchanged^{[citation needed]} from Indo-European and can be seen in quite distantly related Indo-European languages: Russian знаешь, znayesh, thou knowest; Latin amas, thou lovest. (This is parallel to the history of the third-person form, in Old English -eþ, Russian, знает, znayet, he knoweth, Latin amat he loveth.) The anomalous development^{[according to whom?]} from -es to modern English -est, which took place separately at around the same time in the closely related German and West Frisian languages, is understood to be caused by an assimilation of the consonant of the pronoun, which often followed the verb. This is most readily observed in German: liebes du → liebstu → liebst du (lovest thou).^[8]

Comparison[edit]

Early Modern English	Modern West Frisian	Modern German	Modern Dutch	Modern English
Thou hast	Do hast [dou ˈhast]	Du hast [duː ˈhast]	Jij hebt [jɛɪ ˈɦɛpt]	You have
She hath	Sy hat [sɛi ˈhat]	Sie hat [ziː ˈhat]	Zij heeft [zɛɪ ˈɦeft]	She has
What hast thou?	Wat hasto? [vat ˈhasto]	Was hast du? [vas ˈhast duː]	Wat heb je? [ʋɑt ˈɦɛp jə]	What do you have? (What have you?)
What hath she?	Wat hat sy? [vat ˈhat sɛi]	Was hat sie? [vas ˈhat ziː]	Wat heeft zij? [ʋɑt ˈɦeft zɛɪ]	What does she have? (What has she?)
Thou goest	Do giest [dou ˈɡiəst]	Du gehst [duː ˈɡeːst]	Jij gaat [jɛɪ ˈxat]	You go
Thou doest	Do dochst [dou ˈdoχst]	Du tust [duː ˈtuːst]	Jij doet [jɛɪ ˈdut]	You do
Thou art (variant thou beest)	Do bist [dou ˈbɪst]	Du bist [duː ˈbɪst]	Jij bent [jɛɪ ˈbɛnt]	You are

In Dutch, the equivalent of «thou», du, also became archaic and fell out of use and was replaced by the Dutch equivalent of «you», gij (later jij or u), just as it has in English, with the place of the informal plural taken by jullie (compare English y’all).

In the subjunctive and imperative moods, the ending in -(e)st is dropped (although it is generally retained in thou wert, the second-person singular past subjunctive of the verb to be). The subjunctive forms are used when a statement is doubtful or contrary to fact; as such, they frequently occur after if and the poetic and.

If thou be Johan, I tell it thee, right with a good advice …;^[9]

Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart …^[10]

I do wish thou wert a dog, that I might love thee something …^[11]

And thou bring Alexander and his paramour before the Emperor, I’ll be Actaeon …^[12]

O WERT thou in the cauld blast, … I’d shelter thee …^[13]

In modern regional English dialects that use thou or some variant, such as in Yorkshire and Lancashire, it often takes the third person form of the verb -s. This comes from a merging of Early Modern English second person singular ending -st and third person singular ending -s into -s (the latter a northern variation of -þ (-th)).

The present indicative form art («þu eart«) goes back to West Saxon Old English (see OED s.v. be IV.18) and eventually became standard, even in the south (e.g. in Shakespeare and the Bible). For its influence also from the North, cf. Icelandic þú ert. The preterite indicative of be is generally thou wast.^{[citation needed]}

Etymology[edit]

Thou originates from Old English þū, and ultimately via Grimm’s law from the Proto-Indo-European *tu, with the expected Germanic vowel lengthening in accented monosyllabic words with an open syllable. Thou is therefore cognate with Icelandic and Old Norse þú, German and Continental Scandinavian du, Latin and all major Romance languages, Irish, Kurdish, Lithuanian and Latvian tu or tú, Greek σύ (sy), Slavic ты / ty or ти / ti, Armenian դու (dow/du), Hindi तू (tū), Bengali: তুই (tui), Persian تُو (to) and Sanskrit त्वम् (tvam). A cognate form of this pronoun exists in almost every other Indo-European language.^[14]

History[edit]

Old and Middle English[edit]

In Old English, thou was governed by a simple rule: thou addressed one person, and ye more than one. Beginning in the 1300s thou was gradually replaced by the plural ye as the form of address for a superior person and later for an equal. For a long time, however, thou remained the most common form for addressing an inferior person.^[3]

The practice of matching singular and plural forms with informal and formal connotations is called the T–V distinction and in English is largely due to the influence of French. This began with the practice of addressing kings and other aristocrats in the plural. Eventually, this was generalized, as in French, to address any social superior or stranger with a plural pronoun, which was felt to be more polite. In French, tu was eventually considered either intimate or condescending (and to a stranger, potentially insulting), while the plural form vous was reserved and formal.^{[citation needed]}

General decline in Early Modern English[edit]

Fairly suddenly in the 17th century, thou began to decline in the standard language (that is, particularly in and around London), often regarded as impolite or ambiguous in terms of politeness. It persisted, sometimes in an altered form, particularly in regional dialects of England and Scotland farther from London,^[4] as well as in the language of such religious groups as the Society of Friends. Reasons commonly maintained by modern linguists as to the decline of thou in the 17th century include the increasing identification of you with «polite society» and the uncertainty of using thou for inferiors versus you for superiors (with you being the safer default) amidst the rise of a new middle class.^[15]

In the 18th century, Samuel Johnson, in A Grammar of the English Tongue, wrote: «in the language of ceremony … the second person plural is used for the second person singular», implying that thou was still in everyday familiar use for the second-person singular, while you could be used for the same grammatical person, but only for formal contexts. However, Samuel Johnson himself was born and raised not in the south of England, but in the West Midlands (specifically, Lichfield, Staffordshire), where the usage of thou persists until the present day (see below), so it is not surprising that he would consider it entirely ordinary and describe it as such. By contrast, for most speakers of southern British English, thou had already fallen out of everyday use, even in familiar speech, by sometime around 1650.^[16] Thou persisted in a number of religious, literary and regional contexts, and those pockets of continued use of the pronoun tended to undermine the obsolescence of the T–V distinction.

One notable consequence of the decline in use of the second person singular pronouns thou, thy, and thee is the obfuscation of certain sociocultural elements of Early Modern English texts, such as many character interactions in Shakespeare’s plays, which were mostly written from 1589 to 1613. Although Shakespeare is far from consistent in his writings, his characters primarily tend to use thou (rather than you) when addressing another who is a social subordinate, a close friend or family member, or a hated wrongdoer.^[17]

Usage[edit]

Use as a verb[edit]

Many European languages contain verbs meaning «to address with the informal pronoun», such as German duzen, the Norwegian noun dus refers to the practice of using this familiar form of address instead of the De/Dem/Deres formal forms in common use, French tutoyer, Spanish tutear, Swedish dua, Dutch jijen en jouen, Ukrainian тикати (tykaty), Russian тыкать (tykat’), Polish tykać, Romanian tutui, Hungarian tegezni, Finnish sinutella, etc. Although uncommon in English, the usage did appear, such as at the trial of Sir Walter Raleigh in 1603, when Sir Edward Coke, prosecuting for the Crown, reportedly sought to insult Raleigh by saying,

I thou thee, thou traitor!^[18]

In modern English: I «thou» you, you traitor!

here using thou as a verb meaning to call (someone) «thou» or «thee». Although the practice never took root in Standard English, it occurs in dialectal speech in the north of England. A formerly common refrain in Yorkshire dialect for admonishing children who misused the familiar form was:

Don’t thee tha them as thas thee!

In modern English: Don’t you «tha» those who «tha» you!

In other words: Don’t use the familiar form «tha» towards those who refer to you as «tha». («tha» being the local dialectal variant of «thou»)

And similar in Lancashire dialect:

Don’t thee me, thee; I’s you to thee!

In standard English: Don’t «thee» me, you! I’m «you» to you!

See further the Wiktionary page on thou as a verb.

Religious uses[edit]

Christianity[edit]

Many conservative Christians use «Thee, Thou, Thy and Thine when addressing God» in prayer; in the Plymouth Brethren catechism Gathering Unto His Name, Norman Crawford explains the practice:^[5]

The English language does contain reverential and respectful forms of the second person pronoun which allow us to show reverence in speaking to God. It has been a very long tradition that these reverential forms are used in prayer. In a day of irreverence, how good to display in every way that we can that «He (God) is not a man as I am» (Job 9:32).^[5]

When referring to God, «thou» (as with other pronouns) is often capitalized, e.g. «For Thou hast delivered my soul from death» (Psalm 56:12–13).^[19][20][21]

As William Tyndale translated the Bible into English in the early 16th century, he preserved the singular and plural distinctions that he found in his Hebrew and Greek originals. He used thou for the singular and ye for the plural regardless of the relative status of the speaker and the addressee. Tyndale’s usage was standard for the period and mirrored that found in the earlier Wycliffe’s Bible and the later King James Bible. But as the use of thou in non-dialect English began to decline in the 18th century,^[22] its meaning nonetheless remained familiar from the widespread use of the latter translation.^[23] The Revised Standard Version of the Bible, which first appeared in 1946, retained the pronoun thou exclusively to address God, using you in other places. This was done to preserve the tone, at once intimate and reverent, that would be familiar to those who knew the King James Version and read the Psalms and similar text in devotional use.^[24] The New American Standard Bible (1971) made the same decision, but the revision of 1995 (New American Standard Bible, Updated edition) reversed it. Similarly, the 1989 Revised English Bible dropped all forms of thou that had appeared in the earlier New English Bible (1970). The New Revised Standard Version (1989) omits thou entirely and claims that it is incongruous and contrary to the original intent of the use of thou in Bible translation to adopt a distinctive pronoun to address the Deity.^[25]

The 1662 Book of Common Prayer, which is still an authorized form of worship in the Church of England and much of the Anglican Communion, also uses the word thou to refer to the singular second person.^{[26][improper synthesis?]}

Quakers traditionally used thee as an ordinary pronoun as part of their testimony of simplicity—a practice continued by certain Conservative Friends;^[27] the stereotype has them saying thee for both nominative and accusative cases.^[28] This was started at the beginning of the Quaker movement by George Fox, who called it «plain speaking», as an attempt to preserve the egalitarian familiarity associated with the pronoun. Most Quakers have abandoned this usage. At its beginning, the Quaker movement was particularly strong in the northwestern areas of England and particularly in the north Midlands area. The preservation of thee in Quaker speech may relate to this history.^[29] Modern Quakers who choose to use this manner of «plain speaking» often use the «thee» form without any corresponding change in verb form, for example, is thee or was thee.^[30]

In Latter-day Saint prayer tradition, the terms «thee» and «thou» are always and exclusively used to address God, as a mark of respect.^[31]

Islam and Baháʼí Faith[edit]

In many of the Quranic translations, particularly those compiled by the Ahmadiyya, the terms thou and thee are used. One particular example is The Holy Quran — Arabic Text and English translation, translated by Maulvi Sher Ali.^[32]

In the English translations of the scripture of the Baháʼí Faith, the terms thou and thee are also used. Shoghi Effendi, the head of the religion in the first half of the 20th century, adopted a style that was somewhat removed from everyday discourse when translating the texts from their original Arabic or Persian to capture some of the poetic and metaphorical nature of the text in the original languages and to convey the idea that the text was to be considered holy.^[33]

Literary uses[edit]

Shakespeare[edit]

Like his contemporaries William Shakespeare uses thou both in the intimate, French-style sense, and also to emphasize differences of rank, but he is by no means consistent in using the word, and friends and lovers sometimes call each other ye or you as often as they call each other thou,^[34][35][36] sometimes in ways that can be analysed for meaning, but often apparently at random.

For example, in the following passage from Henry IV, Shakespeare has Falstaff use both forms with Henry. Initially using «you» in confusion on waking he then switches to a comfortable and intimate «thou».

Prince: Thou art so fat-witted with drinking of old sack, and unbuttoning thee after supper, and sleeping upon benches after noon, that thou hast forgotten to demand that truly which thou wouldest truly know. What a devil hast thou to do with the time of the day? …

Falstaff: Indeed, you come near me now, Hal … And, I prithee, sweet wag, when thou art a king, as God save thy Grace – Majesty, I should say; for grace thou wilt have none –

While in Hamlet, Shakespeare uses discordant second person pronouns to express Hamlet’s antagonism towards his mother.

Queen Gertrude: Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended..

Hamlet: Mother, you have my father much offended.

More recent uses[edit]

Except where everyday use survives in some regions of England,^[37] the air of informal familiarity once suggested by the use of thou has disappeared; it is used often for the opposite effect with solemn ritual occasions, in readings from the King James Bible, in Shakespeare and in formal literary compositions that intentionally seek to echo these older styles. Since becoming obsolete in most dialects of spoken English, it has nevertheless been used by more recent writers to address exalted beings such as God,^[38] a skylark,^[39] Achilles,^[40] and even The Mighty Thor.^[41] In The Empire Strikes Back, Darth Vader addresses the Emperor with the words: «What is thy bidding, my master?» In Leonard Cohen’s song «Bird on the Wire», he promises his beloved that he will reform, saying «I will make it all up to thee.» In Diana Ross’s song, «Upside Down», (written by Chic’s Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards) there is the lyric «Respectfully I say to thee I’m aware that you’re cheatin’.» In «Will You Be There», Michael Jackson sings, «Hold me / Like the River Jordan / And I will then say to thee / You are my friend.» Notably, both Ross’s and Jackson’s lyrics combine thee with the usual form you.

The converse—the use of the second person singular ending -est for the third person—also occurs («So sayest Thor!»―spoken by Thor). This usage often shows up in modern parody and pastiche^[42] in an attempt to make speech appear either archaic or formal. The forms thou and thee are often transposed.

Current usage[edit]

You is now the standard English second-person pronoun and encompasses both the singular and plural senses. In some dialects, however, thou has persisted,^[43] and in others thou is retained for poetic and/or literary use. Further, in others the vacuum created by the loss of a distinction has led to the creation of new forms of the second-person plural, such as y’all in the Southern United States or yous by some Australians and heard in what are generally considered working class dialects in and near cities in the northeastern United States. The forms vary across the English-speaking world and between literature and the spoken language.^[44] It also survives as a fossil word in the commonly-used phrase «holier-than-thou».^[45]

Persistence of second-person singular[edit]

In traditional dialects, thou is used in the counties of Cumberland, Westmorland, Durham, Lancashire, Yorkshire, Staffordshire, Derbyshire and some western parts of Nottinghamshire.^[46] Such dialects normally also preserve distinct verb forms for the singular second person, for example thee coost (standard English: you could, archaic: thou couldst) in northern Staffordshire. The word thee is used in the East Shropshire dialect which is now largely confined to the Dawley area of Telford and referred to as the Dawley dialect.^[47] Throughout rural Yorkshire, the old distinction between nominative and objective is preserved.^{[citation needed]} The possessive is often written as thy in local dialect writings, but is pronounced as an unstressed tha, and the possessive pronoun has in modern usage almost exclusively followed other English dialects in becoming yours or the local^[specify] word your’n (from your one):^{[citation needed]}

		Nominative	Objective	Genitive	Possessive
Second person	singular	tha	thee	thy (tha)	yours / your’n

The apparent incongruity between the archaic nominative, objective and genitive forms of this pronoun on the one hand and the modern possessive form on the other may be a signal that the linguistic drift of Yorkshire dialect is causing tha to fall into disuse; however, a measure of local pride in the dialect may be counteracting this.

Some other variants are specific to certain areas. In Sheffield, the pronunciation of the word was somewhere in between a /d/ and a /th/ sound, with the tongue at the bottom of the mouth; this led to the nickname of the «dee-dahs» for people from Sheffield. In Lancashire and West Yorkshire, ta was used as an unstressed shortening of thou, which can be found in the song «On Ilkla Moor Baht ‘at». These variants are no longer in use.

In rural North Lancashire between Lancaster and the North Yorkshire border tha is preserved in colloquial phrases such as «What would tha like for thi tea?» (What would you like for your dinner), and «‘appen tha waint» («perhaps you won’t» – happen being the dialect word for perhaps) and «tha knows» (you know). This usage in Lancashire is becoming rare, except for elderly and rural speakers.

A well-known routine by comedian Peter Kay, from Bolton, Greater Manchester (historically in Lancashire), features the phrase «Has tha nowt moist?”^[48]
(Have you got nothing moist?).

The use of the word «thee» in the song «I Predict a Riot» by Leeds band Kaiser Chiefs («Watching the people get lairy / is not very pretty, I tell thee») caused some comment^[49] by people who were unaware that the word is still in use in the Yorkshire dialect.

The word «thee» is also used in the song Upside Down «Respectfully, I say to thee / I’m aware that you’re cheating».^[50]

The use of the phrase «tha knows» has been widely used in various songs by Arctic Monkeys, a popular band from High Green, a suburb of Sheffield. Alex Turner, the band’s lead singer, has also often replaced words with «tha knows» during live versions of the songs.

The use persists somewhat in the West Country dialects, albeit somewhat affected. Some of the Wurzels songs include «Drink Up Thy Zider» and «Sniff Up Thy Snuff».^[51]

Thoo has also been used in the Orcadian Scots dialect in place of the singular informal thou. In Shetland dialect, the other form of Insular Scots, du and dee are used. The word «thou» has been reported in the North Northern Scots Cromarty dialect as being in common use in the first half of the 20th century and by the time of its extinction only in occasional use.^[52]

Use in cinema[edit]

The word thou can occasionally be heard in films recorded in certain English dialect. In Ken Loach’s films Kes, The Price of Coal and Looks and Smiles, the word is used frequently in the dialogue. It is used occasionally, but much less frequently, in the 1963 film This Sporting Life.

In the 2018 film Peterloo, the word is used by many of the working-class characters in Lancashire, including Samuel Bamford.^{[citation needed]}

See also[edit]

• T–V distinction

Citations[edit]

General and cited references[edit]

• Baugh, Albert C. and Thomas Cable. A History of the English Language, 5th ed. ISBN 0-13-015166-1
• Burrow, J. A., Turville-Petre, Thorlac. A Book of Middle English. ISBN 0-631-19353-7
• Daniel, David. The Bible in English: Its History and Influence. ISBN 0-300-09930-4.
• Shorrocks, Graham (1992). «Case Assignment in Simple and Coordinate Constructions in Present-Day English». American Speech. 67 (4): 432–444. doi:10.2307/455850. JSTOR 455850.
• Smith, Jeremy. A Historical Study of English: Form, Function, and Change. ISBN 0-415-13272-X
• «Thou, pers. pron., 2nd sing.» Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. (1989). Oxford English Dictionary.
• Trudgill, Peter. (1999) Blackwell Publishing. Dialects of England. ISBN 0-631-21815-7

Further reading[edit]

• Brown, Roger and Gilman, Albert. The Pronouns of Power and Solidarity, 1960, reprinted in: Sociolinguistics: the Essential Readings, Wiley-Blackwell, 2003, ISBN 0-631-22717-2, 978-0-631-22717-5
• Byrne, St. Geraldine. Shakespeare’s use of the pronoun of address: its significance in characterization and motivation, Catholic University of America, 1936 (reprinted Haskell House, 1970) OCLC 2560278.
• Quirk, Raymond. Shakespeare and the English Language, in Kenneth Muir and Sam Schoenbaum, eds, A New Companion to Shakespeare Studies*, 1971, Cambridge UP
• Wales, Katie. Personal Pronouns in Present-Day English. ISBN 0-521-47102-8
• Walker, Terry. Thou and you in early modern English dialogues: trials, depositions, and drama comedy, John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2007, ISBN 90-272-5401-X, 9789027254016

External links[edit]

• A Grammar of the English Tongue by Samuel Johnson – includes description of 18th century use
• Contemporary use of thou in Yorkshire
• Thou: The Maven’s Word of the Day
• You/Thou in Shakespeare’s Work (archived forum discussion)
• A Note on Shakespeare’s Grammar by Seamus Cooney
• The Language of Formal Prayer by Don E. Norton, Jr. — LDS

How to Better Understand Shakespeare’s Words

No More Shakespearaphobia

Updated on August 18, 2019

For many, language is the biggest barrier to understanding Shakespeare. Perfectly competent performers can be paralyzed with fear when they see bizarre words like “Methinks” and “Peradventure” – something we call Shakespearaphobia.

As a way of trying to counter this natural anxiety, we often begin by telling new students or performers that speaking Shakespeare aloud isn’t like learning a new language –it’s more like listening to a strong accent and your ear soon adjusts to the new dialect. Very soon you are able to understand most of what is said.

Even if you are confused about some words and phrases, you should still be able to pick up meaning from the context and the visual signals you receive from the speaker.

Watch how quickly children pick up accents and new language when on holiday. This is evidence of how adaptable we are to new ways of speaking. The same is true of Shakespeare and the best antidote for Shakespearaphobia is to sit back, relax and listen to the text spoken and performed.

Modern Translations at a Glance

Here are modern translations of the top 10 most common Shakespearian words and phrases.

1. Thee, Thou, Thy and Thine (You and Your)
   It’s a common myth that Shakespeare never uses the words “you” and “your” – actually, these words are commonplace in his plays. However, he also uses the words “thee / thou” instead of “you” and the word “thy / thine” instead of “your”. Sometimes he uses both “you” and “thy” in the same speech. This is simply because in Tudor England the older generation said “thee” and “thy” to denote a status or reverence for authority. Therefore when addressing a king the older “thou” and “thy” would be used, leaving the newer “you” and “your” for more informal occasions. Soon after Shakespeare’s lifetime, the older form passed away!
2. Art (Are)
   The same is true of “art”, meaning “are”. So a sentence beginning “thou art” simply means “You are”.
3. Ay (Yes)
   “Ay” simply means “yes”. So, “Ay, My Lady” simply means “Yes, My Lady.”
4. Would (Wish)
   Although the word “wish” does appear in Shakespeare, like when Romeo says “I wish I were a cheek upon that hand,” we often find “would” used instead. For example, “I would I were …” means “I wish I were…”
5. Give Me Leave To (Allow Me To)
   “To give me leave to”, simply means “To allow me to”.
6. Alas (Unfortunately)
   “Alas” is a very common word that isn’t used today. It simply means “unfortunately”, but in modern English, there isn’t an exact equivalent.
7. Adieu (Goodbye)
   “Adieu” simply means “Goodbye”.
8. Sirrah (Sir)
   “Sirrah” means “Sir” or “Mister”.
9. -eth
   Sometimes the endings of Shakespearian words sound alien even though the root of the word is familiar. For example “speaketh” simply means “speak” and “sayeth” means “say”.
10. Don’t, Do, and Did
    A key absence from Shakespearian English is “don’t”. This word simply wasn’t around then. So, if you said “don’t be afraid” to a friend in Tudor England, you would have said, “be not afeard.” Where today we would say “don’t hurt me,” Shakespeare would have said, “hurt me not.” The words “do” and “did” were also uncommon, so rather than saying “what did he look like?” Shakespeare would have said, “what looked he like?” And instead of “did she stay long?” Shakespeare would have said, “stayed she long?” This difference accounts for the unfamiliar word order in some Shakespearian sentences.

It is important to note that when Shakespeare was alive, language was in a state of flux and many modern words were being integrated into the language for the first time. Shakespeare himself coined many new words and phrases. Shakespeare’s language is, therefore, a mixture of the old and the new.

Want to know all about the words Shakespeare invented? We’ve got you covered.

In all of his works – the plays, the sonnets and the narrative poems – Shakespeare uses 17,677 different words.

How Many Words Did Shakespeare Invent?

Across all of his written works, it’s estimated that words invented by Shakespeare number as many as 1,700. We say these are words invented by Shakespeare , though in reality many of these 1,700 words would likely have been in common use during the Elizabethan and Jacobean era, just not written down prior to Shakespeare using them in his plays, sonnets and poems. In these cases Shakespeare would have been the first known person to document these words in writing.

Historian Jonathan Hope also points out that Victorian scholars who read texts for the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary read Shakespeare’s texts more thoroughly than most, and cited him more often, meaning Shakespeare is often credited with the first use of words which can be found in other writers.

Examples Of Commonly Used Words Shakespeare Created

It is Shakespeare who is credited with creating the below list of words that we still use in our daily speech – some of them frequently.

accommodation

aerial

amazement

apostrophe

assassination

auspicious

baseless

bloody

bump

castigate

changeful

clangor

control (noun)

countless

courtship

critic

critical

dexterously

dishearten

dislocate

dwindle

eventful

exposure

fitful

frugal

generous

gloomy

gnarled

hurry

impartial

inauspicious

indistinguishable

invulnerable

lapse

laughable

lonely

majestic

misplaced

monumental

multitudinous

obscene

palmy

perusal

pious

premeditated

radiance

reliance

road

sanctimonious

seamy

sportive

submerge

suspicious

Along with these everyday words invented by Shakespeare, he also created a number of words in his plays that never quite caught on in the same way… Shakespearean words like ‘Armgaunt’, ‘Eftes’, ‘Impeticos’, ‘Insisture’, ‘Pajock’, ‘Pioned’ ‘Ribaudred’ and ‘Wappened’. We do have some ideas as to what these words may mean, though much is guesswork. Watch the video below for more insight into words Shakespeare invented that have been lost in the mists of time:

And it wasn’t just words that Shakespeare created, documented, or brought into common usage – he also put words together and created a host of new phrases. Read all about the phrases that Shakespeare invented here. And see our complete Shakespeare dictionary, which lists hundreds of commonly used Shakespeare’s words that arent; so common today, along with a simple definition.

Shakespeare words – see handwritten phrases and words Shakespeare invented