Source
r/asklinguistics•
C_2000

Is English the only language that has gotten more formal over time, and, if so, why?

Historical

Many languages have codified rules for formal and informal speak, with specific ways to refer to the formal/informal "you" and "I" especially

but i've noticed that, more recent usage of 'formal' speak has declined. an example is how many younger Spanish speakers only use the informal tu compared to the formal usted. Similarly, in major cities Hindi speakers are preferring to use the informal tum and main compared to the formal aap or hum. English used to have an informal you with specific grammar rules, thou, but it has since become archaic and people prefer the formal you

the only case of english becoming more casual i can think of is how it has also dropped the royal we, while some other languages still use a formal plural-self

why did english become more formal, instead of more casual? Why are other languages doing the opposite? is english unique in this?

Posted Aug 8, 2022, 11:41 AM UTC

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LongLiveTheDiego•

Firstly, I would look at this the other way, other languages made their informal forms more formal, while English "deformalized" the pronoun you

There are languages that did the same as English, Dutch 2nd person singular je/jij/jou is a cognate of English ye/you and underwent a similar semantic change. The difference is that in Dutch a new 2nd person plural pronoun was created, jullie < jij + lui (people), analogous to English forms like you guys

14
ambidextrousalpaca•

Also, having different grades of second person pronouns is only one way of linguistically marking formality and status hierarchies, e.g. think of how differently you would write an emailed when applying for a job to how you would when sending an email to a close friend; there will probably be a load of different little formality and status markers in there even though the second person pronoun used will be "you" in both cases. So it's a bit of a stretch to say that a language is getting more or less formal just because of a change in the use of second person pronouns.

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alegxab•

Spanish went in two opposite ways

Ustedes which was more formal than vosotros completely replaced the latter in Latin America and vos took over the originally more informal tú in many countries.

Then vos became seen as more informal than tú in many dialects, which can even be seen in some residual aspects in the extremely vosente dialects of Argentina in the conjugation of the present subjunctive/negative imperative

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prst-•

German has two registers but used to have more. It's the most formal and the most informal that survived.

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ViscountBurrito•

I would argue it’s inherently less formal to flatten the distinction here, whichever way it goes. It’s just that in English, it happened to be the formerly more formal form that won out. But most modern English speakers, I think, would perceive someone who retains the T-V distinction, by using both thou and you, to be speaking quite formally.

BTW, in Latin American Spanish, at least as I was taught, the second person plural is Ustedes, regardless of formality of the group you’re addressing. So at least in that respect, the V (formal) form has partially won out in Spanish too.

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aku89•

Swedish went through a 'Du-reform' in the 60s when the formal Ni was dropped for the informal Du. It was a reform with the intention of levelling the hiarchy of the work place etc. Young people who dont have any recollection of this concept have begun to use a formal Ni in service minded businesses in attempt to be polite which older ppl might be taken aback by since its connotation with class society.

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araoro•

Ni was mostly used a bit distancingly towards those of lower class, while the real formal form of address was using titles in third person. That's why it feels odd.

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aku89•

Ah yeah, thats sounds right.

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xarsha_93•

The situation in Spanish is more complicated, many dialects adopted vos (originally plural and formal singular) as the informal singular, often losing tú (informal singular). Others rarely use tú or vos, they only use usted (the replacement formal singular).

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[deleted]•

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[deleted]•

To an English speaker “you” is neither formal or informal even though it came from a more formal word

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