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Some languages which have a T-V distinction in the 2nd person pronouns also have verbs that mean "use X pronoun when addressing me". For example, French tutoie-moi "use tu when addressing me". My question is, of the languages that have verbs like this, how are they formed? I can't seem to find anything that explains their etymology.

Well, tutoyer is obviously from tu and toi.

Tutoyer comes from tu + the verbal suffix -oyer. The origin of the intermediate -t- is debated, but it's probably epenthetic. Might be from analogy with toi, though.
Its counterpart Vouvoyer was formed from the earlier voussoyer, (vous + oyer) by analogy.

Oh. Mea culpa.

Swedish has dua and nia from the nominative of you (sg) and you (pl), with a relatively semantically bleached verbal suffix -a added.

Finnish has sinutella ja teititellä. These also come from the pronouns - but in this case, not from the nominative but from the oblique stem sinu-/teit-. The sg. could be from the accusative (sinut), but I doubt it - the plural is not (teidät), and it too has an extra -t- in there.

-ella/-ellä has a sort of habitual aspectual kind of meaning to it.

Cool, thanks everyone.

German verbs of this sort are formed from the pronoun plus the verb suffix -zen, i.e. duzen, siezen, ihrzen, etc. I can't really explain the origin of the -z- as no other derived verbs with this formant come to mind.

Spanish and Catalan tutear/vosear bzw. tutejar/vosejar parallel French. (At least in the case of tutejar, Catalan lexicographical authorities call this a calque on tutoyer.) Ustedear and vostejar have been coined by analogy but are not found in dictionaries.

Edit: Kluge has this to say: "-z(en) Suffix zur Bildung von Verben. Mhd. -(e)-zen, ahd. -azzen aus g. *-at-ja-, auch in gt. -atja-, anord. -ta, ae. -ettan. Häufig in Ableitungen von Interjektionen wie ächzen."

Frankly, I can't think of any other "derivations from interjections" which use this suffix except perhaps schluchzen or juchzen/jauchzen. At the very least, it doesn't seem productive.

In Dutch, the informal pronoun is 'je' [jə] (stressed: 'jij' [jɛɪ]), and the formal pronoun is 'u' [y]. Dutch uses the French loans tutoyeren and vousvoyeren in official speak (there is no such thing as *jijen or *uën, though there's an idiomatic expression 'geje en -jij' in spoken language), but most of the time one would say:

"Zeg maar 'je' hoor."
Say "je".

(I can't really translate 'maar and 'hoor' because they are nothing but particles that are used to 'soften' imperatives. With those particles, you can use imperatives without any problem)

"Hou eens op met dat geje en -jij."
Stop with that 'je' and 'jij'.

Ik wens te worden aangesproken met 'u'.
I wish to be talked to with 'u'.

The pronoun 'ge/gij' is extremely archaïc and only used in Flemish Dutch. It is usually even less polite than 'je/jij', except when used in church; there it used in context with God. More modern churches use 'u' for that.

sirdanilot wrote:In Dutch, the informal pronoun is 'je' [jə] (stressed: 'jij' [jɛɪ]), and the formal pronoun is 'u' [y]. Dutch uses the French loans tutoyeren and vousvoyeren in official speak (there is no such thing as *jijen or *uën, though there's an idiomatic expression 'geje en -jij' in spoken language), but most of the time one would say:

"Zeg maar 'je' hoor."
Say "je".

(I can't really translate 'maar and 'hoor' because they are nothing but particles that are used to 'soften' imperatives. With those particles, you can use imperatives without any problem)

"Hou eens op met dat geje en -jij."
Stop with that 'je' and 'jij'.

Ik wens te worden aangesproken met 'u'.
I wish to be talked to with 'u'.

The pronoun 'ge/gij' is extremely archaïc and only used in Flemish Dutch. It is usually even less polite than 'je/jij', except when used in church; there it used in context with God. More modern churches use 'u' for that.

I've never heard "geje" -- I'm used to hearing "jijen en jouwen", which is generally said when you're not happy with somebody's informal way of addressing you. Something that doesn't happen very often any more, nowadays.

"ge/gij" is equal to "je/jij" in Flanders and is in no way seen as archaic or impolite. I know that you didn't claim that, but I'm just clarifying. In the Netherlands "ge/gij" is never heard except in historical writing. I never thought of "gij/ge" as impolite, though. If somebody (with a Dutch accent) would address me with "gij", I'd be shocked by the high level of formality, but I'd never be offended.

Huh, Russian seems kind of boring in this regard. Давай перейдём на «ты» "Let's cross/switch to "ты".

Matt wrote:Huh, Russian seems kind of boring in this regard. Давай перейдём на «ты» "Let's cross/switch to "ты".

That's how you might ask someone to switch, but Russian does have dedicated verbs as well: тыкать tykat' "use ты, be familiar with, treat too familiarly" and выкать vykat' "use вы, be on formal terms with". The roots of these two verbs, *tyk- and *vyk-, just consist of the pronouns plus an epenthetic -k- (which is often used to turn onomatopoeic terms into verbs, e.g., гав gav "woof (the sound a dog makes)" > гавкать gavkat' "bark, speak rudely/curtly").

Perhaps oddly, Polish doesn't seem to possess such verbs so that you have to resort to more complex expressions like "być na ty" be on informal-2sg or "mówić per pan" speak per formal-2sg (oh yeah, additionally with a borrowed Latin preposition).

din wrote:
I've never heard "geje" -- I'm used to hearing "jijen en jouwen", which is generally said when you're not happy with somebody's informal way of addressing you. Something that doesn't happen very often any more, nowadays.

Are you from Belgium? Though come to think of it, I could imagine 'jijen en jouwen'. In any case, it's not something you hear everyday.

"ge/gij" is equal to "je/jij" in Flanders and is in no way seen as archaic or impolite. I know that you didn't claim that, but I'm just clarifying. In the Netherlands "ge/gij" is never heard except in historical writing. I never thought of "gij/ge" as impolite, though. If somebody (with a Dutch accent) would address me with "gij", I'd be shocked by the high level of formality, but I'd never be offended.

I thought that in Flemish dialects, 'ge/gij' is less polite than 'je/jij', but I could be wrong. Perhaps it's more a distinction of familiarity than politeness; the doctor in the hospital in Ghent would even say 'u' to me when I was a child...
The Bible uses ge/gij (the older translations; modern ones use 'u') and it is seen in archaic texts, but other than that, nobody uses it in Hollandic Dutch.

why the hell is it spelt "Ghent" in english? it looks awful. i'm so sorry.

So that people don't pronounce it like gent(leman), i.e. /dʒɛnt/ ?

I would say it very likely is inspired by the historical pronunciation with [ɣ] (i.e. prior to any palatalization or devoicing) - compare with English ghost, whose spelling is inspired by the spelling of Middle Dutch gheest at the time the printing press was brought to England. Also note that classically the separator character used in these cases in English was u (e.g. the name of the historical county of Guelders, in Dutch Gelre and in Standard German Geldern, roughly corresponding to present-day Gelderland), rather than h, which makes it unlikely that the h was inserted merely as a separator.

While I can't comment on any origin, I can at least give data on four languages:

Faroese: While a T-V distinction is virtually non-existent, there are differing ways to expressing this.

at túa ein, at siga tú við ein = to 'tú' someone, to say 'tú' to someone (inf.)
at siga tygum við hvønn annan = to say 'tygum' to one another (form.)

Danish: Very similar to Faroese, but only one way for both:

at være dus med en = to be "'du'-saying" with someone (inf.)
at være Des med en = to be "'De'-saying" with someone (form.)

Slovak: Uses reflexive verbs derived from the pronouns themselves:

tykať si = saying 'ty' to one another (inf.)
vykať si = saying 'vy' to one another (form.)

Czech: Uses the same system as Slovak:

tykat si (inf.)
vykat si (form.)

can someone teach me the way to say it in japanese? (for the desu/masu forms rather than the european T/V distinction, obvs)

finlay wrote:can someone teach me the way to say it in japanese? (for the desu/masu forms rather than the european T/V distinction, obvs)

I think it's just "use keigo" or "say it with keigo", similarly for kenjougo and sonkeigo. (Mh, I tend to call -masu just "keigo" but I think it's more specifically teineigo) There wouldn't be a dedicated verb, Japanese verbs being closed-class and/or semi-light.

Can't really think straight right now though

Edit: I think people get more bothered by using the wrong name suffix; 呼び捨て <yobisute> lit. "call and throw away" is to (improperly) drop the suffix; people will say "don't call me by my [first] name" (<namae wo yo--> with appropriate suffixes for whichever negative imperative i'm too tired to type out) and so forth

Chibi wrote:So that people don't pronounce it like gent(leman), i.e. /dʒɛnt/ ?

There's Gillingham in Dorset /ˈɡɪlɪŋəm/ and Gillingham in Kent /ˈdʒɪlɪŋəm/.

Anyway, in German there's siezen and duzen, from Sie and du.

In this Victorian pornographic fiction*, the narrator says "I asked her to please use the familiar “thou” form with me, and to allow me to do the same with her.", but this seems rather affected as they both revert to "you" immediately after. It does show that it may have needed some explanation as it is explicitly described as familiar. The fact that it warranted marking as such suggests that it had already fallen out of written mesolect/standard English, along with any "formality shift" verbs associated with it.

I would guess it was probably only used in a communicating-with-God context "Hallowed be Thy Name", "Thou shalt not kill", in which there is obvious power-dissonance, but a tradition of referring to God as one would a close friend or confidant.


* I found it through Cracked or something, I don't go out looking for Victorian erotica. Too many moustaches.

Gulliver wrote:[In this Victorian pornographic fiction*, the narrator says "I asked her to please use the familiar “thou” form with me, and to allow me to do the same with her.", but this seems rather affected as they both revert to "you" immediately after. It does show that it may have needed some explanation as it is explicitly described as familiar. The fact that it warranted marking as such suggests that it had already fallen out of written mesolect/standard English, along with any "formality shift" verbs associated with it.

Did you not notice that the author is given as Guillaume Apollinaire, who was not strictly speaking Victorian (he first published during the Edwardian) and was raised speaking French, not English? The translator was trying his awkward best to find some equivalent for tutoyer.

Xiądz Faust wrote:Perhaps oddly, Polish doesn't seem to possess such verbs so that you have to resort to more complex expressions like "być na ty" be on informal-2sg or "mówić per pan" speak per formal-2sg (oh yeah, additionally with a borrowed Latin preposition).

There's tykać (się), which is more or less 'tutoyer'.

Przemysław wrote:

Xiądz Faust wrote:Perhaps oddly, Polish doesn't seem to possess such verbs so that you have to resort to more complex expressions like "być na ty" be on informal-2sg or "mówić per pan" speak per formal-2sg (oh yeah, additionally with a borrowed Latin preposition).

There's tykać (się), which is more or less 'tutoyer'.

Never heard that, which part of the country are you from?

I have seen 'thou' used as a verb.

YngNghymru wrote:I have seen 'thou' used as a verb.

OED wrote:thou v. To use the pronoun ‘thou’ to a person: familiarly, to an inferior, in contempt or insult, or as done (formerly universally, now less frequently) on principle by Quakers: cf. note to thou pron. 1a. Often in phr. to thou and thee , to thee and thou : cf. also thee v.²

OED wrote:you v. (trans.) to address (a person) by the pronoun you (instead of thou); intr. with it, to use the pronoun you repeatedly.