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Y, Ye, and Yo | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| chaotic_thought Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 3540 days ago 129 posts - 274 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: Dutch, French | Message 9 of 15 30 March 2015 at 2:34pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Not sure what this concept of "real-wordness" means. I always categorized such words as interjections. How is "Yo!" when used as an interjection any less wordful than Lo!, Ah!, Aaaw..., Oh!, Ow!, Oww..., Wo!, Ho!, Woo!, Uh..., Uh-oh, Yoo-hoo, etc. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Elexi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5563 days ago 938 posts - 1840 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 10 of 15 30 March 2015 at 4:53pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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The use of the thorn letter to mean 'th' does not originate with typefaces - it was a
standard Middle English and early modern scribal abbreviation that transformed over time from a thorn (= þ) to a Y and then found its way into printed texts like the King James Bible (Ye = the, Yt = that). As to the 'thee/thou' and 'you' distinction - apparently, at least according to historical linguists, the singular second person pronoun 'thee/thou' and the second person plural pronoun 'you' didn't start being used as markers of informal and formal address until around the early sixteenth century. The speculation is that this usage arose in imitation to the French 'tu/vous' distinction. An example of the relative newness of the distinction can be seen in when the radical religious group the Quakers emerged in the mid 1650s. Quakers insisted on using the 'thee/thou' form as an act of linguistic resistance against the hierarchical connotations of 'you'. The wealthy London Quaker convert Mary Pennington wrote that before her conversion wrote that she had heard of Quakers in the north of England that used 'thee and thou' instead of 'you' and thought it a ridiculous affectation. After her conversion she adopted the 'thee' and 'thou' as an example of 'plain' speaking. As I understand it, Yo is what rappers say to each other in the 'hood. Edited by Elexi on 06 April 2015 at 2:02pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5224 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 11 of 15 06 April 2015 at 2:23am | IP Logged | ||||||||
There's also "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen" which makes it pretty clear.
Sometimes different stories are better told the same day (: "Yo" means "I" in Spanish, so it's a personal pronoun and not an interjection like it is in English. As for implying interjections are "not real words", I wouldn't agree if I put my stickler hat on, but I'm just not in the mood for that :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Elexi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5563 days ago 938 posts - 1840 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 12 of 15 06 April 2015 at 2:00pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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'ye' is in Middle English the nominative second person plural pronoun, but the 'ye' in
eighteenth century carols like 'God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen' and 'Come all ye faithful' (a rendering of 'adeste fideles' from the Latin original) are self conscious archaisms. One possible meaning of 'Yo' in late medieval and early modern scribal hand is a contraction of 'Your'. Normally there would a superscript 'r' after it, but not always. However, it would never be used in speech. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5224 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 13 of 15 06 April 2015 at 9:47pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
How interesting! I just checked and the first printed version of "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen" seems to be from around 1760. Do you know when 'ye' fell into disuse, then (or the other forms, for that matter)? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| tomgosse Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 3990 days ago 90 posts - 143 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 14 of 15 07 April 2015 at 3:46pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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My father, who was from Newfoundland, always used ye as the second person plural.
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| Henkkles Triglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4251 days ago 544 posts - 1141 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English, Swedish Studies: Russian | Message 15 of 15 09 April 2015 at 11:57am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Here's the pattern for all you interested
nominative: I; objective: me nominative: he; objective: him nominative: she; objective: her nominative: thou; objective: thee nominative: ye; objective: you 1 person has voted this message useful |
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