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Italian/German: formal "you" = "she" | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| indiana83 Groupie United States ipracticecanto.wordp Joined 5307 days ago 92 posts - 121 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Cantonese, Italian | Message 1 of 8 27 June 2010 at 1:01am | IP Logged | |||||
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I just started learning Italian and noticed the formal "you" is "Lei" and "she" is "lei". In German, the formal "you" is "Sie" and "she" is "sie".
I never thought this was strange when learning German, I had just thought it was a coincidence or that the two words were homophones. But now that I see the same pattern in Italian, I wonder if it is intentional? And the same doesn't hold true for French or Spanish, so this isn't a Romance-language thing? Did Italian borrow this pattern from German, or is it just a coincidence, and the words "you" and "she" just happen to be homophones in both languages? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Levi Pentaglot Senior Member United States Joined 5384 days ago 2268 posts - 3328 votes Speaks: English*, French, Esperanto, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Dutch, Portuguese, Mandarin, Japanese, Italian | Message 2 of 8 27 June 2010 at 2:52am | IP Logged | |||||
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Well, there is kind of a parallel with Spanish, in that Spanish also uses the third person to show politeness. "Sie sprechen" in German and "hablan" in Spanish are both ambiguous, meaning either "they speak" or "you (formal) speak" (formal plural in Spanish). Edited by Levi on 27 June 2010 at 2:55am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5583 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 3 of 8 27 June 2010 at 3:23am | IP Logged | |||||
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German: It's not 'she' it's 'they'.
This becomes obvious when you look at the verb tenses used with that form. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| indiana83 Groupie United States ipracticecanto.wordp Joined 5307 days ago 92 posts - 121 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Cantonese, Italian | Message 4 of 8 27 June 2010 at 4:04am | IP Logged | |||||
Oh, sorry, I misremembered then. I haven't studied German in five years. I can rephrase the question as: Why would two different pronouns be homophones? I know it doesn't matter that much, since within the context of a sentence you can determine based on the verb conjugations. But if you ask "who?" and someone just answers "sie" in German or "lei" in Italian without a verb, it leaves ambiguity, right? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| MäcØSŸ Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5626 days ago 259 posts - 392 votes Speaks: Italian*, EnglishC2 Studies: German | Message 5 of 8 27 June 2010 at 8:00am | IP Logged | |||||
“Lei” in Italian is not plural. The equivalent of “Sie” would be “Voi”, but it’s considered extremely formal and is almost never used. When speaking to a male, even if the subject is the formal “Lei” verbs and adjectives will be declined in masculine. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5270 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 6 of 8 27 June 2010 at 9:19am | IP Logged | |||||
Yes, it does. But, it's probably no more of a problem than the loss of thou and ye in English. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| atcprunner Pentaglot Newbie United States Joined 5744 days ago 17 posts - 17 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, French, Mandarin Studies: Russian | Message 7 of 8 11 December 2010 at 8:43pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I was pondering this myself once. So, we have... "you go" and "she goes"
Italian: "Lei va" "lei va" German: "Sie gehen" "sie geht" but in egyptian arabic i have noticed this: you go(speaking to a male) taruwah and "she goes" is the same. I don't know modern standard arabic, so I do not know if it is the same as Egypitan arabic. If anyone knows if about any hypothesis, or anything that could perhaps show a connection behind this, I would be happy to see it. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| cmj Octoglot Groupie Switzerland Joined 5155 days ago 58 posts - 191 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Ancient Greek, French, Arabic (classical), Latin, Italian | Message 8 of 8 12 December 2010 at 11:12am | IP Logged | |||||
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The reasons for these developments are complex, particularly in German, but I can give you a rough overview.
Originally in Latin, tu was always used in the singular while vos was used in the plural, no matter who you were talking to. In the late empire, for reasons that are not entirely clear, the emperors began to be addressed by "vos" as a mark of their authority. This use of vos then spread to cover other important figures, such as the pope, and then gradually trickled down to other layers of society. Vos was used between equals, or by less powerful people addressing more powerful ones, while tu was the form used inside families, among close friends, and by more powerful people addressing less powerful ones. Initially, this form was taken over by all the languages under discussion: French: tu/vous Spanish: tú/vos Italian: tu/voi German: du/ihr In French, the tu/vous distinction is, of course, still used today. In the other languages, a further change occurred. It became common, as mark of added respect, to address important people in the third person. I've read that, at least in German, this was specifically the result of "ihr" becoming too widespread and the need for an even more polite form to address very important people. In German "ihr" was supplemented and then largely supplanted by er and sie (plural, not sure why). Er quickly took a turn for the worse and became a term of abuse, while sie persevered to become the polite pronoun, with the s being capitalized as a mark of respect (which you used to do with the d of du as well, at least in correspondence). In Italian and Spanish a similar evolution occurred. So, for instance, in Spanish very important people were addressed as Vuestra Merced ("Your Grace", technically feminine) along with the accompanying third person forms: e.g. "Is your Grace hungry?" Vuestra Merced was shortened to Usted and so doesn't indicate on the surface that it was originally feminine. In Italian, however, a similar evolution occurred but "Lei" was simply taken a means of representing a range of titles, all feminine: signoria, maestà, altezza. As these forms spread, the vos forms began to disappear and in some cases, like in Spanish, took on bad connotations. In Arabic, there is no connection when it comes to the identity of the second-person masculine and third-person feminine present conjugations, but I believe that the use of the plural as a sign of respect (although not particularly used today, I don't think) is an import from the European languages (e.g. as-salam alaikum) Edited by cmj on 12 December 2010 at 11:18am 5 persons have voted this message useful |
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