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From: wald@zarquon.uchicago.edu (Kevin Wald)
Subject: Re: Thou vs you
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Date: Sat, 10 Feb 1996 19:48:38 GMT
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In article <4fg5hl$5ba@nnrp1.news.primenet.com>,
William W. Munsil  <wmunsil@primenet.com> wrote:
>It has been my contention that "thou" and "you"
>as well as "thee" and "ye" were originally the same word, respectively.
>Especially since "Y" was a "thorn".

This is not the case. The Old English second person pronouns (singular
and plural) were as follows (I'm using <th> for the letter "thorn"):

	   Nominative    Accusative      Dative     Genitive
Singular    <th>u       <th>e, <th>ec    <th>e       <th>in
Plural       ge             eow           eow         eower

The g in "ge" was pronounced like the y in "yellow"; the accusative/dative
and genitive plural forms acquired initial y-sounds later on (probably by
analogy with the nominative). Our "ye", "you", and "your" are the descendants
of "ge", "eow", and "eower", none of which has ever had a thorn in it;
"thou", "thee", and "thy/thine" are the descendants of "<th>u", "<th>e",
and "<th>in". (Note, by the way, that "thou" and "ye" are both nominative,
while "thee" and "you" are both accusative/dative -- the vowels don't match
up properly in any case.)  

However, "Ye" as in "Ye Olde Tchotchke Shoppe" *is* the same word as "the",
and for precisely the reason you describe -- the "y" there is a modified
thorn.

Kevin Wald              |  Hwaet saegest thu, yrthlingc?
wald@math.uchicago.edu  |    -- AElfric, _Colloquium Martianum_ 
