Where does "vos" come from?

Question

In some dialects of Spanish they use "vos" instead of "tú" and I'm just curious how this developed and where it came from. It obviously resembles "vosotros," so I was thinking that "vos" evolved from/as a shorter version to refer to the singular...? From what I know, "vos" and "vosotros" are not used in the same dialects, though; I believe that "vosotros is only used in Spain, and I know that "vos" is not used in Spain.

¡Gracias!

PS--If you learned Spanish in the US, don't you think they should have taught us this stuff? It doesn't seem like it would have been hard to learn the forms of "vos" and "vosotros," as long as they made it clear which dialects use which forms...

Answer 1

Phew, the history of Romance pronouns is complicated.

Actually, you should have asked "Where did usted come from?" because that is perhaps the less obvious question.

Many Indo-European languages have what's called the T-V distinction. This is the term that linguists use to refer to a difference in second-person pronoun forms, such as the difference in Spanish between tú and usted that you are already aware of. The letters T and V are used because of French, whose equivalent forms are "tu" (the "informal" form) and "vous" (the "formal" form) (I believe I have spelled these right). One thing I find so fascinating is how many changes can happen to these pronouns in language over the years.

I believe that historical Spanish had two forms, tú and vos. Vosotros would have been the "plural" equivalent of vos. I'm not sure if there was a plural equivalent of tú. Usted came about by the extension of a term that was only used for royalty. The phrase was originally "vuestra merced" (your mercy, your grace) which was used as a term of address for the king or queen. After a while this term was shortened to usted and used to address all people who were higher in status. I'm not sure whether vos fell out of fashion in Spain before or after usted was invented. Therefore, vos disappeared from Spain's Spanish, and usted came in, but vosotros was retained. Ustedes is an obvious pluralization of usted.

(I just consulted with a colleague who has a degree in Spanish linguistics, I believe, and she says that she thinks vos came from a singularization of vosotros, and that vos is older than tú, but she can't remember either. That would be consistent with eduarodi's answer above. So, check with somebody who knows about Spanish historical linguistics.)

American Spanish evolved from the dialects that were spoken by the conquistadors, so different changes have happened since then in the Americas then have happened in Spain. For one thing, as you know, vosotros has disappeared from American Spanish completely. In some dialects (Mexican Spanish, for example) tú is the informal form, and in some dialects (Argentinian Spanish, for example) vos is the informal form. It's even more complicated in some places where tú, vos, and usted are all used. I have heard reports of this from Guatemala, for example. In addition, the social situations where these pronouns are used varies from dialect to dialect. For example, in Mexico, immediate family members always call each other tú, as well as peers, but I've heard that in Colombia, parents and children call each other usted, and only peers of about the same age use tú. This should not be interpreted as "coldness" between parents and children, but simply that they are making their decision about pronoun use by age instead of intimacy. I am not completely familiar about how that decision is made in Guatemala, but I believe the tú/vos/usted decision is made by both intimacy and gender there.

I completely agree with you that Spanish teachers in the U.S. gloss over many differences between the dialects of Spanish. I am sure that they often do this for convenience. Actually, you might be surprised to know that many teachers teach the vosotros form. My first Spanish teacher didn't teach it, but she made a special point to mention that she wasn't, and she didn't prohibit us from learning it. Why do they gloss over the differences in the dialects? Perhaps those teachers who are aware of the dialectal differences are trying to make it easier for their students, or perhaps they aren't really aware. After all, many high-school Spanish teachers may not have actually spent time in a Spanish-speaking country, and if they did, they might not realize that there are dialectal differences unless they had traveled to places where other dialects are spoken. Finally, the teachers might just be scared to teach these sociolinguistic issues because they aren't too comfortable with them themselves. As a language teacher, I am aware of the problesm with teaching these kinds of things in the classroom, because there is so little opportunity for students to see authentic examples of these forms in actual use. However, I am also aware that some people won't want to listen to you if you make politeness mistakes, no matter how good the rest of your grammar is.

I actually learned Spanish using the Destinos program, which does address the pronoun issue, at least the tú/vos differences that are found in the Americas. (One of the main characters is Chicana, and another main character is from Argentina, giving the students the opportunity to listen to both tú and vos forms.)

I find it fascinating to find that changes so easily happen in something as fundamental as the pronoun system of a language. In fact, a similar thing happened in English. Originally, English also had a T-V distinction and the forms were "thou" (informal) and "you" (formal). However, over time, the T form was lost in basically all dialects, and we now just have you. People think that "thou" sounds old, so they now analyze it as sounding stuffy or distant, but it was actually the informal form originally. I believe that Quakers still have this distinction in their dialect of English, but basically no other native speakers of English still use it, unless they use it in religious contexts. Fascinating stuff, huh?

Additional (7/6/06)
One of my coworkers brought in a book on Spanish historical linguistics and we talked about it. If I can summarize what she said accurately, it goes like this. In Spain, both tú and vos came from Latin and were basically used interchangeably as second-person singular forms. This happened around the 1500s, the same time that Spanish people were colonizing the Americas. In order to have a deferential form, "vuestra merced" was used. In addition, the contrastive form "vos otros" was eventually made into the second-person plural form vosotros. Then, usted was pluralized to ustedes. In Spain, vos fell out of favor as a second-person singular pronoun, apparently because there was no need for it now that they had tú as an informal form and usted as a formal form. American colonies that had more contact with Spain (e.g. Mexico) picked up this change, and they don't have vos. American colonies that had less contact with Spain (e.g. Argentina) did not. (I don't know if there's any particular reason why tú won out over vos in Spain; it's probably arbitrary).

I hope that helps! This is a really interesting history!

Answer 2

The second person singular 'vos' is used in some countries in South and Central America. It's actually the more archaic form of the 2nd person singular that was lost in most dialects of Spanish. The formal second person 'Usted' is actually derived from an abbreviation of 'vos merced,' a term of respect, and when it fossilized as a term in the language, 'vos' fell into disuse in many dialects. Now, in most places, it's used in very familiar situations. In some dialects it is used in place of 'tu,' and in other dialects it is used along with 'tu,' only as an even more informal term. You're right that vosotros and vos are not used in the same dialects. Vosotros is used in Spain only.

I am a Spanish teacher, and I agree that it is something that should be mentioned to more advanced students. I actually bring it up with my level II students, usually. It's a good thing to be aware of, and I think little cultural and dialectal differences like that make things a lot more interesting.

Answer 3

I'm from Eastern Argentina, a region where "vos" is used for the second person singular and informal. Here we don't use "tú" at all, though we're familiar with this form because of other Latin American series and films, and because the many US series and films are dubbed or subtitled with the "tú" forms of the verbs.

As you say, "vos" comes from "vosotros". So much so, that the corresponding verbs derive from the corresponding verbs for "vosotros", but without the "I" after another vowel. Note that this applies only in some regions. In other regions, the "vos" forms are made differently. In Eastern Argentina, it's like this:

- vosotros sois (you (pl) are) > vos sos.
- vosotros hacéis (you (pl) do) > vos hacés.

And in the imperative, the forms for "vos" are formed, again, from the "vosotros" form, but without the final D and with an accent to keep the stress in the last syllable:

- sed (Be (you, plural) > sé (vos).
- decid (Say (you, pl.) > decí (vos).

At some point in Spain, this "vos" form was used as a formal pronoun (just as "usted" is used now), along with "vosotros" (as a plural form). But then "usted" came up, from "vuestra merced", and "vos" changed meaning for the second person singular informal. But later, "tú" substituted for "vos", and "vos" became out of usage in Spain.

Now, several Latin American countries adopted "vos". In most countries, it is used, either exclusively or along with "tú", at least in some regions, if not as the official form of the whole country. Only a few countries do not know about "vos". The main cases are Peru and Mexico. Possibly it's because Mexico doesn't use "vos", that you don't get to hear about it.

If you want to read more about "vos", read this:

Answer 4

Well vos is very common in argentina as well as vosotros wich means ustedes so vos/tu , vosotros/ustedes

Answer 5

I SPOKE IT FIRSTH