Do any of y'all know how do decline thou, thee, ye etc?

Question

In parts of Ireland they still say "ye" for the plural of "you". (KInd of like "y'all" in the US.)

When these were normal speech in English, how were they declined? Was it "you" and "ye" as the formal and "thou" and "thee" as the intimate form? When did everything except "you" go out of fashion?

Answer 1

Thou is subject form (Thou seest the dog), thee is object form (I see thee), thy is possessive form (I see thy dog), thine is possessive used without a following noun or when the noun begins with a vowel (I see thine armadillo, This dog is thine). These forms are strictly second person singular forms.

Ye is the object form of You (I see ye). It was strictly a plural form (as was you).

These forms began to drop out of use in the 18th century. You can still find them used in prayer in some more conservative religious traditions.

There was never the "formal"/"intimate" connection of thou/you that you find in other European languages. The distinction was primarily singular/plural. It's possible that the use of you for singular in formal circumstances may have been the primary factor in losing the number distinction for you, but the evidence is very thin and not very conclusive. More likely, I think, is the growing restriction of the use of thou to speak only to God.

Answer 2

In Middle English the words were basically used as follows:

SINGULAR, FAMILIAR:
subject - thou
object - thee
possessive - thy, thine (the latter when independent or before a vowel, cf. "mine" in "That's mine" and the archaic "Mine eyes have seen. . . ")

PLURAL/POLITE:
subject - ye**
object - you
possessive - your(s)

**In some dialects "ye" might also be used as an object pronoun (as Taivo lists it)... but I do not believe you would find this in the more promient dialects and the speech of the nobility, etc. (To my ears "I see ye" sounds like SAILOR-talk. The more 'standard form' I'd expect would be, as in the King James Bible -- "I see YOU." As evidence of "YE" as the subject form, a search for "you are" and "ye are" in an online version of the King James will show you that ONLY the latter is found. Sometimes people do get confused here though, because the object pronoun can show up in places where Modern English uses a different construction or even drops the pronoun altogether, so you might mistake it for an object. Examples: question - "See ye [singular, 'seest thou'] not?" = "Do you not see?" / command - "Go ye [singular 'thou'] into the village" = "Go into the village")


The singular "familiar" form was used when addressing someone of lower social station - employee, child, lower class - WITH intimates, within the family and amongst 'lower class' people (the same station). To use such forms when addressing a superior would be considered very rude. This is all comparable to practice in French and German, where some of the social conventions persist to this day.

The plural form was also used as the formal or 'polite' form for addressing someone of HIGHER rank or amongst the 'upper class'. To address someone beneath you with these forms (e.g., your butler, a clerk...) would raise eyebrows.

Although this whole system is breaking down in early Modern English, as "you" displaces "thou" generally, Shakespeare frequently follows the older pattern. (This is helpful in a number of instances in his plays, when it either shows us the relative social station/relationship of the speakers OR shows an inappropriate/disrespectful attitude toward a superior.)

As for the consistent use of "thou" forms for the singular in the KJV is partly archaism... a continuation of the forms used in William Tyndale's translation in the 1520s, when such forms were still in common use. BUT it appears that the SOCIAL distinction was NOT part of this. The translators were, rather, concerned to make a clear, precise distinction between singular and plural forms, because in they ALWAYS use"thou/thee" for singular, "ye/you" for plural. There is no longer any hint at social 'formal vs. familiar' distinctions that one even finds some elements of in Shakespeare.

(In any case, it is somewhat ironic that, in more recent times, people have gotten the notion that "thou" should be used as a 'more respectful' way of addressing God, when in fact it was originally the familiar form!)

General use of "thee" for a familiar subject form is a later practice of certain groups (e.g., Quakers).

Answer 3

You=sigular

Ye=Plural

Thou=You, being addressed

Thee=objective of thou

Thy or Thine= possesive of Thou