Second person plural pronoun

[Paul Farquhar]

Today, Latin is taught with rigorous grammar. This is after centuries of grammarians using Latin grammatical terms as the standard to describe the grammar of other languages.

I rarely use Latin, tho it sometimes happens when referencing, such as what Plinius says about something. But I use the understanding of complex grammatical structures extensively.

Sure, it's role now is very different from how it would have originally been used. Which probably makes it not a good model when you are trying to translate dialogue. Spoken language is riddled with grammatical errors, some of which boldly become standard usage.

 

[Parmandur]

Tolkien did it.


If this is an academic translation, I see no reason not to use "thou" and explain why in a footnote.

True, that is why people still remember the thee/thou pairing, and why they feel "religous-y": Hebrew, Greek and Latin all have distinctions between singular and plural second person pronouns, so religous text translations were reluctant to follow everyday usage when the singular fell out of regular use entirely.

@Yaarel if you are translating ancient texts for archeology, then using "thee/thou" would be better than trying to wrangle a plural alternative. What is the exact audience for which you are writing: academic, colleagues, journal articles, students...?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

If it’s a specific journal, it probably has a style guide.

 

[Parmandur]

If it’s a specific journal, it probably has a style guide.

True, and it may or may not address this issue: probably not to this degree of specificity.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

True, and it may or may not address this issue: probably not to this degree of specificity.

Monthly Notices to the Royal Astronomical Society specified British English, which would rule out y'all!

 

[Parmandur]

Monthly Notices to the Royal Astronomical Society specified British English, which would rule out y'all!

True, but an archeology journal might be lenient of awkward pronoun phrase construction in a tranalation from another language.

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

Monthly Notices to the Royal Astronomical Society specified British English, which would rule out y'all!

The captiue men of strength I gaue to you,
The weaker sold; and this y’all know is true,
The free-borne women ransom’d, or set free
For pittie sake, the seruile sort had yee.

The Faire Æthiopian, William Lisle 1631

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The captiue men of strength I gaue to you,
The weaker sold; and this y’all know is true,
The free-borne women ransom’d, or set free
For pittie sake, the seruile sort had yee.

The Faire Æthiopian, William Lisle 1631

When 400 years old you are spell as good you will not.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

I'm starting to see the issue here. Is it just a matter of 'you' referring to the proper subject?

You need the 'you' to refer to a specific group or person within the group when there might be multiple subjects in the same sentence? To do that, it's how you structure the sentence so you don't have a misplaced modifier, isn't it?

 

[Parmandur]

I'm starting to see the issue here. Is it just a matter of 'you' referring to the proper subject?

You need the 'you' to refer to a specific group or person within the group when there might be multiple subjects in the same sentence? To do that, it's how you structure the sentence so you don't have a misplaced modifier, isn't it?

Yeah, but that can be a bit of a tall order for a second language speaker, due to the oblique subtlety of how formal English does thwt compared to many languages, such as @Yaarel native Norwegian, which have proper singular and plural second person pronouns.