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Re: USAGE: 2nd pers. pron. for God

From:Newton, Philip <philip.newton@...>
Date:Wednesday, September 11, 2002, 12:49
Jan van Steenbergen wrote:
> --- Philip Newton skrzypszy: > > > Or do Dutch people say "gij" to anybody else then to God? > > Didn't you follow a recent thread on this subject
I did. And I seem to recall that someone said they addressed God that way.
> "Gij" in commonly used as the second person singular in > Belgium;
I know. Which is why I asked about "Dutch people" rather than, say, "Dutch-speaking people". Perhaps I should have been more explicit.
> if it were used in the Netherlands it would sound either very > Flemish or very old-fashioned, but it is not impossible. It is > true that for many people "gij" has clearly a biblical connotation, > though. About one week ago I wrote more about it: >
http://listserv.brown.edu/archives/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0209a&L=conlang&F=&S=&P= 24244
> Since this link is too long for one line, you will probably have to > copy-and-paste twice if you want to read it.
It was one line when I got it. I note that you claim it is used in literature; arguably, so is "thou" in English. But I'd say that most people, if they use it at all, use it in speaking to God, and I was wondering whether this was the same in Dutch. Let me re-state my question. Do most people from the Netherlands (*not* from Belgium), if they use "gij" at all, use it to anyone except God? Cheers, philip

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Jan van Steenbergen <ijzeren_jan@...>