Re: CHAT: Politeness in conlangs

John Cowan wrote:

> Nik Taylor scripsit:
>
> > "They"?  Very unusual to have a third person pronoun be used for seco=
nd
> > person.
>
> Howzat?  German does exactly that: "sie" is both 3rd person pl. and
> 2nd person polite.
Not to mention that now archaic German had two additional levels
of politeness:

<Ihr> "you" (as opposed to <ihr> "y'all") and
<Er> "you" (as opposed to <er> "he").

<Sie> was the highest level, reserved for monarchs and such, which
is probably why it lasted the longest. <Er> was used when you're
talking *down* to people, though still want to maintain some modicum
of politeness. (There's a great example of this in the German playwright
B=FCchner's play <Woyzeck> where the pretensious scholar guy looks his
nose down at Woyzeck, a lowly, very stupid soldier-type. Yes, the play
is full of stereotypes.)

Anyways, two of the three forms were derived from third person pronouns.


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Tom Wier <artabanos@...>
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<http://www.angelfire.com/tx/eclectorium/>
"Cogito ergo sum, sed credo ergo ero."

"Things just ain't the way they used to was."
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