Re: English: Thou

Nik Taylor wrote:
>
> Robert Hailman wrote:
> > That's what I thought originally, but then wouldn't "you" become /jau/
> > at the same time? Unless originally it was pronounced /jo/
>
> It was /jo:/, I think.  Originally, English tended to avoid written
> vowels (except e) at the end of words, so a lot of final -o's were
> re-written as -ow (like "know").  Also, "you" is derived from OE "eow",
> so it would make sense to suppose a /jo/ or /jo:/ pronunciation from
> that.  "Thou" is derived from "Thû"
That explains it. So "thou" and "you" were never pronounced the
similarly? I didn't know what OE words gave rise to "you" and "thou", I
thought that the two would have been originally pronounced the similarly
due to the similar written forms.

It all makes sense to me now. I was wondering why one would have been
affected by the GVS and the other wouldn't have been, but now I
understand that they both were.