Re: Elves and Ill Bethisad
| From: | michael poxon <m.poxon@...> |
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| Date: | Tuesday, October 21, 2003, 19:27 |
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I think of Shelley's "Bird thou never wert" but apart from that have never
come across "wert". Isn't the difference between thou and thee one of
grammar? Thou is subject with ending -(s)t, whereas thee is object.
Yorkshire dialect regularly has 'sithee' /siDi/ meaning "I'll see you" and
forms such as 'tha knows' /Da nOz/ for "you know". Forms like "thee are" and
"thee were" sound weird, at least to me.
Mike
> > Tristan McLeay scripsit:
> > > I was under the impression that it was 'thou wert'?
>
> Are there any modern thou-dialects in the real world? I know
> there are thee-dialects, which take the you-form of the verb
> ("thee are", "thee were", etc.).
>
> Also, there are conflicting reports of the 2nd-singular-past
> form of "to be" in archaic English; I've seen both "wast" and "wert".
>
> -Mark
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