Re: Engish 2sg/pl

 --- "Mark J. Reed" ha tera a:

> Certain isolated religious communities, such as the Amish and
> Mennenites
Mennonites, with "o", not "e".  From the name of Menno Simons, their
founder.

, do still use a form of it.  Oddly, though, they seem
> to use "thee" as both subject and object, with the "you" form of
> the verb ("Thee are late.  Where have thee been?"), which sounds
> very wrong to me.
I thought it was the Quakers that did that, not Mennonites/Amish... The
usage originated back in the days when "thou/thee" was the
familiar/non-respectful form, and "ye/you" was the polite/respectful
form; the Quakers believed that there should be no class distinctions,
so they referred to everyone by the familiar form.

The Mennonite groups that I am familiar with spoke Low German and/or
German until a generation or two ago, though that is only one branch of
Mennonites.

Estel


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