There is a weakness in English that we do not have a second person plural that differentiates well, and so the regional dialects have invented them. You all, you guys, youse, youse guys, you'ns, yinz, or even just ye. Most languages, and all Indo-European languages, have this item in some form. If you want the technical discussion on how we got that way on our journey from Middle English to early Modern English, there is The Development of the Second Person Pronoun by Sara Moulton.
The part that is more likely to be interesting to readers is that two of these are pushing the others out. You all and Y'all have spread beyond the South, and you guys has made it out of the Northeast. The others are disappearing. Language is unpredictable, so there's no predicting whether one will win out. I grew up with you guys and it seems natural to me, but I sometimes use y'all for effect. It is very good at communicating that someone has gotten ahead of himself and is too smart by half. Y'all're gonna find that its not as simple as it looks. I especially like the construction Y'all'll for "you all will." You guys has recently come under fire as implying masculine preference, even though cheerleading squads will refer to each other in those terms up here. Still, I can see how it looks that way from the outside.
Speaking of Middle English, I learned today that Geoffrey Chaucer's various characters have accents. He uses differing vocabularies and pronunciations for people of different rank and region. It is not as strong and obvious as would be done today, but it is useful to linguists in identifying what different accents were at the time. It is very hard to get a handle on these things, because even into the 20th C in England one valley might have a dialect difficult to understand even twenty miles away Yorkshire is notoriously difficult for outsiders, as it still has Old Norse influence. Notice the dropping of the definite article and that some y-sounds did not make the change to "g" that occurred in the rest of English.
I grew up with "you guys" too. After 50 years in the south, I now use "y'all" almost exclusively for several reasons. First, it's shorter. Second, I don't get so many funny looks. Third, the punctuation rebel in me likes using two apostrophes in one word.
ReplyDeleteAs for accents, my first experience with not understanding a regional accent was when I was 10 and a guest that knew I'd gone swimming that day asked me "watha watah wahm" and my Mom had to interpret. While I knew Texas and Arkansas accents, his was the first south Georgia one I'd heard.
Actually, that wasn't the first experience. I never understood a word my maternal grandfather said except "Amen" but I was also never required to respond. A smile and a hug worked just fine. I also had an uncle by marriage who I never completely understood. Those accents were Tennessee/Kentucky ones. I'd bet that the predecessors of those accents were present in Chaucer's day.
He uses differing vocabularies and pronunciations for people of different rank and region. It is not as strong and obvious as would be done today, but it is useful to linguists in identifying what different accents were at the time.
ReplyDeleteYes, quite. His characters are remarkably fully-formed. In a way that's not surprising, since earlier writers (and later ones) distinguished high from low class; but Chaucer paid attention to how even the lower-class people really spoke and acted. You can tell that the Franklin is a really good person, not just a man of a somewhat privileged class; whereas the prioress is not, though she's of an even higher class (and seeking to advance herself further, as he distinguishes by having her mispronounce French).
As for the second person plural, I'd like to note that I always give it as "ya'll." Faulkner is on my side here, but not most even of my fellow Southerners.
ReplyDeleteThere's a plural plural, which is "all ya'll." This is to be used only in situations in which one is trying to wrap up a stupendous number of people, usually in contradistinction to one's self. "All ya'll are going crazy over this virus, but I think it's time to open back up."
It's interesting to come across a line such as "In this way, the use of pronouns came to serve as a means not only of distinguishing one social group from another, but also as a means of consolidating affiliation" which could have been written an hour ago about folk specifying what pronouns others must remember to use when referring to them, but was written two decades ago about the transition to modern (vs middle) English taking place centuries ago.
ReplyDeleteI'd not known the "why" of the old forms going out of use, but the persistent usage of thee and thou by the Quakers long after they were long out of use by the society at large makes additional sense as they were not only "leveling" all classes but placing all with the meanest, no matter their wealth or position of authority in society.
I've waffled on what I use for plural "you"
I've only known one person who said "yins". Met him in '75, in the AF. I think he was from Maryland. I could be wrong; I've been wrong before.
ReplyDeleteGrim -- it makes me think twice before disputing both you and Faulkner, but 'ya'll' just doesn't make spelling sense to me. There is no "a" in "you".
ReplyDelete"Yinz" is supposedly Pittsburgh. I don't recall ever hearing it.
ReplyDelete"Y'all" is likely eye-dialect because of the sound. Because it was considered nonstandard and slang, people using it in writing weren't concerned with whether it followed spelling rules. Just my guess.
"Ya'll" fits the definition of eye-dialect better, as in meaning the speaker is not educated enough to know it's a contraction of "you all".
ReplyDeleteI am in a distinct minority, Donna, but I stand by it. It reads right to me perhaps because I have spent time with Middle English, which Southern emulates more than other American dialects. “Ya” isn’t “you,” but “you” is close to “vous,” which is the second person plural or polite in French. It’s too court for a good round English.
ReplyDelete“Ya’ll” is a clear bastardization of exactly the right sort to be genuine English. And it’s how the word is said, with the twin l’s rounding off the syllable.
Grim, that's a convincing explanation. I know next to nothing about Middle English.
ReplyDeleteGrim you are in a "distinct minority" because the usage is not attested until the early 1800s. which would pull it far from Middle English. The Cambridge History of the English Language thinks it is Ulster Scots, coming from ye aw, also reportedly attested in Scotland before that.
ReplyDeleteAs for any of the southern dialects being closer to Middle English, I think that is a mixed picture. Coastal South drew greatly from Wessex, which was less influenced by both Norman French and Norse and so showed greater continuity with Old English. (Though Old English came in at least four flavors itself, as did ME.) But messing up that clean picture were the Northern and Scots-Irish dialects, which were much more influenced by Norse forms. It becomes difficult to tell what came from where, as there are usually a couple of nominees for any unusual words.
"Yinz" is definitely Pittsburgese. I grew up with it there, and never heard it anywhere else. Even in Pittsburgh it was considered kinda lower class. However, recently, in a sort of reverse snobbism, it has become somewhat common for Pittsburgers to refer to themselves as "yinzers." As in: "Yinzers all know that Bradshaw was a better quarterback than Rothlisberger."
ReplyDeleteA couple of years ago, I saw a car with a license plate that just read: YINZ. I said to the owner, "You must be from Pittsburgh." She replied, "How did you...? Oh, the plate."
@ Uncle Bill - glad to have the confirmation of it. It's fun, isn't it, when you make a guess that's fairly obvious but puzzles the other person?
ReplyDelete