Are there situations where it is ONLY the formal or ONLY informal address?
Have things become more strict/relaxed in terms of their usage? For example, has something that was once mainly formal become more informal?
As someone whose native language is just a flat "you", this has intrigued me.
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Kinda. What I feel relaxed a lot is addressing with academic titles.
In two other languages that I speak, Russian and German, you cannot really universally tell if it’s one you or the other that you’re supposed to use.
There are clear cuts though. Family, friends, coworkers: informal. Police, authorities: formal.
I don’t know if there is/was any progression over time.
I’m assuming based on the last sentence you’re asking about the so called T-V distinction.
Finnish has a T-V distinction, but the more formal pronoun is hardly ever used these days in my experience. I was talking about this with a mate of mine not too long ago, and he said he sometimes uses “*vos*” when talking to the elderly. I personally don’t use it in any situation.
Yes, there’s a global tendency in the French speaking world towards an increase use of informal *tu* instead of formal *vous*. But not every country is on the same pace, typically Canadians don’t use *vous* as much as we do in France.
Once I went to Starbucks and the cashier asked “your name?” In an informal way and I was very taken aback like “do I know this person? This isn’t even my city this was kind of disrespectful”. I don’t know if this is the norm in Starbucks in Poland I go there maybe once a few years.
Some young people like to be informal to strangers/when talking to someone for the first time but personally I don’t like it. Overall I think opinions are divided on this topic, I’m just very used to being formal. In Poland even if you’re insulting someone you can do it in a formal way – pan jesteś debil – you’re an idiot, mister
In Hungarian the formal is getting used less and less.
In Spain, yes. For example I remember my parents talking to their respective in-laws in the formal registry, but nowadays that’s not so common. Same with teachers, it went from a very rigid formal registry to a more flexible thing, with some teachers requesting the informal treatment.
In Dutch there certainly is a push towards a more informal address, more so in the Netherlands so far than in Belgium. By now the Dutch find it weird and off-putting when we go formal on them. Which is why I keep doing it. Too much fun.
A more dialectal you (ge) used to be formal in all Flemish dialects, but that’s dropped to highly informal in some parts of Flanders. It’s both a bit sad and understandable. It has its own verb conjugation rules, which make it harder to speak correctly, but it does mean some linguistic history is dying off.
In Italian there are two formal addresses, third person singular (lei) and second person plural (voi). The latter isn’t used anymore. But informal/formal are still widely used.
Absolutely. It was even common to speak to your parents in the formal form which nowadays would be strange.
> As someone whose native language is just a flat “you”, this has intrigued me.
I’m admittedly ignorant about Irish formalities, but if you’re talking about about the English language, it’s certainly not just a flat “you”. Beyond simple pronouns, there are absolutely different forms of formal address, like by surname or some professional titles.
It stands out when you’re not used to it.
Things absolutely became more relaxed
It’s still normal to address strangers and most authority figures formally but it definitely relaxed at offices from my experience
Danish has the formal ‘De’ and the informal ‘Du’. But unless you are speaking with the king ‘De’ is not really used anymore. When speaking with the royals it is btw advisable to go a tack up in formality and use the even more respectful indirect language eg ‘has your majesty seen today’s newspaper?’.
The change is sort of recent, when my mother was a young child in the 1960’s ‘De’ was still widely used as the standard way to address anyone outside of your circle of friends and family. When I was a child in the 1980’s and 1990’s it was mostly used to address elderly ladies. In these days I am honestly unsure of whether my kids are even aware that the ‘De’ exists.
yep in Hungary. My dad still addressed his parents in formal. (it was funny he addressed my grandma formally and I addressed her informally, mind you this was in a village) l I addressed my parents in informally but other adults formally (parents’ friends included). Fast forward to today basically you cannot hear formal speech unless it is in an office between bureaucrat and customer. none of my friends’ children ever attempted to address me in formal. That happened in about 70 years (my dad’s age).
It has changed a lot yes, in the past everything was a lot more formal. From your boss, doctor, teachers, in-laws, etc. Nowadays unless I’m talking with the police and the likes, and not even always, I use the informal.
Yes, but not that quickly. Speaking for German-Switzerland.
But I think people of roughly the same age don’t use the formal form except in a situation where there is a clear hierarchy.
I’m totally used to get thou’d by the employees in a shop when I’m a customer, especially if it’s a hip shop with hip people.
Within the same workplace in many fields, people use the thou, even with superiors. The idea seems to be that we’re in the same boat. This is a modern thing.
Teachers, doctors, professors, and clerics get the formal address, unless they specifically allow you not to. What has changed over the last 40 years or so is that you adress them by their last name now and not their title. So “Frau Schmid” and not “Frau Doktor” or “Frau Doktor Schmid”. It’s still very common, though. I think I would adress a Reformed pastor just by “Herr Lastname”, but not a Catholic priest or monk. On the other hand, the only Catholic cleric that I know personally studied with me and I thou him, so I don’t get to call anybody Herr Pfarrer or Pater, Brother or Sister.
I still do that with doctors and clerics when I talk about them visavis others in the field, however. “Frau Doktor Schmid referred me to you about those headaches.”
When I have a handyman over to fix the cable or destroy that wasp nest on my balcony, we expect to “you” each other, even if we’re about the same age.
In Denmark we have you, singular, which in all its normalcy is ‘du/dig’, and your(s), which is ‘din’, and the more formal kind which is ‘De/Dem’, and ‘Deres’ (coincidentally, ‘de/dem/deres’ is also used for “they/them/their(s)”, but the difference is the capital or lower case d).
De/Dem isn’t really used any more, unless speaking to like royalty (afaik), but having grown up abroad, where formalities were more of a thing, I had such a hard time getting used to it, coming back to Denmark. I’d been back in Denmark for only a few months before my bike punctured on the way home from tennis one day. I stopped an elderly woman to ask if I could borrow her phone to call my dad, and kept accidentally saying ‘De’ and ‘Deres’, and she got angry with me because she wanted me to use ‘du’ and ‘din’ lol. Still let me borrow her phone though ❤️
Norwegian has a formal you, but the use of it was phased out like 50 years ago. Using it now would make you seem sarcastic or at least as if you were joking, as if you called someone “your highness” in English.
In Czech, the formal you is still largely in use when addressing other people. I think the only thing that has changed is that it’s more socially acceptable to use the informal you with someone of your own age, especially if you’re the same gender, though only in a social setting – you wouldn’t use the informal you with a policeman or shop employee for example, even if they’re your age or younger than you.
Spain: yes, absolutely. It used to be default for anyone older than you or that you didn’t know, now don’t you dare call a 65 yo “señor/señora” or they will give you the death glare.
In Poland meanwhile “pan/pani” is still widespread and every time someone calls me Pani as a 42 yo woman I die a little inside and consider getting Botox (not really, but it does make me feel ancient).
Italian had an “intermediate” address which has disappeared, the opposition being now only between “tu” (informal) and “lei” (formal). But in older times, you would use “voi” to refer to a “respected” familiar person, and “lei” to an external person of some higher status. For example, you would use “lei” to the doctor, to and authority etc. and “tu” with friends, but my grandmother would use “voi” with her parents. Going farther in time, “voi” was used also between husband and wife.
All the three registers are easily seen in the 19th century novel “I promessi sposi”. The two fiancés, Renzo and Lucia, use “voi” between themselves, the nobles use “lei” among themselves, Renzo addresses the priest don Abbondio with “lei”, who answers to him with “voi”; Lucia’s mother Agnese uses “tu” with her daughter, but she answers her with “voi”, Renzo and his friend Tonio use “tu”, but when Renzo meets a stranger during the revolt in Milan, they speak with “voi”.
Today the same interactions would go: “tu” between the fiancés and to the parents (but some people use “lei” with their in-laws), Renzo would use “lei” to the priest which would probably answer with “tu” to a young person. Two strangers would use “lei”. A peculiar use of “tu” is between colleagues of the same professions (eg. lawyers, doctors…) which use “tu” in written correspondence while keeping a rather formal addressing style (it’s used to recognize themselves as peer). For example, when I had just finished my PhD defense my supervisor, whom I used “lei” with, after congratulating to me told me that now that we were peers, I should use “tu” with him.
Cypriot Greek is a bit weird about this. Basilectal Cypriot Greek does not have a T/V distinction, respect is expressed with honorifics like *μάστρε* (master), *θκιέ/θκιά* (uncle, aunt), *κύριε/κυρία* (mister, misses) etc.
But Standard Greek has T/V. The second person singular is also the polite address. Greek Cypriots have never been very consistent about using it, due to dialectal influence. Like the past perfect, it’s a linguistic feature we put on to sound formal, but semantically it doesn’t have a lot of meaning. You can transcribe TV and radio interviews for example, and you’ll see that Cypriot Greek speakers fluctuate between addressing the same person with the formal or the informal address within the same conversation. Greece Greeks don’t do that.
But from exposure to Greece Greek media, it does seem like the formal address is declining, because a lot of people are complaining about the missing manners of the younger generations.
In German it has become more casual in the past decades. The general rule is that you can use “du” with friends and family and “Sie” with strangers and in professional contexts. Both the “Sie” with strangers and in professional context rule has gotten more lax.
I’d personally use “du” with any stranger roughly my age in any context other than professional and with any stranger regardless of age if I actually meet them. So like if I ask a fellow 30-year-old for directions I would use “du”, if I ask an old lady for directions I would use “Sie”, if me and the old lady are both invited to a wedding, sitting at the same table and chatting I would use “du”.
In professional contexts these days you’d typically use “du” with your colleagues and most likely “du” with your boss. Then there’s some companies where you use “du” with everyone and that’s actually enforced, but often you’d use “Sie” with higher ups and other employees in the company that aren’t really your colleagues. You pretty much always use “Sie” when communicating with people outside your company.
You use “Sie” if you’re the client in serious contexts like at the bank, the doctor, the authorities, etc. In more casual contexts it kinda depends on the vibe of the establishment. Like I would use “Sie” with the supermarket cashier, but “du” with the barista at a hip café or bartender at the seedy basement club.
Things have become way less formal over time. In the 1950s or so, even advertisers used formal “te” when addressing the (unknown) reader. Today, they just go for the informal “sinä” straight away. It used to be some sort of ritual to make the so-called *sinunkaupat*, trading informal *sinä*s, to indicate that you’re familiar with someone, and that privilege was limited to very few people (“as close as family”). Today, you’d use the formal *te* only for addressing people that are significantly more senior than you, either in hierarchy or in age. In those places I’ve been in, the worker and the boss address each other informally. The places where they stick to formal *te* are places like the army, the parliament and the courts.
Latvian, yes definitely. There’s a tendency for usage to get less formal, so the informal “tu” pronoun becomes acceptable in more situations. More people use the informal at work now, and you can see younger people (20s, 30s) address someone informally right after meeting. It’s not very common but not outrageously rude like it would be considered before. I hear that even some teachers in school let kids address them informally, though that would definitely be reserved for the “young cool teacher” stereotype.
It’s still a pretty conservative language/society on that front. There hasn’t been a dramatic shift to the informal as in Swedish. It’s still hard to imagine an informal address at a restaurant or other place where you’re a customer. But the tendency to get less formal isn’t new, a hundred years ago some people addressed even their parents formally.
Using the informal Du has become more common.
50 years ago it was normal to use formal Sie with your Boss in the office, by now everyone switched to informal.
Personally I use Sie for strangers on the street, and formal interactions, but don’t want my students to Siez me.
For croatian i guess depends how far in the past you look for. During my lifetime (~30 years) i did not see any change. It is still very much so expected to use formal address with any stranger, unless specifed otherwise.
I don’t think anyone has used the formal address in Norwegian for the last 50 years
Formal address is weakening. It is pretty common to address a group of people informally already. That was unthinkable when I was young.
Example: You are in a shop. You might address *the entire shop, the entire staff* with a plural informal you. “You guys got nice jeans here, can I order an extra length from you guys’ shop?” But you might not address the salesperson alone in singular with informal you. That would be offensive.
By the way, Dutch has 3 you’s. Jij/je (informal), u/U, (formal) and Gij (“thou”: obsoletish). U is slowly on the way out but still used quite a lot for people in higher social positions, Gij is only used to adress a deity, or ironically. So, in the Netherlands it is fairly straight forward.
Dutch speaking Belgians (Flemish) make a mess of it. I have lived there for decades and never found out how the system works. Flemish is more conservative than Dutch Dutch, and gij never fell out of use.
They use gij a lot, usually informally. But they will also use je and u. Yelled the frustrated Flemish mom at her child “Eet uw groentjes!” (Eat your veggies!). It always sounds funny to me because no mother would ever adress her child in a formal way anywhere else.
Yes, now everybody seems to go straight for the informal “tu”, even if there is prior acquaintance or big difference in age/power dynamic.
My grandparents used to adopt the second person plural to address even their own parents.
Nowadays the so-called courtesy pronoun, which was also changed from the second person plural to third person singular during fascism, is only used when there is a discrepancy in authority or age. You would use it to address say someone who is older than you, a professor or your partner’s parents.
Failing to do so is considered rude and portrays one as an ignorant person who lacks manners.
Of course Italians are lenient with it when it comes to foreigners but at work seniors would still expect expats to at least try and grasp the inner workings of the courtesy pronoun.