T-V distinction

In sociolinguistics, a T-V distinction describes the situation wherein a language, unlike current English, has pronouns that distinguish varying levels of politeness, social distance, courtesy, familiarity, or insult toward the addressee. The name T-V distinction derives from the common initial letters of several of these terms in Romance languages (e.g., the French tu and vous) and also some Slavic languages (e.g., the Russian ты ty and вы vy or the Slovene ti and vi).

Examples of T-V distinctions

Here are some examples of second-person pronouns in languages with T-V distinctions:

	second-person singular informal	second-person singular formal	second-person plural informal	second-person plural formal
Albanian	ti	ju	ju	ju
Amharic	አንተ (antə) (m) አንቺ (anči) (f)	እስዎ (ɨsswo) or እርስዎ (ɨrswo)	እናንተ (ɨnnantə)	እስዎ (ɨsswo) or እርስዎ (ɨrswo)
Basque	hi (very close or dialectal), zu	zu, berorrek (very respectful)	zuek	zuek
Bosnian	ti	vi	vi	vi
Bulgarian	ти (ti)	Вие (Vie)	вие (vie)	вие (vie)
Catalan	tu vós (only to elder people) Vós (to God)	vostè	vosaltres	vostès
Croatian	ti	vi	vi	vi
Czech	ty	vy	vy	vy
Danish	du	De	I	I
Dutch	jij/je (Netherlands) gij/ge (Belgium)	u U (when addressing God)	jullie	u U (when addressing God)
English (archaic)	thou/thee	ye/you	ye/you	ye/you
Estonian	sina	Teie	teie	Teie
Finnish	sinä	te	te	te
French	tu/toi	vous	vous	vous
Gaelic (Scottish)	thu	sibh	sibh	sibh
German	du	Sie	ihr	Sie
Greek	esy	eseis	eseis	eseis
Hungarian	te	ön (more formal) or maga (more informal)	ti	önök (more formal) or maguk (more informal)
Icelandic	þú	þér	þið	þér
Italian	tu (te)	Lei (archaic Ella, old voi)	voi	voi (rarely used Loro)
Kazakh	сен (sen)	сіз (siz)	сендер (sender)	сіздер (sizder)
!Kung	a	i!a	i!a	i!a
Latvian	tu	Jūs	jūs	jūs
Lithuanian	tu	jūs	jūs	jūs
Mandarin	你 nǐ	您 nín	你们 nǐmen	none; regular plural form of 您们 nínmen is unusual; instead use other forms like 大家 dàjiā "everyone" or 你们大家.
Norwegian	du	De	dere	De
Polish	ty	Pani (to a woman) Pan (to a man)	wy	Państwo (general) Panie (to women) Panowie (to men)
Portuguese	tu (usually você in BP)	você/o senhor (formerly vós)	vocês (sometimes vós)	vocês/os senhores (sometimes vós)
Romanian	tu	dumneata / dumneavoastra	voi	dumneavoastra
Russian	ты (ty)	Вы (Vy)	вы (vy)	вы (vy)
Slovenian	ti	vi	vi	vi
Sorbian (Lower)	ty	wy	wej (dual), wy (plural)	wy
Spanish (Peninsular)	tú	usted (formerly vos, vuecencia, ussía)	vosotros (masc.) vosotras (fem.)	ustedes
Spanish of the Americas	tú or vos	usted	ustedes	ustedes
Swedish	du	ni or Ni	ni	ni or Ni
Turkish	sen	siz	siz	siz
Ubykh	wæghʷa	sʸæghʷaalha	sʸæghʷaalha	sʸæghʷaalha
Welsh	ti	chi or chwi	chi or chwi	chi or chwi
Yiddish	du	ir	ir	ir

Language-specific remarks

Other languages may have different ways of distinction.

In Vietnamese, the words for uncle, aunt, elder brother, elder sister, etc. are used as pronouns. Similarly, in Japanese, kinship terms, titles, or names are commonly used instead of second- or third-person pronouns.

Korean has complex gradations. Korean uses honorifics and no less than 7 speech levels, making for a cartesian product of 14 basic verb stems, though some are rarely used. For everyday purposes, one can nevertheless simplify this into the basic distinction between plain and polite conjugations of verbs and adjectives. In general, the plain form is used when speaking to family, close friends, and social inferiors, and the polite form otherwise. When two Korean-speaking strangers meet where none is the obvious social superior, both use the polite form; when it is determined that one or both can switch to the plain form, one often asks for permission for this switch. The phrase used to describe this is mareul nota (literally, to release language). In Korean, polite form is called jondaenmal and plain form is called yesanmal or banmal. In contrast to the neutral term yesanmal, banmal often has a rather negative connotation, referring for instance to the plain form that one may deliberately use to provoke someone who should be addressed in the polite form.

The pronouns in the table above may affect verb conjugation. In French, the respectful vous takes plural verbs (but not adjectives), and in Spanish and Italian, the respectful form requires verbs to be conjugated in the third person singular; in the case of Spanish, this is because the form usted evolved from the title vuestra merced (your grace) which naturally took the third person. In German, the respectful form takes the same verb declensions as the third person plural.

In Italian, Lei means "her" (as accusative form of she). Since in Italian egli ("he"), essi ("they") and especially ella ("she") have fallen out of common use, being replaced by lui ("him"), loro ("them") and lei ("her"), it is also possible to use Ella as a very polite alternative, but this is very rarely used if ever, and is perceived as very archaic or bureaucratic. During Fascism, attempts were made to convert the polite form to voi ("ye"), with some success. Voi might still be used by some, sometimes (but not necessarily) because of political affiliation with the far right. The polite plural form Loro ("them") is used rarely, as voi is often perceived already as polite enough, because it was previously used as polite form. Lei is generally concorded, when necessary, with the gender of the addressee, not therefore necessarily female. It might actually not be present in sentences as Italian is not subject-compulsory, and is then understood by the verb being conjugated in the third person.

• "Have you been in Rome?"
  • "È stato a Roma?" (-o: to a male)
  • "È stata a Roma?" (-a: to a female)

The origin of Lei is probably due to expressions as Your majesty/eminence/holiness/..., where all of these substantives were female in gender ("Maestà/Eminenza/Santità/Signoria/..."). Lei is normally used in formal settings, with strangers, older or otherwise respected people. Currently, people address strangers of their own age using the informal tu until about 30.

Catalan vós follows the same concordance rules as the French vous (verbs in second person plural, adjectives in singular), and vostè follows the same concordance rules as the Spanish usted (verbs in 3rd person). Vostè originated from vostra mercè as a calque from Spanish, and replaced the original Catalan form vos. Now vós is used as a respectful form for elders and respected friends, and vosté for foreigners and people whom one doesn't know well. Vosté is more distant than vós. Sometimes people justify the use of vosté saying, "I only speak of tu with my friends."

Close friends, of course, are tu and venerable old ladies are vous, but there is a wide grey area in the middle. Even that is not universally true: in the Spanish dialects of some parts of Latin America (for example, in Colombia), tú is almost never used, not even with close friends or relatives, which are usted, and tú is more common in Mexico and California (even advertisements in California use tú or its possessive tu, for example "En tu canal 73"/Lit. "On your channel 73"). In Argentina, where Rioplatense Spanish is the standard, there's no tú and the informal pronoun is vos which is used rather indiscriminately.

It can often be quite confusing for an English speaker learning a language with a T-V distinction to correctly assimilate the rules surrounding when to call someone with the formal or the informal pronoun. Students are often advised to err on the side of caution, the formal; however, in the wrong situation this risks sounding snobby or at least riotously funny. English speakers may be helped by reminding themselves that the difference is comparable to using first name or last name when speaking to someone; however the boundaries between formal and informal language differ from language to language, and most languages use formal speech more frequently, and/or in different circumstances, than English. And in some circumstances it is not unusual to call other people by first name and the respectful form or the reverse, e.g. German shop employees often use these constructs if a customer is present.

In Greek, συ was originally the singular, and υμεις the plural, with no distinction for honorific or familiar. Paul addressed King Agrippa II as συ (Acts 26:2). Later, υμεις and ημεις ("we") became too close in pronunciation, and a new plural εσεις was invented. The ε of εσυ is a euphonic prefix.

Archaic English had a distinction between thou (informal) and you or ye (formal). Some groups such as the Quakers that advocate "plain speech" used the thou form with everybody, a custom some carry on to this day, although thou's passing out of most dialects of English, including the standard, has made it more symbolic than anything. This distinction was still present in Early Modern English, so works such as William Shakespeare's make use of it. For example, in William Shakespeare's play Richard III, act 1 scene 2, Richard attempts to seduce Lady Anne, the widow of a man that Richard recently killed. Lady Anne uses the informal thou, which in context is clearly intended as an insult (as though she were talking to a child). Richard uses the you form in the beginning, as a verbal way of elevating her above his station. But as they continue, Richard slyly switches into the thou (informal) form, starting with "He that bereft thee, lady, of thy husband, Did it to help thee to a better husband." By doing so, Richard cleverly makes Lady Anne's use of thee/thou, intended originally for insult, suggest that perhaps they are intimate instead. This careful switch from thee/thou to you is usually lost on many modern English readers, who are unfamiliar with the distinction.

Even within languages, there are differences between groups (older people and people of higher status tending to both use and expect more formal language) and between various aspects of one language. For example, in Dutch, U is slowly coming into disuse in plural, and thus one could sometimes address a group as jullie when one would address each member individually as U. In Latin American Spanish, the opposite change has occurred – having lost vosotros, Latin Americans address all groups as ustedes, even if the group is composed of friends whom they would call tú.

In Germany, an old but by no means extinct custom involves two male friends formally splitting a bottle of wine to celebrate their deciding (mostly proposed by the elder or socially higher-standing of the two) to call one another du rather than Sie. Note this custom is also adapted among the Swiss-French of the Jura. In Poland a similar custom involves two men drinking a shot of vodka with their right arms crossed, saying their given names, and then kissing each other on the cheek (a custom also known in Germany, called Brüderschaft trinken, "drinking brotherhood").

In Denmark, the use of the formal forms of address has diminished significantly over the last twenty years. Although the De form is still used in certain contexts, it is much more common now for people to address virtually all people with the familiar du.

A similar movement is seen in Québec, where Québec French permits and expect a far broader usage of the familiar tu than in Standard French. While it is still appropriate and expected to say Vous under some circumstances, it is generally expected to use tu in a broad range of circumstances and using Vous may sound stilted or snobbish. By no means is tu restricted to intimates or social inferiors.

In Norwegian, the use of the polite form De is today all but extinct. Norwegians use exclusively du in their daily life, and it is said that De is reserved for the king of Norway, who at the first use would comment "Please, let's use du", thereby limiting the use of De to once in a lifetime. In practice, De can be found in written works, translations where an impression of formality must be retained, and theatrical plays.

In Swedish there has been a marked difference between usage in Finland-Swedish compared to in Sweden. While the form Ni (noted as formal above) has remained the common respectful address in Finland-Swedish, it was until the 1960s considered somewhat careless, bullying or rude in Sweden, where addressing in 3rd person with repetition of name and title was considered proper and respectful. After that the usage swiftly changed in Sweden, and the 2nd person du (noted as informal above) came to dominate totally, until recently when in the late 1990s a usage resembling that in German, Finnish or Finland-Swedish has become popular among the youngest adults. It is also now common to see Du capitalized in places where the formal Ni would have been used before, such as in printed instructions or on signs.

In Ubykh, the T-V distinction is most notable between a man and his mother-in-law, where the plural form sʸæghʷa supplants the singular wæghʷa very frequently, possibly under the influence of Turkish. The distinction is upheld less frequently in other relationships, but does still occur.

There are three linguistic ways of social distinction in Hungarian:

• Te (plural ti) is the most informal of them. It is used between people with whom one grows/grew up together (like within the closer family or among children) or has known for ages (like old friends), and in close communities, suggesting some idea of brotherhood. Adults are commonly entitled to (unilaterally) address children this way. The change for this form is often a symbolic milestone between people, sometimes sealed with drinking a glass of wine together.
• Maga (plural maguk) is theoretically formal in that it can be used between strangers and that it requires the polite (third person) conjugation (along with ön). However, it cannot be used without restraint (like when addressing a person of influence) as it often denotes an existing (or desired) personal acquaintance. It may be used with people we know or whom we consider as peers: e.g. more distant relatives, neighbours, fellow-travellers on the train, or the shopkeeper or hairdresser. If one already knows these people, they may even take offence if one were to address them more formally. On the other hand, some urban people find it too rural, old-fashioned or intrusive, however, it is still common in the above functions in cities as well.
• Ön (plural önök) is formal, official and objective. This form is used if people take part in a situation merely as representatives of social roles, where personal acquaintance is out of question. It is used in institutions, the business, the bureaucracy, advertisements, TV presenters (in whatever intended for the public), and with anyone one wants to keep a distance. It is not typical in rural areas or towns.

Related verbs

Some languages have a verb to describe the fact of using either a T or a V form. Some also have a related noun or adverb.

	T verb	V verb	T noun	V noun	T adverb	V adverb
Catalan	tutejar
Czech	tykat	vykat	tykání	vykání
Danish					dus	De's
Dutch	tutoyeren
Finnish	sinutella	teititellä	sinuttelu	teitittely
French	tutoyer	vouvoyer	tutoiement	vouvoiement
German	duzen	siezen	Duzen	Siezen
Hungarian	tegez	magáz	tegezés	magázás
Italian	dare del tu	dare del voi
Lithuanian	tujinti
Portuguese	tutear
Russian	тыкать (tykat')
Slovene	tikati	vikati	tikanje	vikanje
Spanish	tutear	tratar de Usted	tuteo
Swedish	dua	nia	duande	niande

de:Duzen fr:Distinction T-V