The use of "'twas" and "'tis"

[Jonathan Cid]

I'm working on a manuscript for a novel where I'm using some level of archaic, older English. However, I recently noticed that sometimes I've used "'tis" and others I've spelled out "it is". Likewise with "'twas" and "it was". I've searched the web all I can, and found absolutely no guidelines on the use of these words. Does anyone know if there are any rules with regards to their use? Or is it just subjective?

[Dinkleberry2010]

The main thing is to be consistent. If you have a character who says twas and tis in one sentence, then he or she will not or should not say it was and it is in the next sentence--or the next parargraph--or the next page--and so on.

[Jonathan Cid]

Jermac, thank you. I've been keeping consistency with the characters at least.

[Nietzsche]

In early Modern english you are correct, it is =tis ; it was = twas .

On a side note, for anyone who is not familiar with English, Shakespearian type English is early modern english, not Old English. Old English was about 700 years prior to his time.

[Jonathan Cid]

Nietzche, you are correct. Good point to bring up, in case someone isn't aware that Old English refers to a very specific point of evolution for the English language, and not just any English that's kinda funny soundin'.

[Dinkleberry2010]

It's strange, but I live in a place--east Tennessee--where there is still a reminant of Middle English spoken and even written. There are places here in east Tennessee that are so isolated and insulated that the language used is closer to Shakespeare than it is to modern English. I am not exaggerating in the least.

[Jonathan Cid]

What places would those be exactly? Any names of towns? That sounds almost scary. Maybe that could be the inspiration for some genre horror?

[Nietzsche]

Nietzche, you are correct. Good point to bring up, in case someone isn't aware that Old English refers to a very specific point of evolution for the English language, and not just any English that's kinda funny soundin'.

Thanks, I study Old & Middle English as a side hobby from my German studies. Most people are not aware of what Old English is.

Just for the record, here is the Lord's Prayer in the various stages. I use this because it's widely translated and available in pretty much every language on earth.

Note that English did not have a standard spelling system until 1755 for the British when Samuel Johnson published the first English dictionary. In 1828 the Americans got their own basis for spelling when Merriam Webster published his dictionary. There are a few differences in English and American modern English spelling & grammar (Aeroplane vs Airplane ; Programme vs Program, Cheque vs Check, The band ARE good, the band IS good , etc ).. Anyway, here is the lords prayer in Old and Middle English.

Old English [Late West Saxon specifically]

Fæder ure, ðu ðe eart on heofonum,
Si ðin nama gehalgod.
To becume ðin rice.
Gewurde ðin willa
On eorþan swa swa on heofonum.
Urne dægwhamlican hlaf syle us todæg.
And forgyf us ure gyltas,
Swa swa we forgyfaþ urum gyltendum.
And ne gelæd ðu us on costnunge,
Ac alys us of yfele. Soþlice.

Middle English

Oure fadir þat art in heuenes halwid be þi name;
þi reume or kyngdom come to be.
Be þi wille don in herþe as it is doun in heuene.
yeue to us today oure eche dayes bred.
And foryeue to us oure dettis þat is oure synnys as we foryeuen to oure dettouris þat is to men þat han synned in us.
And lede us not into temptacion but delyuere us from euyl.


It's strange, but I live in a place--east Tennessee--where there is still a reminant of Middle English spoken and even written. There are places here in east Tennessee that are so isolated and insulated that the language used is closer to Shakespeare than it is to modern English. I am not exaggerating in the least.


Middle English ceased to be Middle English far before any English speaker set foot in the Americas.

The closest thing to Middle English would be Scots, a scottish language related to English (not to be confused with scots celtic or scottish english).

Modern English came around 1480, Middle English ceased to be classified as Middle at that point. The first English speakers settled in the Americas in the early 1600s, long after Middle English ceased. So any "shakespearian" tendencines in Tenessee dialects wouldn't be middle english, but earlier modern english.

Did you guys know that the pronoun "You" was considered formal in earlier modern English, whereas Thou (from Þu in Middle and Old English ; also spelled ðu ) was considered more casual?

[Dinkleberry2010]

You're right and I was incorrect, in that I should have said there is a reminant of early modern English spoken and even written here in east Tennessee, rather than Middle English. But I stand by what I said about there being places here in east Tennessee where the language used is closer to Shakespeare than it is to modern English.

[Nietzsche]

You're right and I was incorrect, in that I should have said there is a reminant of early modern English spoken and even written here in east Tennessee, rather than Middle English. But I stand by what I said about there being places here in east Tennessee where the language used is closer to Shakespeare than it is to modern English.

Indeed, isolated areas tend to have archaic tendencies. For instance in Switzerland some of the Swiss dialects in the more isolated areas in the alps are hard to understand for the more urban swiss as they retain some very archaic forms and tendencies.

[Jonathan Cid]

Did you guys know that the pronoun "You" was considered formal in earlier modern English, whereas Thou (from Þu in Middle and Old English ; also spelled ðu ) was considered more casual?

That's fascinating, considering how we perceive the opposite nowadays.

[Nietzsche]

That's fascinating, considering how we perceive the opposite nowadays.

Yeah, if you pay attention to a work like Hamlet, you will notice.

Taken from Act 1 Scene 1 of Hamlet


BERNARDO:
In the same figure, like the king that's dead.

MARCELLUS :
Thou art a scholar; speak to it, Horatio.

Notice that these two are friends, addressing each other as Thou

Act 1, Scene 2

HAMLET :
[Aside] A little more than kin, and less than kind.

KING CLAUDIUS :
How is it that the clouds still hang on you?

Notice that in this story, Hamlet and his step father have a bad relationship. They are not friendly to each other, and tend to address each other as you, the more formal pronoun. If you are aware of this, you will notice it a lot in this play and can tell the relationship people have or what setting they are in ( I believe at times, Hamlet addressed his mother as thou, yet at other times you for instance if my memory serves me correctly)

Thou comes from Ðu / Þu (doesn't matter, Ð/ðand Þ/þ have the same value in English), which is etymologically connected to the German "Du" which is the informal second person pronoun. In Early modern english, You was equivalent to the formal version of the German "Du", Sie.

You is from the Old English eow. The use of Anglo Normal and Old French in England in the middle ages influenced English, giving You the equivalence to the French Vous. Since Thou was already the common form of the pronoun and similar to the French Informal Tu, it remained the common informal. Over time it gained common usage, replacing thou. Since thou seemed archaic, over time it took on a formal, fancy, semantic meaning.

[stlukesguild]

Since thou seemed archaic, over time it took on a formal, fancy, semantic meaning.

This was strengthened by the fact that this and other similar archaic words (thine, thy) were employed in the King James Version translation of the Bible. It seems that the audience was more comfortable with certain archaisms. If the work was translated in too contemporary of an idiom there was a suspicion that something had been lost or changed. The same, it seems, was true of the Latin translation. The Vulgate, the Bible largely translated by Jerome, employed Modern Latin as it was spoken at the time. This translation never caught on with the larger audience who preferred the older translations in what was by then an archaic mode of Latin... in spite of the superior quality of Jerome's translation and scholarship. Only when the language of the Vulgate itself had become archaic was it embraced.

[Nietzsche]

Since thou seemed archaic, over time it took on a formal, fancy, semantic meaning.

This was strengthened by the fact that this and other similar archaic words (thine, thy) were employed in the King James Version translation of the Bible. It seems that the audience was more comfortable with certain archaisms. If the work was translated in too contemporary of an idiom there was a suspicion that something had been lost or changed. The same, it seems, was true of the Latin translation. The Vulgate, the Bible largely translated by Jerome, employed Modern Latin as it was spoken at the time. This translation never caught on with the larger audience who preferred the older translations in what was by then an archaic mode of Latin... in spite of the superior quality of Jerome's translation and scholarship. Only when the language of the Vulgate itself had become archaic was it embraced.

All very true.

In regards to Thy an Thine, they are the forms that went along with Thou.

Thou = Du ; Thine = Dein. Thy is a shortened form of Thine, in the same way that My is short for mine (german Mein). In 1611 , the date of the publication of the King James Bible, Thou had already fallen out of use. Like you said, it made people think it archaic and fancy.

In regards to the Vulgate, i'm not very familiar with Latin, but I think it was published in the 400s, correct? I think that would be the Late Latin era, and the revisions Jerome was working with were in Classical era latin. I think it was called the Vulgate because it was supposed to be for the common people, in a "vulgar" language (though vulgar means 'wrong' often in modern english, the old meaning was common. Vulgar Latin would not be cuss words but the non-standard dialects people actually talked with giving birth to the romance language family). The common people were called the vulgus. So the vulgate was for the vulgus who spoke vulgar latin. Correct?

On a random note, when you buy Latin learning materials does anyone know what era of Latin it is based on (Old, Classical, Late, Medieval, Renaissance, or Contemporary/Ecclesiastical Latin)? For instance for Old English, mostly everything is based on Late West Saxon as it had the most texts to work with.

[Janine]

I am not sure how this relates or fits into the conversation; but in the early part of the 20th Century, in D.H.Lawrence's well known novel "Sons and Lovers", based on his own parent's marriage, it seemed the lower class English used the 'thou, thy and thee' - this he called "head speech" and his father, who was a miner spoke in this venacular. His mother, thinking she was more educated and above the father, commanded her children not to use the father's common thou, thy and thee. I therefore, didn't think it was the use of these was atributed to finer society. Perhaps in Shakespeare's time this was considered the opposite. I know from our discussion of Shakespeare on this forum we have often seen court language portrayed more formally, often in poetry, than the speech of the common man.

Nietzsche, thanks for posting all that you have; it's quite interesting and enlightening. I agree about Hamlet; having seen the play zillions of times by now I pick up on every word and notice these nuances of speech. This is a good example and there are many more plays of Shakespeare's where he employed the same principle. Shakespeare never fails to impress me with his genius!


Originally Posted by Nietzsche
Did you guys know that the pronoun "You" was considered formal in earlier modern English, whereas Thou (from Þu in Middle and Old English ; also spelled ðu ) was considered more casual?


That's fascinating, considering how we perceive the opposite nowadays.

Jonathan Cid, interesting comment and I think it all depends on where in history one is perceiving the language. Idea of 'formal' and 'informal' seems have changed at various times.

stlukes, yes, referencing the versions of the Bible and the interpretations is interesting; adding to this discussion in another perspective.

[Dinkleberry2010]

I'm going to use the following as an example of what I say when I state that in some parts of east Tennessee the language used is closer to Shakespeare than it is to modern English: "What are ye doing, ye varlet?"
"Nothing ye would be interested in, ye whoreson.'
"Well, if ye are going to have that attitude, than to hell with ye"
"The same to you, ye son of a frenchman."

Now that is language that is used quite commonly in some parts of east Tennessee--both in conversation and in writing. I think it's closer to Shakespeare than it is to modern English.

[Janine]

I'm going to use the following as an example of what I say when I state that in some parts of east Tennessee the language used is closer to Shakespeare than it is to modern English: "What are ye doing, ye varlet?"
"Nothing ye would be interested in, ye whoreson.'
"Well, if ye are going to have that attitude, than to hell with ye"
"The same to you, ye son of a frenchman."

Now that is language that is used quite commonly in some parts of east Tennessee--both in conversation and in writing. I think it's closer to Shakespeare than it is to modern English.

:lol: :lol: :lol: !!!

[gbrekken]

simple short answer "twas" past tense, tis=present (perfect?)

[Nick Capozzoli]

First reply got derailed...

'Tis and 'Twas are acceptable modern English abbreviations (though archaic sounding) for "It is" and "It was." Dickenson began a great poem with "'Twas warm at first like us," which sounds better than "It was warm at first like us." Acceptable in colloquial speech in some parts..."'Tis a nice day, Abner. 'Twas good to see you at church on Sunday."

"Thou", except among Quakers, or when used by others in common prayer, is definitely archaic English usage. Nietzche is correct about the OE/Germanic origin. I don't have the runic thorn character (so I use "th"...), but in OE the pronouns were declined. "Th(o)u" is nominative, "the" is accusative/dative, and "thin" is genitive. If you use these forms, you should use the proper case. "Thou art my God, Thy will be done, Thine is the kingdom; 'Tis right and just to worship Thee." etc.

"You" is actually the plural 2nd person pronoun in OE. "Ye/you" (nom.), "eower" (like "your"...gen.), and "eow" (acc./dat.).

The plural "you" serves as polite/deferential address in modern German and even in modern Romance languages, though linguistic democratization is making this usage unpopular. An interesting political sidebar...The use of "voi" in address was promoted by Mussolini's Fascists (and I believe Franco encouraged a similar thing in Spanish).

[xtianfriborg13]

I don't think there's a rule since using those kinds of words plays as an aesthetic style of yours. Worry not.