Most English-speaking people, for instance, will admit that cellar door is 'beautiful', especially if dissociated from its sense (and its spelling). More beautiful than, say, sky, and far more beautiful than beautiful. Well then, in Welsh for me cellar doors are extraordinarily frequent.
- JRR Tolkien
A stray tweet the other day compelled me to bust out some old Russian stories, particularly those of my fellow Ukrainian, Nikolai Gogol. It's kinda funny that a man who internalized the Russian imperialism of calling our motherland 'Малороссия' ('Little Russia') had such a великий (great) influence upon not only Russian literature, but also that of the world.
So I kicked things off with his short story, The Overcoat (Шинель) and one of my favorite pathetic characters, described thusly:
It must be noticed that Akaky Akakyevitch for the most part explained himself by apologies, vague phrases, and particles which have absolutely no significance whatever. If the subject were a very difficult one, it was his habit indeed to leave his sentences quite unfinished, so that very often after a sentence had begun with the words, “It really is, don’t you know. . .“ nothing at all would follow and he himself would be quite oblivious, supposing he had said all that was necessary.
My old Russian roommate, Dima (who still helps me at times with idioms), and I used to jokingly speak in exaggerated fashion ala Akaky Akakyevitch based on a Soviet film adaptation: "ну, вот, так, значит..." ("nu, vot, tak, znachit..." or "well, here, so, you know...") Just meaningless drivel in the context (or lack thereof).
I then moved on to The Old World Landowners (Старосветские помещики), which begins with a gorgeously romantic mental painting of rural life in Ukraine, along with an introduction to an "eldery" couple (the woman is in her mid-50s, which certainly seemed ancient when I was a college student). In addition to noting their "delicate wrinkles", Gogol provides this vignette:
It was impossible to behold without sympathy their mutual affection. They never called each other thou, but always you—“You, Afanasii Ivanovich”; “You, Pulcheria Ivanovna.”
“Was it you who sold the chair, Afanasii Ivanovich?”
“No matter. Don’t you be angry, Pulcheria Ivanovna: it was I.”
Much like Tolkien, I find a lot of cellar doors in Russian, and here is that passage по-русски (po-russki):
Нельзя было глядеть без участия на их взаимную любовь. Они никогда не говорили друг другу ты, но всегда вы; вы, Афанасий Иванович; вы, Пульхерия Ивановна.
«Это вы продавили стул, Афанасий Иванович?» — «Ничего, не сердитесь, Пульхерия Ивановна: это я».
No transliteration really can adequately capture the sound of ты and вы from where I sit. It's like "tee" and "vee", but here's a little video about how to pronounce that second letter which kinda looks like 61 (called 'yery'). It's probably my favorite Russian vocalization, really the quintessential "world-weariness" the language projects.
Anyway, I highlight this because it's a great example of the T-V distinction that modern English lacks. One place you might have still heard thee/thou used after about 1800 was in Quaker households. This peculiar affectation was part of the Friends' so-called "plain speech" that carried through even into the 20th century.
As historian and author Al Southwick (who died a few months back at 100) recalled in January:
[M]y mother one day announced that we henceforth would use the Quaker plain speech when talking to members of the family. And we did. It was “thee”, “thy”, and “thine” when we talked to our parents or siblings from then on. My letters home during World War II invariably used the plain speech, much to the amusement of later readers. It seems funny even to me now to read what I wrote to my mother in 1942-45. – “I got thy last letter. Did thee know that Nathan (my brother in the Army) was transferred to Manila?”
I had thought the plain speech we used was just a curiosity – a quirk of those early Quakers in England. But a syndicated article by a historian, Teresa M..Bejan, sheds light on a long controversy on English pronouns. Pronouns, she says, are “the most political parts of speech in English.” We can think of the current controversy over “they” and “their” when we default from the feminine.
Back to 17th Century England, when just about everything had a political impact. When George Fox, founder of the Quaker movement, ruled that his followers would use the plain speech, he was making a political statement. “Thee” and “thou’ used instead of “you” was a slap at those who had the pretense of higher social class. Fox would have none of it. He regarded “you” as a sign of pride, a sin in Quaker eyes.
To quote Ms. Bejan “As one early Quaker explained, if a man of lower status came to speak to a wealthy man. He must you the rich man, but the rich man will thou him."
The Quakers refused to play that game just as they refused to doff their hats to their “betters.” William Penn, the Quaker founder of Pennsylvania, is said to have believed that the use of “you” was a form of idolatry. I am beginning to understand why my forbears were in so much trouble with the authorities. When they used thee and thou, they were making a political statement. – an egalitarian social protest.
That great pronoun battle reminds of the one we are having right now, with all the gender confusion across the land. When we don’t know a person’s gender, we customarily default to the masculine – “he/him”, not “she/her.” Does that show prejudice? Gender activists are promoting gender-inclusive pronouns, such as “they/their instead of “he/him. They argue that if people have the right to choose their gender, they should have the right to choose their own pronouns.
Right? Just one of many reasons I love language, and its evolution, and why I include my pronouns even in my corporate email signature.
In conclusion: language has always been political, and about social structures and control, значит?