Participants Blog

A thought: The informal ‘you’ vs. the formal ‘You’

Dear Readers,

I had a little bit of an awkward encounter with my host grandmother, and it had to do with a feature of the Ukrainian language which is no longer part of the English language. I don’t think it is a huge deal, but I thought I would write about it anyway.

Those who know only the English language are probably unfamiliar with a certain feature of many other languages, that is the use of two different words where in English we have only one word ‘you.’ Many laugh when words like ‘thou’ and ‘thee’ are used since they are considered archaic and comical, but historically ‘thou’ is the second person singular, while ‘you’ is the second person plural. In English we just use ‘you’ to denote the second person singular as well now. You may remember from French class the words ‘te’ and ‘vous’ which both mean ‘you’, but are used in different circumstances. ‘Te’ is the singular ‘you’ (or ‘thou’), while ‘vous’ is the plural ‘you’. ‘Vous’ is also used in the singular when used in a formal setting, for instance if you were speaking to someone you just met, or to someone in a higher rank. Ukrainian in that sense is no different. Instead of ‘te’ and ‘vous’ though, Ukrainian has ‘ти’ (ty) and ‘ви’ (vy).

Now, ‘ви’ is always used when using the plural ‘you’ so that is easy to remember. And it is usually very easy to know when to use ти as opposed to ви in the singular. You would use ‘ти’ when speaking to people with who you are familiar, or when they are younger. You would use ‘ви’ when speaking to people with whom you are unfamiliar, with someone who is older, or when someone who is of a higher rank. So if I were to meet a young child for the first time, the child would address me using ‘Bи’, but it is perfectly okay for me to answer using ‘ти.’ However, if that person I just met was the same age as me, I would answer back using the formal ‘Ви’. If I were speaking to my boss, I would always always always use the formal ‘Ви’.

When my host sisters addressed me with the informal ‘ти’ early on in my stay here, I was very relieved. I felt much more comfortable since they were comfortable addressing me using the informal ‘you’.

Now, there is only one person with whom I don’t know exactly how to address. That is my host grandmother. Because she is a senior, I address her automatically using the formal ways of saying hello, which is on the same level as the informal ‘you’ and formal ‘you’. Even when she initiates a greeting, she uses the formal way of saying ‘hello’.

Anyway, yesterday in the kitchen, she was going about being herself, and Ukrainian, which for the North American seems very bossy, but in reality it isn’t. I was feeling a little uncomfortable. Then all of a sudden she said ‘Do you want to eat’ using the formal ‘Ви’. This threw me off, and it made me more uncomfortable because I assumed she would use the informal ‘ти’ when speaking to me.

Now, I will not dwell on this, because it probably isn’t a huge deal, but is one of the things you have to deal with when in a new culture. In this case it wasn’t so much that I didn’t know the language, it was that I knew this aspect of the language but didn’t know what to do with it, and what to expect from others. That’s more of a cultural thing rather than a linguistic thing.

Until next time,
Michael Hayes, Ukraine