I just learned the other day that in English “you” is the old formal.

Here in Pennsylvania, we know that Quakers used thee and thou far longer than anyone else. Turns out, that was a protest movement. You and yours were used for nobility and royalty, the piece I was reading said the “royal we” is a leftover from this setup.

As a protest against classism and politics, Quakers refused to use you and yours at all and used thee and thou for everyone regardless of status. Instead, common usage English went the other way and adopted you and yours for everyone.

My mother met old Quaker ladies in the 1950s who still used thee and thou in common conversation.

Fun consequence of this: the ten commandments should be translated into WAY less formal English if want to be traditional.

“No murders y’all” weirdly doesn’t have the same punch when engraved on a stone tablet, though. (And most Americans can’t read ancient Hebrew.)

The ten commandments are future imperatives, but English doesn’t have that mood and instead archaic language is used in place of it.

They are as strong a command as can be given, but a literal translation would just be “you will not”. That lacks the weight of the original form so translators try to make it read more seriously than the language allows with “thou shalt not”.