#i think it should also be noted that singular 'er/sie' somehow completely changed meaning within a few hundred years

[trigilis]

I just reblogged this, but I actually need to go back and add your tags, OP, because they are so good!!

#just kidding i don't know what linguists call that tenor. or any tenors. i'm not totally positive what a tenor even is#but i can't let that stop me from writing a jokey post on tumblr dot com#register is a very interesting area of linguistics that i know very little about#so i'm probably revealing the depths of my vast ignorance here to all the sociolinguists who surely hang on my every word#but i've always thought of the formal/informal pronoun thing as being about two things: intimacy-distance & rudeness-politeness#and of course you can usually tell from context whether a formal pronoun is meant to indicate distance or politeness#(plus distance and politeness are related to each other (to various degrees depending on culture))#but it seems like it would be cool to have a built-in alignment chart of sorts just for pronoun combos#instead of prep jock nerd goth...why not try intimate self-effacing polite superior?#the goblin emperor#pronouns#register#sociolinguistics#my posts#f#anyway i know i said i wasn't going to reread the goblin emperor...but guess what. lol#and i edited my tags on that earlier post but fyi the language DOES distinguish between plural and formal singular pronouns#i had said i thought it used the same pronouns for plural and formal but i just wasn't paying close enough attention#so anyway i just reread the part where maia is talking to setheris in formal first and informal second#and you can see setheris going ohhh shit. oh shit oh shit oh shit#i'm in biiiiiig trouble#you sure are dude. that's the Time to Grovel signal#it's interesting because at the very beginning of the book when i first saw the formal first used i just thought it was the royal we#because i knew the main character was supposed to be royalty#but then EVERYONE was doing it. so it's not the royal we it's just the formal we#however. this does make me realize that the way the royal we would function in a language that retains the t-v distinction#is the same way i'm describing here. it's just reserving that particular tone (i'm better than you and am displeased with you)#for royalty only. which makes sense given royalty's whole deal

what i like especially about the pronouns in the goblin emperor is that this language doesn't just have the T-V distinction (aka informal vs. formal second-person pronouns, in this case 'thou' vs. 'you'), it also has informal and formal first-person pronouns. having BOTH of these distinctions in the same language lets you fine-tune your tone by mixing and matching. with only one axis of formality, when you use informal pronouns, are you being familiar in an intimate way, or in an insolent or dismissive way? when you use formal pronouns, are you being polite or standoffish? you can't tell just from the pronouns; there's ambiguity. but a language where you can use a formal first-person pronoun in the same sentence as an informal second-person pronoun allows you to distance yourself (via the formal first) while also being familiar (via the informal second), thereby achieving the conversational tenor known to linguists as Fuck Thee Specifically.