Quote:
Originally Posted by JRendell
You  can only pronounce the word 'you' one way. However, you can pronounce the letter 'u' in different ways. In Early Modern English, the word 'you' was not used, 'thou' was. So I'm putting some logic into assuming that they kept the 'o' and 'u' from 'thou' and made 'you'. |
This isn't really the case. Sort of simply put,
thou (
žu in Old English) was the second person singular nominative (meaning it was used in the subject) pronoun.
Ye (
ge in Old English) was the 2nd person plural nominative pronoun.
You (
eow in Old English) was basically the plural version of thou when used as the object of the sentence, and also for
ye when used as the object of the sentence. The meanings of
you and
ye merged over time. When the Normans invaded England, use of French was wide spread and the meaning of
you was influenced by the French word
vous, which is both used as a plural and as a respectful word for the singular. So
you began to be used instead of
thou to address superiors in the singular in a polite manner, and eventually became common usage for all 2nd personal pronouns, singular and plural.