Archaic English

- Thee, Thou, Thine, Thy, and Ye:

In modern English, the personal pronoun you (together with the possessives your and yours) covers a number of uses: it is both singular and plural, both objective and subjective, and both formal and familiar. This has not always been the case. In Old English and Middle English, some of these different functions of you were supplied by different words. Thus, thou was at one time the singular subjective case (thou art a beast), while thee was the singular objective case (he cares not for thee). In addition, the form thy (modern equivalent your) was the singular possessive determiner, and thine (modern equivalent yours) the singular possessive pronoun, both corresponding to thee. The forms you and ye, on the other hand, were at one time reserved for plural uses. By the 19^th century, these forms were universal in standard English for both singular and plural, polite and familiar. In present day use, thou, thee, thy, and thine survive in certain religious groups and in some traditional British dialects, but otherwise are found only in archaic contexts.

Examples of use:

1) “Look up to thy father and thy mother”

2) “The brilliancy of thine own imagination” or “Inquire into thine own heart”

In the examples above, thy and thine (thy in front of a vowel or ‘h’ sound), act as a determiner or possessive adjective. They all mean your.

3) “His spirit will take courage from thine”

In this case, thine is a possessive pronoun, yours.

4) “We beseech thee to stay more”

Here, thee is the singular object of the verb, functioning the same way for prepositions. It means you, the object form of thou, used when speaking to one person.

5) “With this ring, I thee wed”

Above, another archaic or chiefly formal English, meaning, “With this ring, I get married to you”.

6) “Thou shouldst be dilligent”

Thou, it is the second person singular pronoun, that is, you. It is often used before verbs ending in –st or –est.

7) “Ye cannot serve God and mammon”

Here, it is a word meaning you, used when talking to more than one person.

- Shouldst:

A second person singular past tense of shall. The past of shall is should, therefore, I come to the conclusion that “you should” turns into “thou shouldest”, in archaic English, as the past to “you shall”.

According to wikipedia:

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The word thou (pronounced /ðaʊ/ in most dialects) is a second person singular pronoun in English. It is now largely archaic, having been replaced in almost all contexts by you. It is still used in parts of Northern England, the far north of Scotland, and a handful of US towns. Thou is the nominativeform; the oblique/objective form is thee (functioning as both accusative and dative), and the possessive is thy or thine. Almost all verbs following thouhave the endings -st or -est; e.g., "thou goest". In Middle English, thou was sometimes abbreviated by putting a small "u" over the letter thorn: þͧ ().

Originally, thou was simply the singular counterpart to the plural pronoun ye, derived from an ancient Indo-European root. Following a process found in other Indo-European languages, thou was later used to express intimacy, familiarity, or even disrespect^{[citation needed]} while another pronoun, you, the oblique/objective form of ye, was used for formal circumstances (see T-V distinction). In the 17th century, thou fell into disuse in the standard language but persisted, sometimes in altered form, in regional dialects of England and Scotland,[2] as well as in the language of such religious groups as the Society of Friends. In standard modern English, thou continues to be used only in formal religious contexts, in literature that seeks to reproduce archaic language, and in certain fixed phrases such as "holier than thou" and "fare thee well". For this reason, many falsely associate the pronoun with solemnity or formality, connotations at odds with the word's history. Many dialects have compensated for the lack of a singular/plural distinction caused by the disappearance of thou and ye through the creation of new plural pronouns or pronominal constructions, such as y'all, yinz, youse, you lot, your lot, and you guys. These vary regionally and are usually restricted to colloquial speech.

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My conclusion:

It seems that, some centuries ago, we had different forms to express you when singular and when plural. Not only, your and yours, had their counterparts too, alongside the usage of ye, when talking to more than one person, as opposed to thou that is used to address one single person.

Modern English has been made easier in that sense, becoming different from languages such as Portuguese wherein we still have different forms for you when singular and when plural.

I confess, I reckon I still have to read this some times more to make sure I’ve comprehended everything, that’s unusual in day-to-day communication in today’s English.

Why on Earth have I come to write about this? Simply because I’ve been requested to read a bunch of books at the university, written in English, and I’ve found one of them rather complicated in terms of vocabulary, too vast and counting on archaic terms.

These post contents is thanks to the Oxford and Cambridge online dictionaries, as well as Wikipedia.

Frankly, too more could be said about this matter, find it out on the internet, or luckily, there will be something new on this over here down the road.

See ya!