And what language and region is it?
I’ve noticed my language teacher uses the informal you in one language and the formal one in the other.
And what language and region is it?
I’ve noticed my language teacher uses the informal you in one language and the formal one in the other.
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.)
“No murders, y’all”
Omg, that’s too funny!
“No ogling at your peeps’ wives, c’mon you dum-dums!”
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”.
Y’all best not do no killin’ now, ya hear!?
“no babbling the Lord’s name just because, like, hello?!”
That ain’t even yo damn wife!
Except “thou” in “thou shalt not kill” is the singular pronoun, while “you” would be the plural…
I have no idea what number was implied in the original Hebrew.
Well, maybe. If thou is for peasants, then the implication the commandments are directed specifically at the non-royal?
No, because who gets addressed as you and who gets addressed as thou, was dependent not on the social standing of the one being addressed, but the social standing of the speaker compared to the one they’re speaking to. To put it more simply, in a given situation, the “dominant” party is addressed as you by the “subservient” party, while the subservient party is addressed as thou by the dominant party.
So, for example, in conversation A peasant and their lord are talking. The peasant would address their lord as you, and the lord would address their subject, the peasant, as thou. But in conversation B when the lord is talking with their own liege, let’s say, the king, the lord addresses the king as you and the king would address his vassal, the lord, as thou.
In conversation A, the lord is the dominant party, and thus is to be addressed as you by the subservient party. In conversation B however, the lord is the subservient party, and thus is to be addressed as thou by the dominant party.
So, getting back to the commandments, since in an interaction between God and a human the human always is the subservient party while God is always the dominant party, God would address the human as thou.
No. OP got the premise a bit wrong, for one thing. And usually it was other poor people that did the sanctioned killing, anyway - it’s dirty unpleasant work that a king would have avoided in the Early Modern period.