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Originally Posted by Galadriel55
I haven't thought of that. They do in the Russian translation as well, and somewhere along the conversation Strider calls Frodo ty, and then explains that he is used to that form. After that, they address each other familiarly.
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Wait, do you actually say that they
added such a thing into the book?
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And that reminds me - Butterbur and Nob use the formal as well in my translation.
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Indeed they do so in Czech as well, I guess that's the polite manner of the businessmen, being polite to your customers.
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That's interresting. As far as I know, the polite plural is relatively modern in history terms. Only a couple hundred years.   The earlier Zhars, and before them - princes, were always called ty. So for me, when I see Theoden, Elrond, Denethor, and other rulers being called ty, I think "ancient".
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That's true, the polite plural is a rather modern invention in general. But now that I think of that, in Czech, calling nobles "ty" probably happens mostly only in fairytales, and in the few old sagas we have (or rather I am thinking of the one collection of old sagas which was written down in the 19th century), otherwise, an average person does not get to read things where a king is called "ty", so it sounds probably even much less natural than in many other languages, simply because of the lack of old sources.