“Thee” and “thou” in “The Lord of the Rings”

[Galin]

Originally Posted by Selmo

I live just a little to the north of Birmingham, where Tolkien grew up, and my local dialect is similar to the language of that area. In conversation between family and friends we still use familiar pronouns, though when I speak, "thee" sounds more like "thay" and "thine" comes out as "tharn".

That's interesting!

And I don't remember my German well enough at the moment: is it Sie (polite) along with Du familiar?

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Galin

And I don't remember my German well enough at the moment: is it Sie (polite) along with Du familiar?

With all the authority of my two years of high school German, I think that's correct.

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Inzil, you've already pointed to the two other examples of the word usage that I would like to expand on! Good job on remembering them. Since the familiar form is used with a different purpose there, perhaps we should carry on with the discussion about Éowyn before talking about them.

Originally Posted by Galin

And I don't remember my German well enough at the moment: is it Sie (polite) along with Du familiar?

Yes - with all the authority of one who lives in Germany and has to cope with the correct usage of both forms on a daily basis!

[Galadriel55]

I'm no expert on this, but could there be a difference between "thee" and "thou"? Denethor, Eowyn, and Aragorn use "thee", and MOS says "thou". Perhaps "thou" has a different shade to it.

And I think Denethor is addressing Gandalf on familiar terms to do quite the opposite - show Galdalf that he doesn't have authority over the Stewart and can't boss him around. Or, that thy re more equal than (Denethor thinks) Gandalf thinks.

[Estelyn Telcontar]

The difference between "thee" and "thou" is a matter of declension: "thou" is nominative, "thee" is objective, "thy" and "thine" are genitive, and "thine" is possessive. (The Wikipedia entry on "thou" has a good diagram explaining this, along with further information on grammar and etymology.)

Your thoughts on Denethor and Gandalf are going in the right direction - I'll be back with some quotes to explain later today, or tomorrow.

[Lhunardawen]

Esty, I believe we've had this discussion before (edit: well, maybe not at length, but we had touched on the subject) in the CbC for "The Passing of the Grey Company" (clickety click!). My, that was quite the exchange between Aragorn and Éowyn, wasn't it?

[Estelyn Telcontar]

You have a great memory, Lhuna! I enjoyed going back to the CbC discussion to which you linked! And I enjoyed seeing how you pointed out Aragorn's admirable qualities because of the way he handled the situation. (I think "swoon-worthy" was the technical term you used?! ) We did touch on the use of "thee/thou" briefly back then, but there were so many other aspects to the discussion that I didn't remember.

[Rumil]

Very interesting Esty,

I'd not clocked the significance in Aragorn/Eowyn exchanges.

As I remember it thee and thine etc are archaic, and therefore bring to mind legendary romances (Tristan and Isolde etc) but also archaic in that they bring to mind great leaders of old.

The major contrast here is between the hobbits' modern usage of you and yours and the 'heroic types' use of thee and thine. However the romantic use is a very telling sub-set of usage.

Also that the Fellowship are 'you and yours'-ers generally, perhaps tying in with (Denethor's?) comment that Pippin uses a strange idiom. Were the Fellowship (Gimli, Legolas, Aragorn, Boromir) using the modern forms as a more every-day form of speech?

Also backing up Selmo in that Oop North number of these archaic forms are still part of regonal dialect.