28 April 07
Tu/Usted
Susan writes about the tu/usted familiar/formal usage of the second person pronoun in the village where she and her sweetie spend half the year in Mexico. I’m interested in this because the usage seems fluid, local, and changing constantly.
When I returned to Spain after many years away, about four years ago, I was stunned by how complete strangers now used the “tu” form to each other. (I looked like a gringa or, to use the Old World form, a giri, and it wasn’t until I opened my mouth that they, once they got over their stupefaction, danced in multiple ways around the tu/usted maypole.) But usually one person sets the rules: either by establishing “nos tuteamos, ¿vale?” or simply by assuming that a “tu” will not be considered rude. (I did notice that nobody said “tu” to my mother while we were there for a wedding last year unless they had known her VERY WELL when she lived there. Perhaps there’s a certain age above which it’s never considered okay beyond the family.)
I had a sad occasion to call Madrid on Wednesday to order flowers — the mother of the groom died suddenly on Tuesday night. (Auntie Margaret, I hope there’s lots of good hot tea milk not cream, and toast and marmite, wherever you are now.) The local florist, Carlos, was from Ecuador. (This is definitely a new face of Madrid: the influx of Latin Americans, willing to do all the work that Spaniards etc. etc.) We discussed colors and the layout (the US usage “arrangement” is translated to “arreglo” in Ecuador but in Spain the term is “centro,” so once we got through all that we communicated quite well. I certainly used “usted” but I suspect that makes me a bit quaint. Carlos showed no sign of discomfort with it, though. I think the key here is to be attentive to the comfort level of the person you’re talking with…
Susan says that in contrast to the morass of Spanish usage, she understands the French usage of tu and toi and vous, but again I think it might be more nuanced. For instance, my boss in an insurance company in Paris in the early 80s was from a minor Belgian aristocratic family. She called her father “vous” on the phone and would never, ever dream of calling God “tu” — so when I attended her sister’s wedding in the Loire it was a chaotic, hilarious mishmash. The 12th century church was full of people who a) rarely went to mass, and didn’t know the vernacular prayers at all, having learned them in Latin pre-Vatican II; b) were aristocrats, and used the “vous” form loudly and proudly; c) were commoners who mumbled along with the “tu” voiced by the priest. But in the street, even in the early 80s, people of my age would never call me “vous” — it would accord me a status I hadn’t earned and didn’t expect.
I expect I’d be surprised, again, if I were to alight in Paris today, as Leslee is doing: but in this as in many things I suspect there are clear distinctions of region, urban/rural, class, and colonized versus colonizer. Of course it’s very hard to form any clear sense of how this is evolving on brief visits… Care to weigh in at all, Nicole? Jonathan? Beth, with a French Canadian perspective?
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Don’t think I will ever crack this unless I live somewhere for ages. I have a French friend/colleague in Paris – an informal, chatty, sociable man, mid 30s. Met him when he spent some time in the London university dept where I work. I’ve translated a couple of academic papers for him, so we still have a professional relationship. But also stayed in his flat in Paris one summer while he and his partner were away. He rigorously calls me vous, which I find really odd in the context of our relaxed relationship of several years standing, and very different from when I lived in France 30 years ago. I suspect he may be waiting for me to take the first step because I’m older. He also, when sending condolences on the death of my boss who died last year, whom he knew well and liked a great deal, referred to R by his surname (not ‘Prof S’, just ‘S’), which felt very odd to me.
To make it harder, the prevailing policy in university language classes, at least in the 1980s when I was studying, was to address students in the formal. I think this was related to the heavily masticated dictum that undergraduates are considered adults.
The verb forms of the 2nd formal are identical to some other form that you learn anyway (2d plural in French, 3d plural in German, 3d singular in Spanish), but the 2nd familiar is unique in its verb forms, so if you can’t use them in class you don’t drill them. I remember getting to Europe having had little practice in the verb form that young adults usually use with each other.
Still, having been burned on this in three languages now, I would never presume to use the familiar without the quick “On se tutoit?” / “Bien sur” ...
Jean — maybe a good time to jokingly suggest “on se tutoit?” to your friend?
Jarrett — worst for scrambling my brain was Argentina, where they use an archaic form of the second person, vos, but a contraction of the verb that would correspond to it (so it’s “vos tenés” rather than the Golden Age “vos tenéis” ...
Pica: There is a delightful Quebecoise here in Cuyutlán whom I will see on Wednesday for the last game of dominoes. I will ask her about the French Canadian usage and let you know. This has been a very interesting discussion. I asked Fernando tonight about one of the guests at the dinner last Friday; it was his daughter’s “comadre” or sponsor for Rosie’s first communion. She is always addressed in the “usted” form even though she is an age-mate and close friend. Another wrinkle.
Great comments! Great topic!
Yeah well I have to navigate this usage with uncertainty myself at every encounter, I think we are in a period of linguistic transition, probably precipitated by all the cross-cultural intersections. In Quebec everyone uses the tu, which at first threw me back for days, each time I would scrutinize the person’s face to see if we had perhaps met before to warrant such familiarity. The colonized francophones of sub-Saharan Africa have also always used the tu, which complicates matters in France quite a lot, because you want to show proper deference to people regardless of color, so calling your taxi driver “tu” might be just as insulting as calling him “boy”. I too have friends my own age who call their parents “vous” and are no less close to their parents. My mother has friends, Jean and Josette, who, though married for more then 20 years, continue to vouvoyer each other, and they are very sweet with each other (I think Sartre and Beauvoir did too). All my teachers past elementary school called me “vous” (and “Mademoiselle”), so when I came to the States and my advisor expected me to call him Dave, I was aghast. I can’t bring myself to calling God “tu” either, so the Lord’s prayer is completely out of synch in most churches in France, perhaps less so in “province” where people are more formal (and where average church-goers are widows in their 70s). On the whole for most situations, though, I think age is the deciding factor, even beyond length of relationship. So I say to my friend Colette, in her 80s, “Dites, Colette, quand est-ce que je vous verrai?” But people at or around our age are “tu” now, right away, without even having to go through the “on se tutoie?” dance. Here in the South where there is a 2nd person plural, “y’all”, it is never used to denote individuals, so when someone asks “How are y’all doin’?” they are asking about your entire family. If they want to find out about every single person, they’ll even say “all y’all”. But you can spot outsiders when they want to use “y’all” ubiquitously, without restraint.
Did you remember that in Russian there is a form, which escapes me because I
seldom use it, that is used ONLY to address God. And, by gosh, now I think of it,
the Japanese had a first person pronoun used ONLY by the Emperor.