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Ye and You in the King James Version
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
In Morris's Historical Outlines of English Accidence, § 155, occurs this statement: “…in Old English Ye was always used as a nominative, and you as a dative or accusative. In the English Bible this distinction is very carefully observed, but in the dramatists of the Elizabethan period there is a very loose use of the two forms.” Similarly Lounsbury: “Ye in the language of Chaucer invariably denotes the nominative; you the objective; and this distinction will still be found observed in the Authorized Version of the Bible.” Emerson: “This is the use in Chaucer, and in the English Bible of 1611, the language of which, however, is based on the translations of earlier times.” Smith: “This distinction is preserved in the King James Version of the Bible: Ye in me, and I in you; but not in Shakespeare and later writers.”
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1914
Footnotes
page 453 note 1
For the privilege of examining Bibles and for other favors in the preparation of this paper, I acknowledge my indebtedness to Mr. J. C. M. Hanson of the University of Chicago Library, Mr. W. N. C. Carlton of the Newberry Library, Chicago, the late Mr. T. J. Kiernan of the Harvard University Library, Mr. H. M. Lydenberg and Mr. Wilberforce Eames of the New York Public Library, and Sir Frederick Kenyon of the British Museum.
References
page 453 note 2 History of the English Language, p. 128.
page 453 note 3 History of the English Language, § 381.
page 453 note 4 Old English Grammar, p. 51.
page 453 note 5 Statements to the same effect are found in Abbott's Shakespearian Grammar, § 236, and Kaluza's Grammatik der englischen Sprache, §469.
page 453 note 6 The first you in this passage is objective.
page 453 note 7 The instances follow: Gen. 9. 4, 7; 18. 5(2), 5 marg.; 22. 5; 24. 49; 32. 19(2); 34. 10; 42. 9, 12, 34(2); 44. 23; 45. 8, 9, 13(2); 47. 24; Exod. 2. 18; 3. 18; 5. 5, 8(2), 11, 21; 8. 28; 10. 11; 12. 13, 14(2), 31; 14. 13 marg.; 16. 23; 17. 2; 30. 37; Lev. 10. 6, 7; 11. 11; 18. 24; 22. 24; Num. 10. 6, 7(2); 11. 18; 14. 41; 15. 29: 16. 3; 18. 3, 28; 34. 6, 7; Deut. 1. 10, 17(2), 19, 43, 43 marg.; 4. 2, 26; 5. 32, 33; 6. 17; 9. 23; 11. 2, 13; 12. 3(2), 7; 13. 3, 4; 20. 3; 27. 2; 29. 6; Josh. 2. 10(2); 4. 3(2), 6; 6. 18; 10. 19; 18. 3; 22. 24; 23. 8 marg.; 24. 6, 15; Judg. 2. 2; 8. 24; 9. 7; 14. 12; 21. 22; Ruth 1. 9, 11; 1 Sam. 15. 32; 17. 8; 21. 14; 25. 13; 27. 10 marg.; 2 Sam. 13. 28 marg.; 21. 4; 1 Kings 9. 6(2); 12. 6; 2 Kings 2. 3, 5; 1 Chron. 15, 12; 16. 9; 2 Chron. 13. 5, 12; 20. 20; 23. 7; 29. 11; Ezra 4. 3; Neh. 2. 20; 5. 7, 8; Job 6. 27; 12. 3, 3 marg.; 13. 5, 7; 17. 10; 18. 2; 19. 3(2); 32. 11; Ps. 14. 6; 58. 2(2); 115. 15; Prov. 4. 2; Isa. 50. 1; 58. 3; 61. 6, 7; 62. 10; 65. 18; Jer. 3. 20; 7. 5; 17. 27; 23. 38; 33. 20; 42. 20 marg.; 44. 3, 23; Mal. 1. 13 marg.; 1 Esdr. 4. 22; 5. 69; 6. 4, 11; 8. 58, 85; 2 Esdr. 1. 14, 15, 17(2), 22, 26, 31; 14. 33, 34; 16, 63; Tob. 7. 3; 12. 19; 13. 6; Jud. 1. 10(2), 12; 2. 24; 7. 24(2); 8. 11, 12, 13, 14(2), 33(2), 34; 10. 9; 14. 2(2), 4, 5; Esth. 16. 22; Wisd. 6. 2, 4; Ecclus. 41. 8, 9(3); 43. 30(4), 51. 23, 24(2), Baruch 4. 6, 27; 6. 23, 72; Bel. 1. 27, 27 marg; 1 Mac. 2. 33(2), 37, 64(2); 4. 18; 5. 19; 10. 26, 27; 11. 31; 12. 7, 10, 22; 15. 28, 31; 2 Mac. 7. 22, 23; 11. 19, 36; 14. 33; Matth. 5. 47; 15. 3; 21. 28; 24. 44; 27. 65; Mk. 4. 13, 24, 40; 9. 50; l1. 26; 14. 6; Lk. 11. 41, 41 marg.; 12. 5; 13. 25, 27; 22. 67, 68; Jno. 9. 27; 14. 20, 24; 15. 16; Acts 5. 28; 10, 37; 13. 41; 20.34; Rom. 1. 11; 13. 6; 14. 1; 1 Cor. 4. 15; 6. 8; 7. 5, 35; 9. 1; 10. 13; 11. 2, 17; 14. 9, 18; 15. 1, 58; 16. 3; 2 Cor. 1. 7, 11, 13(2), 14, 15; 2. 4, 8; 5. 12; 7. 3, 15; 8. 11, 13; 9. 4; 11. 1, 1 marg., 7; 12. 19; Gal. 1. 6; 3. 1; 4. 15, 17; 5. 10; Eph. 5. 22; Philip. 1. 7 marg.; Col. 2. 12; 3. 8; 4. 6; 1 Thes. 2, 11; Jas. 2. 16; 1 Pet. 4. 4, 2 Pet. 1. 4, 15; 1 Jno. 2. 13; 4. 3.
In counting the ye's I have omitted certain stereotyped phrases in the Psalms and The Song of the Three Children, such as “Praise ye the Lord,” in which you never occurs.
page 453 note 8 F. H. A. Scrivener, The Authorized Edition of the English Bible (1611), Its Subsequent Reprints and Modern Representatives; Cambridge Univ. Press, 1884, pp. 101 f. (A reprint of the introduction to the Cambridge Paragraph Bible, 1873.)
page 453 note 9 I am unable to find so many.
page 453 note 10 P. 104.
page 453 note 11 P. 30.
page 453 note 12 In cases where you is substituted for ye it is a reappearance of an earlier you from some former edition.
page 453 note 13 A small Roman fo has one of these, and three others that did not come down.
page 453 note 14 Pp. 31 f.
page 453 note 15 James 2. 16. Be ye warmed, and be ye filled.
page 453 note 16 T. Scattergood, Dict, of National Biography, Vol. l, p. 407.
page 453 note 17 1743, 1747, 1752, 1759 (12o's), and 1760 (8o). The first four of these I have not personally examined. In these four, in the British Museum, I have had about fifty random passages examined, and the evidence consistently points in the direction indicated.
page 453 note 18 Printed in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1769 (Vol. xxxix, p. 517), and reprinted by Scrivener, p. 238.
page 453 note 19 The quarto and folio were printed from the same setting up by shortening or lengthening the forms, as Blayney (in his Report, Scrivener, pp. 242 f.) tells us the two Oxford editions were also made. The copies of the Cambridge 4o and fo I examined correspond page for page, errors and defective types appearing in the same places. If it is true, as stated in the British Museum folio copy, that only six copies were preserved from a fire at the book-seller's, this may account for Blayney's using the quarto. There are two folio copies in the New York Library and one in the Harvard University Library.
page 453 note 20 Pp. 29 ff.
page 453 note 21 The Holy Bible, etc., With Apocrypha. Cambridge. Printed by Joseph Bentham, etc. 1760. 2 Vols. 80. Price 6s unbound. The only other Cambridge octavos mentioned in the British Museum catalog, and in the catalog of the British and Foreign Bible Society, are an octavo of 1760, and two of 1765. They all appear to be substantially the same text.
page 453 note 22 This was ye in the 1683 edition, but you in subsequent editions. It is changed to ye in the B. M. Cambridge 80 of 1765. It is not likely, however, that this is the octavo collated by Blayney, since it lacks the Apocrypha.
page 453 note 23 No further changes in the use of ye and you have been made since Blayney.
page 453 note 24 Expressions like Gen. 9. 7, where the Hebrew has an emphatic nominative pronoun, are rendered in 1611 in two ways; one with English pleonastic nominative, as in the examples cited; cf. also Num. 18. 6 And I, beholde, I haue taken your brethren.; the other with as for + objective, as Josh. 24. 15 as for mee and my house, we will serue the Lord; Gen. 44. 17 as for you, get you vp in peace…; Jer. 40. 10 As for me, behold, I will dwell at Mizpah.: but yee, gather yee wine,… Cf. also Luke 17. 10; 21. 31; 1 Cor. 14. 12.
page 453 note 25 So Mark 13. 11.
page 453 note 26 Cf. Deut. 5. 14; Ezek. 42. 11; Acts 10. 47. In Job 12. 3 the Bishops' Bible has ye. The A. V. here follows the Geneva Bible (ed. 1602).
page 453 note 27 In six of the cases there is no ye or you in the text; in four, you of the margin corresponds to ye of the text; in three, you occurs both in text and margin.
page 453 note 28 At least such is the case in an Oxford Bible I got in 1907. In another, which I got in 1913, without date, but probably set up within two or three years, these marginal you's are restored.
page 453 note 29 Although as early as 1883 Professor Gummere (Amer. Jour. of Phil., iv, p. 284) pointed out the well-known passage in the opening of Troilus and Criseyde, Spies (Das englische Pronomen, 1897) cites an apparent example in 1426 as the earliest theretofore noted,— “Gramercy God, and ye,” in which ye is stressed. But, though cited by the Ox. D., this is, to my mind, very doubtful. It can be explained as a vocative, analogous to “Graunt mercy, levé sir,” and other 15th c. examples (see Ox. D.). The only other of Spies's examples with full stress is a sheer misunderstanding of the common phrase “Saw me not with yee” (Battle of Otterburn, St. 39). Jespersen (Progress in Language, p. 254) is undoubtedly right in regarding ye objective as merely an unstressed form of you, a view that Spies appears not to recognize. Almost all of the examples in Shakespeare are unstressed, and none have full stress. In the Bible they are invariably without stress.
page 453 note 30 Dr. Scattergood made only occasional changes of objective ye to you. He changes, for example, Isa. 30. 11 get ye, but leaves it in Josh. 22. 4 and Ezek. 11. 15. He retains objective you in such cases, contrary to some of his followers. He changed Isa. 1. 16 wash ye and was followed by the Cambridge editions I have seen till Paris, who has ye. Blayney (contrary to Scrivener's statement, p. 456. above) followed here the Cambridge 80 and its predecessors.
page 453 note 31 In those of the examples where the English pronoun is ambiguous in case, the Hebrew has a reflexive pronoun.
page 453 note 32 See Jespersen, Progress in Language, pp. 241 f. These verbs with pronouns well illustrate Tyndale's remark about the very great similarity in style between Hebrew and English. Go thee, and lay thee hold and take thee (2 Sam. 2. 21) all have reflexive forms in Hebrew, and are rendered literally in English by equally idiomatic forms.
page 453 note 33 See note 30, last part.
page 453 note 34 So far as I have seen, take you of 1611 always goes back to the reflexive form in Hebrew, while take ye represents both Hebrew simple verb and reflexive.
page 453 note 35 The two principal Hebrew verbs for turn show the same relation to the English in this respect.
Josh. 4. 1 ff. the Loed spake vnto Ioshua, saying, Take you twelue men out of the people,… And command you them,…
Deut. 12. 7 and yee shall reioyce in all that you put your hand
page 453 note 36 This was done by Dr. Scrivener in his Cambridge Paragraph Bible, 1873.
page 453 note 37 Where there is no original the contemporary idiom is observed. In the dedication to King James you is used as the singular, since obviously thou could not be used.
page 453 note 38 Kellner, Historical Outlines of English Syntax, § 212.
page 453 note 39 Das englische Pronomen, § 135.
page 453 note 40 Cf. Lord Berners (1532), Chronicles of Froissart: “Why do you thus fly away? Be you not well assured? Ye be to blame thus to fly.”
page 453 note 41 Contrary to Spies's implication, § 135.
page 453 note 42 In these two my search was extended, but not exhaustive.
page 453 note 43 Cf. Tyndale, An Answere vnto Sir Thomas Mores Dialoge: “ What can you saye to this?”
page 453 note 44 The distinction is of course not rigidly made. Ye frequently occurs with you in less formal parts. E. g. in the form of Public. Baptism we find, “you heare,” “ye perceyue,” “ doubte ye not”; and in the form of Private Baptism corresponding, “ ye heare,” “ ye perceiue,“ ”doubt you not.“
page 453 note 45 I do not maintain that such a distinction is always made, and in such instances as this it is perhaps unconscious. But its effect is none the less real, and it is due in part at least to a sense of style; for example, in the passage from the Psalms you could not have been used. It seems significant that nominative you is most frequent in the narrative parts of the Old Testament and of the Apocrypha, and the narrative and epistolary parts of the New Testament, and rare in the Prophets and Psalms, and the book of Revelation.