Changes of social order in societies in remote times up to the present time have had a major impact on the use of address systems and their change, as has language contact due to population movements whether forced or unforced. There are several important factors influencing these changes involving processes of (de)grammaticalization and pragmaticalization. Indeed, there is a series of extra-linguistic variables associated with pronominal address including social position, relative authority, group membership, generation, age, sex, kinship, genealogic distance, mood, social context, and language variety. It is precisely these features which turn second person pronouns into social markers. This chapter has a threefold objective: first, to shed some light on the complex architecture of address systems which Romance languages have developed over time out of their shared Latin heritage; second, to familiarize readers with some of the different kinds of address systems conventionalized in Romance; and, finally, to foreground the processes of language change which led to the great variety of systems present in the post-Latin varieties today.

A shout of “Come here, boy” treats its target as both male and inferior. An adult man brought into a linguistic exchange by that direct address (vocative) is thereby shoved beneath the shouter, positioned below them. ‘Racial etiquette’ once made boy a common address from white people to black men, who were expected/required to return deferential or respectful forms of address like sir or ma’am. Work on European languages with grammatically singular and plural second-person pronouns that now function mainly to position those being addressed (called T/V, as in French tu and vous) has explored two distinct axes of social position influencing address, power and solidarity. Power is nonreciprocal, solidarity goes in both directions. English now has only grammatically plural you as a direct address pronoun, but it has other address resources people use to position one another: given and family names, endearments, mock insults, professional titles, kinship terms, and more. Nicknaming asserts power, which may be affectionate (e.g., a fond parent’s pet name for their child) or coercive. Addressing is part of a larger system of linguistic (im)politeness involved in interactions. Large data studies found police (no matter what their own racial identity) speaking more politely to white than to black motorists during traffic stops.