This is possibly a bit outdated, and it's not about third person pronouns for once.
My nephew is about to marry someone whose pronouns are entirely obscure to me, not because of her gender but because in her native language there are eleven words for "you" in the singular, but not one which captures my relationship with her, so I can call her anything I like in the third person (i.e. she/her - I don't think her first language has gendered pronouns) but have no idea how to talk to her directly because there's no word for "you" when the addressee is one's fraternal nephew's partner in her language.
We have it easier here in Europe because on the whole we have familiar and polite singular and plural second person pronouns, but nowadays we have parasocial relationships as well as familiar and respectful ones, and these are often neither of the above. So what do you call someone you've only met online:
* but know really well
* but don't know well
* and are meeting face to face for the first time but didn't know well beforehand
* and are meeting face to face for the first time but knew well beforehand
* any of the above with someone you're meeting in any form for the first time
* any of the above with someone you know well face to face
* Two or more of any of these in the same combination
* Two or more of any of these in different combinations
?
By my count I think this is three dozen pronouns, but I may be miscounting.
BUT WHAT DO YOU CALL THEM?!?!?!
I don't know what to do here. Not a problem in English because of our weedy little pronoun system with only one word for "you".
Dunno.-- nineteenthly, Jun 07 2025 My suggestion is that you use "you" when addressing her in English.
Daring, I know. But someone has to make a stand for what is right.-- pocmloc, Jun 07 2025 That's what I do, but I like an excuse to learn a new language and she presents one.
Also, isn't "you" a bit inadequate in general?-- nineteenthly, Jun 07 2025 You could always go archaic and use "you" for formal interactions, and "thee / thou" for informal or intimate interactions.
You could ask her, is a fraternal nephew's partner close and familiar enough to address as "thee"?-- pocmloc, Jun 07 2025 //BUT WHAT DO YOU CALL THEM?!?!?!//
Apparently "maybe" is what you should call someone if you've only just met them, and this is crazy, but they've given you their number.-- pertinax, Jun 08 2025 Um... which language?
It matters.-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Jun 08 2025 In Japanese, there are a large number of second-person pronouns, with a lot of ambiguity in how they are to be used. The variety of situations, particularly with respect to age-based differences, has combined with on-line interactions in such a way as to make new usage patterns surface and old ones become obsolete with great rapidity. I haven't been there for forty years now, and the way I see people address each other on-line is absolutely shocking to my Showa-era way of thinking. I think this problem might arise with other languages as means of communication change the way we socialize. So, besides just finding advice on correct modes of address, make sure it's up-to-date.-- lurch, Jun 08 2025 um, just me two cents.
Pronouns are there to solidity language. Don't fuck with that, it will be bad.-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Jun 09 2025 On one hand I like discussion of language. On the other hand this needs more preheating. [-/+]-- Voice, Jun 09 2025 What's missing from this, of course, is the absence of actual suggestions from me but HB rules forbid the coining of words.
"Thou" isn't enough because it doesn't capture the in-betweenness of parasociality.
The language is Gàidhlig BTW, although my nephew's marrying a Vietnamese so that language is of course Vietnamese.
I'm referring to two different situations. One is what to call my nephew's fiancée, the other what to call someone in Gàidhlig whom I know from various online places but have never met.-- nineteenthly, Jun 12 2025 OK I missed completely that it was two different contexts.
In Gaeilge I have not come across the formal / informal dichotomy, it seems to me to have collapsed into singular/plural. I think that kind of question is more a social context thing? In French my rule of thumb is to use "vous" until I am corrected and told that I should use "tu". I also have a rule of thumb that it is better to just carry on and make mistakes and be open to correction, than to make sure every thing what you say is totally correct. And as a last ditch make up some regional variation type excuse.-- pocmloc, Jun 12 2025 Hey, you! Leave you alone!-- minoradjustments, Jun 12 2025 [pocmloc], until recently I behaved like everyone else with German but in French I always used «vous» because of my perception that French was the language of rich people, as a protest. I then realised that Kinshasa, for example, is bloody enormous and now use «tu» and «vous» as I would use "thu" and "sibh". However, it doesn't feel like a good idea to imagine that you know someone well if in fact you've only communicated online, or, worse, only watched their YT vids or something like that, and to me it makes sense that there should be a third option.
My ex's mother used to use "ihr" with someone she knew well and someone she was less familiar with it to get round the issue in German!-- nineteenthly, Jun 16 2025 random, halfbakery