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In Early Modern English, ye functioned as both an informal plural and formal singular second-person nominative pronoun.
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In French, tu was eventually considered either intimate or condescending (and, to a stranger, potentially insulting), while the plural form vous was reserved and formal. Eventually, this was generalised, as in French, to address any social superior or stranger with a plural pronoun, which was believed to be more polite. This began with the practice of addressing kings and other aristocrats in the plural.
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The practice of matching singular and plural forms with informal and formal connotations, respectively, is called the T–V distinction, and in English it is largely due to the influence of French. After the Norman Conquest, which marks the beginning of the French vocabulary influence that characterised the Middle English period, the singular was gradually replaced by the plural as the form of address for a superior and later for an equal. In Old English, the use of second-person pronouns was governed by a simple rule: þū addressed one person, ġit addressed two people, and ġē addressed more than two. This substituted orthography leads most speakers of Modern English to pronounce definite-article "ye" as /ji:/ ("yee"), when the correct pronunciation is /ðiː/ ("the") or / ð ə/ ( listen). Thus, the letter y was substituted owing to its similarity to some medieval scripts, especially later ones. Medieval printing presses did not contain the letter thorn. The "thorn" character was supplanted during the later phases of Middle English and the earlier phases of Early Modern English by the modern digraph "th". Thus the article The was written Þe and never Ye. The lower letter is thorn, commonly written þ but which in handwritten scripts could resemble a "y" as shown. "The" was often written " " (here the "e" is written above the other letter to save space but it could also be written on the line). "Ye" is also sometimes used to represent an Early Modern English form of the definite article "the" (pronounced /ðiː/), such as in " Ye Olde Shoppe".