Incidentally, in Norwegian the formal form is now so archaic that short of communicating very formally with a very old person, in most cases it will come across as rude and sarcastic (you're implying someone is seriously up themselves)
There is a wide literature on Latin forms of address. Eleanor Dickey's monograph published by Oxford University Press is a good survey.
https://www.elisamotterle.com/galateo-del-tu-del-lei-e-del-v...
https://www.treccani.it/magazine/atlante/cultura/Diamoci_del...
Beware the treccani is the most used/influential encyclopaedia in italy, so I’d tend to say that i trust them a lot
> In antichità, quando si parlava latino, le formule di cortesia non esistevano … L’usanza del Voi nasce insieme a una nuova formula politica: la tetrarchia introdotta nel 293 da Diocleziano.
It was an innovation in Romance that took place centuries after Caesar and most of the Imperial era. Again, there is ample scholarly literature on this, so no need to resort to popular references like encyclopedias.
Or the plague and the subsequent Arab invasions. The empire was rebounded several times from near collapse after the 300s
(note that english aristocrats were often spoken of, not by given [or if they had one, family] name, but by the geographical entity that was the basis of their nobility)
This has been interesting as an English speaker learning Dutch! Luckily I never really latched on to sms-speak but I can imagine some cohorts of English speakers have to break the habit of reading “u” as shorthand for the the full word.
Apparently Dutch originally had "du" as 2nd person singular and "gij" as 2nd person plural. From the 16th century, "gij" started being used as singular polite form. (Possibly under the influence of Latin and French.) Later, "du" disappeared. Up to this point, the progression is similar to English.
"gij" then transformed to "jij" in the northern part of the Dutch language area and in written language; while it remained "gij" in Flemish spoken language.
However, then in the 17th century people started using "Uwe Edelheit" ("Your Nobility") as a new formal form in letters. This evolved into the current formal pronoun "u".
(Note also that the accusative form of "gij" is also "u", but is not related to the formal "u".)
Sources: https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gij, https://etymologiebank.nl/trefwoord/gij, https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/U_(voornaamwoord), https://etymologiebank.nl/trefwoord/u
As for sms-speak, I'd be flabbergasted if you encountered the u-form anywhere in text messages except maybe in automated OTP messages from your bank. So I would guess that's something you needn't worry about :).
Good luck in your language-learning journey. Assuming you're living in the Netherlands, I'm curious as to how your integration is going? My observation is that Dutch culture can be insanely hard for foreigners to get a foothold in, partly because of the "polite" tendency of most locals to insist on speaking English around non-native Dutch. I feel like that gesture, which may seem accommodating on the surface level, can almost be an exclusionary dynamic in itself.
Appreciate the spelling tip. I make a lot of mistakes writing in Dutch as it is. I would likely keep doing that by instinct until someone told me.
I am in the Netherlands for just over a year now. I live in a small village near the Belgian border and work in Eindhoven. I've actually found my neighbors and coworkers very accommodating towards my efforts to learn your language. I've taken 90 hours of lessons in about 9 months, which made me more confident to push people more and challenge myself. At my job, I try not to speak English for social situations, although all of our work is done in English due to remote workers in other countries.
Although I've had a good experience, I can see how some less assertive immigrants might not feel empowered to ask others honor their social requests. There have been times that I asked for something in Dutch, and without any hesitation, the attendant or store worker responded to my request in English. That stings a bit, but it stings for my ego because it doesn't usually happen. Many Dutch people in my daily life ask me to repeat myself, but they don't automatically make an assumption about my preferences and instead rely on the clues of the conversation to guide their responses. All of this is also dependent on the situation, eg. for work tasks, I speak English, because miscommunication is not an option.
If someone is reading this also as a new NL immigrant, I would say you should be assertive and ask a little on your path to find friends. It's okay to make friends in one language and transition to another if you both speak it. Shopping should be done in Dutch, read the Dutch newspaper, etc etc. Put in the effort and many Dutchmen will respect that. Habit might let their tongue slip, but kindly and firmly remind them, and they'll go back.
For Dutchies, I would say that that it's probably worth the effort to make a friend. If not, consider it the new normal for politeness. Just try to keep going in the same language until visible confusion or a blocking of progress in the conversation.
If you don't mind, I'd love if you reached out and sent me an email! I'd love to keep chatting about it. Address is in my profile.
Interesting to see the use of “Er” as a put down.
Thus, to be polite, you address someone as many people that aren't part of the conversation.