American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages

On the Origin of Russian vy as a Form of Polite Address

Author(s): Paul Popov
Source: The Slavic and East European Journal, Vol. 29, No. 3 (Autumn, 1985), pp. 330-337
Published by: American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/307220
Accessed: 23-04-2017 11:33 UTC

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ON THE ORIGIN OF RUSSIAN VY AS A FORM OF
POLITE ADDRESS

Paul Popov, The University of Georgia

In addressing one person, any educated native speaker of

when to use the second person singular pronoun ty, which
iarity and informality (a practice referred to as tfkan'e), or th
son plural vy, which conveys politeness, respect, and a ce
formality (v kan'e).' However, few Russians would venture
origin of vy-address; of those that would, most would attribut
Even the well-known linguistic scholar A. V. Isabenko calle
skaja manera obrakenija" which appeared in the eighte
While this view may appear reasonable in light of the great in
French language and culture exerted on the Russian aristoc
larly in the second half of the eighteenth century, a "French
this case is questionable. The present study aims to correct
tion by tracing the origin of vy-address.
Originally in Russian, only ty (as Latin tu, English thou, F
man du, and Spanish tu) was used to address one person-re
or social position-any animate or inanimate object, or eve
being. Vy (as Latin vos, English ye/you, French vous, Germ
Spanish vos (> usted [< vuestra Merced, abbreviated Ud., Vd
'your grace']) was used to address more than one person o
ever, at different periods of historical and linguistic developm
ple state of affairs changed in many European languages. T
son plural pronoun, acquiring an additional function, began
address individuals of the highest social positions or great
ors, kings, princes, popes) with the implication of reverence a
As this courtly usage began to spread, the middle and esp
classes were slow to adopt it. In Russian, they continued
the Czar, and each other only with ty.
Even today, vy-address is not practiced by all Russians.
most teenagers, workers, and others raised outside a rich c
ment and with only minimal education still address each o
historically singular ty with no connotation of undue familiar
330 SEEJ, Vol. 29, No. 3 (1985)

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 Russian vy 331

ness, or disrespect. However, Russians accustomed to vy-address may be

offended if addressed with ty, or they may consider the speaker uncultured,
boorish, or ignorant. Indeed, in the vocabulary of Russians who use vy-
address, ty may be manipulated in certain situations to convey various
shades of meaning, such as undue familiarity, contempt, and disrespect, or,
on the other hand, closeness, solidarity, intimacy, and affection. The
semantic differentiation between ty and vy is clear in the following verse
from Pu'kin:

1lycToe BbI cepe9HbIM TbI

OHa o6MOJIBICb 3aMeHHlia,
H Bce cqacTTJHBble MeqTbI

B ytme Bnuo6neHHOfi Bo36yunia.

flpeg Heii 3aSyMqHBO CTOIO,
CBeCTH oqer c Hee HeT CHJlbI;
H rOBopio ef: KaK sBb MHIRbI!
H MbIciuo: KaK Te6i amo6nno!4

Ty-address may lead to legal action, for it may be interpreted by the

addressee as offensive or disrespectful. Thus, in 1847, a certain landowner
Mankau lodged a complaint with the Justice of the Peace of the Petersburg
District against a retired Colonel Slascev, who allegedly addressed him
with an "obscenity": "Ty, sell me three hundred dessiatines of timberland."
After hearing the explanations of both parties, the Justice of the Peace
determined that ty was offensive-if applied to a person usually addressed
with vy. He found Slascev guilty of insulting Mankau with tfkan'e and
fined him twenty rubles. In his appeal, Slascev explained that as a noble-
man he had the right to apply ty to Mankau, a mere landowner and thus of
lower status.5
When and how did vy-address develop in Russian? Any assertion that it
is of French origin is pure conjecture. The use of vy as a singular pronoun
appeared late in the fifteenth century.6 At that time French influence on
Russian language and culture was unknown-although by the twelfth cen-
tury the French "formal singular" (vous) was already a common salutation
not only to superiors but equals.' All evidence suggests that the use of vy in
the singular is of Latin origin, not French. Indeed, it appears that the
semantic evolution of the second person pronouns in other European lan-
guages can be attributed to the influence of Latin as well.
The existing view of the Latin development reflects certain historical and
political developments in the Roman Empire, and seems entirely accepta-
ble. The Latin plural vos was first used in this way in the fourth century to
address the Emperor-actually two emperors: the ruler of the Eastern
Empire, situated in Constantinople, and the ruler of the West in Rome.
Although the imperial office was vested in two persons, it was administra-
tively unified. Communications addressed to one ruler were, by implica-

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332 Slavic and East European Journal

tion, addressed to both. The use of vos to address one person may have
been motivated by this implicit plurality. An emperor represents a plurality
in another sense: he may be looked upon as the sum total of the people of
his nation. Thus, he is justified in referring to himself as their representative
with the plural pronoun nos 'we' (i.e., 'I and my people'). Vos with the
implication of reverence is the simple reciprocal of this usage. On the other
hand, the practice need not have been mediated by any association with
actual plurality, for plurality itself can be construed as a metaphor for
power. Thus, the reverential vos may have been a direct reflection of the
Emperor's power.8
Eventually the use of Latin plural was extended to other figures of
authority (e.g., popes, kings, grand princes), and the practice gradually
spread to other European languages. For example, it entered German in
the ninth century, French in the twelfth, English in the thirteenth,' and
finally Russian in the fifteenth century during the reign of Ivan III. At that
time the pronoun vy (as well as my, like Latin nos) with singular reference
conveyed more reverence than anything else; it occurred in diplomatic cor-
respondence, mainly between Moscow and Rome. For example: "a my svo-
ego celoveka k vam ... otpustili" (message from Ivan III to the Roman
Emperor Maximilian, 1493); "my dlja vas tex plennikov . . . vozvratili"
(message from Ivan III to Philip, King of Spain, 1504); "a vy, velikij
gosudar' Vasilij, ko mne o tom otpi'ite" (Maximilian's message to Vasilij
III, 1514); "a napadete vy na nego, brat nag, to i my takie sami na nego
poidem" (message from Vasilij III to Maximilian concerning alliance and
friendship, 1514);1o "Vy gospodine, moego posla . .. otpustili ni s dem" (Z.
Serap. Novg., 19, 16th cent.)."
Certain historical events and political factors were instrumental in chang-
ing the everyday life of Ivan III and his successors. These included the fall
of the Eastern Roman Empire and the resultant concept of Moscow as the
"Third Rome"; liberation from the "Tartar Yoke" in 1480, during the reign
of Ivan III; Ivan's great territorial expansion; his politically motivated mar-
riage to the Byzantine princess, Sofia Palaeologus, who was educated in
Rome under the Pope's supervision; and more frequent contact and closer
relations with the West, especially Rome. In striving to gain recognition
and prestige as an independent and powerful ruler of a growing nation,
Ivan III was not averse to adopting certain practices of other powerful
monarchs in Europe. At times he even referred to himself as "czar," a bor-
rowing of Latin caesar through the intermediary of Germanic.12
Vy-address, an apparent imitation of the diplomatic ritual of the Roman
court, did not readily spread among the population. It remained dormant
in Russian until the eighteenth century. Before this date it appeared only
sporadically and inconsistently, often alternating with ty in the same mes-
sage, sometimes even in the same sentence: "Vas by, ... blagoestivogo

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 Russian vy 333

carja, u6inil miloserdyj Bog zdrava i ... podal by tebe, gosudarju, svye
pobedu" (Patriarch Filaret's letter to Czar Mixail FedoroviE, October
1619); "A nyne, gosudar', tvoimi svjatymi molitvami, podaroval Bog emu
... zdravie; i po blagosloveniju valego svjatitel'stva"; "Molim ie vale pre-
podobstvo, da vozslesi [2nd pers. sing.] o nas 'estnyje vagi molitvy" (Nun
Marfa's letter to Patriarch Filaret, June 1620);'1 "Velemoinejsij monarx! Po
vasemu ... ukazu my paki pokorno ob"javilisja i skolko my modem v
junosti svoej vyrazumeti ob"javiti xosdem ... komediju preslavnogo Temir-
Aksaka, bude Vage carskoe velidestvo milostiju svoeju izvolite ot nas ...
poslu'at"' (prologue to a play staged for Czar Aleksej Mixajlovic's audi-
ence, February 1675);14 "Aleksij Mixajlovic .. . novovybornyj tvoj gosu-
darev sokol'nik Ivan ... vam velikomu gosudarju 'elom b'et" (introduction
of a new falconer to the Czar).15
If from the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries vy was used primarily to
convey reverence, when vy-address became more widespread at the begin-
ning of the eighteenth century, it came to express not so much reverence as
respect, politeness, and formality. The following examples, taken from
Peter I's correspondence of 1712, illustrate this semantic transformation;
again, fluctuation between ty and vy can be observed: "Kogda Semen
tepelev vam javitca, togda izvol'te prikazat"' (letter 5331 of 1 July to
Admiral F. M. Apraksin); "A e'eli togo ne ucinis, to vzyletca na tebe"
(letter 5332 of 2 July to Vice-Governor Korsakov, where, issuing a stern
warning, Peter I is not concerned with maintaining politeness); "A 6to vy
pi'ete, Uto korol' datskoj" (letter 5334 of 4 July to A. D. Men'ikov); "Po
polutenii sego prieziaj [familiar form] k nam ne umedlja, ibo nyne v PolSe
delat' vam, poitaj, neiego"; "ty sam znaes"; "Poneie kak vy sami k nam
pisali, Eto poljaki soglasilis' s vami" (letters 5444, 5449, 5455 of 20, 21, and
25 August to Ambassador G. F. Dolgorukij); "daby vy po tomu [ukazu]
ispolnili" (message 5490 of 1 September to Captain A. I. U'akov); "Pis'mo
tvoe ja polu6il .. . predaju vas v soxranenie bozie" (letter 5640 of 27

October to his wife Ekaterina); ",to vy togo za protivno ne primete" (letter

5676 of 11 November to King August II of Poland); "V prottem blagoda-
rim ... za best', kotoruju vy ... okazat' izvolili" (letter 5698 of 19
November to Queen Anne of England); "cto vy ... oxotno pozvolite" (let-
ter 5716 of 5 December to King Friedrich I of Prussia); "Pis'ma vali
polucil, gde vaga rezoljucija" (letter 5748 of 16 December to King Frederick
IV of Denmark).16 As can be seen, Peter I is more careful and consistent in
using vy throughout his correspondence with European rulers than with his
own subjects.
At the beginning of the eighteenth century vy occurs with increasing fre-
quency in secular literature. The following examples, again with inconsis-
tencies, are cited from Russkie povesti pervoj treti 18-go veka:17 "Molju tja
[tebja] ... vaSa familija kako ... do sego Easu vas ne vidala" (a princess

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334 Slavic and East European Journal

addressing a Russian sailor, Vasilij, 197): "tebja ne ostavlju. Tokmo pro'u

ne promolvitca im, Eto ja u vas byl" (Vasilij's response to the princess, 197);
"Poito naprasno otgovarivaelisja [2nd pers. sing.], poneie ja vi'u vas do-
stojno" (Caesar addressing Vasilij, 201); "na vas polagaju. I vru'aju zdravie
moe tebe. .... I vy sie kolco priimite" (Aleksandr addressing his beloved
Eleonora, 224); "Togo radi vas prou sotvori [sing. imperative] milost'...
izvesten, Eto moegs . . . serdce moe isceliti" (Vladimir's letter to a young
lady, 243); "xotja ty menja i sklonil k ljubvi, odnako z vas prou" (Tira
addressing her suitor Aleksandr, 251). Although vy-address was already
well established at the beginning of the eighteenth century, the mixing of ty
and vy (observed also in other European languages)18 reflects the strong
influence of the traditional practice of addressing a single person with ty.
The revived vy as a form of polite, formal address gradually entered the
active vocabulary of the educated upper classes, members of the Russian
aristocracy, who became more conscious of the new norms of etiquette
during Peter I's process of Europeanization.
Clearly, then, vy-address is not the result of French influence, which
appeared principally in the second half of the eighteenth century.19 Nor is it
a native Russian innovation-contrary to the claim of Kravienko, who sees
its origin in the influence of the first person plural my used with singular
reference.20 If the singular usage of my and vy were of native Russian
origin, we would have expected the practice to be readily adopted by all
segments of the Russian population. But, in fact, except for the so-called
"author's my" (e.g., "Kak my ute upominali vye ..."), the singular use of
this pronoun is unknown in Modern Standard Russian. And for its part, vy
has historically not been generally accepted, especially by the uneducated
lower classes, cossacks, and peasants-the "prostoj narod."21 For instance,
in two hundred and two documents (administrative directives and petitions
addressed mostly to Czar Aleksej Mixajlovi6 and his successors) written
between 1667 and 1744 by soldiers, cossacks, civil servants, and clergy, vy is
totally absent: "Carju . . . Alekseju Mixajloviu ... b'et belom xolop tvoj
strelec ... Ivalka Grigor'ev. Byl ja, xolop tvoj, na tvoej sluibe na nizu, i
pod Caricynym Sten'ka Razin s tovarii6i nas pobili i menja, xolopa tvoego,
vzjali v polon."22 As already mentioned above, certain groups of Russian
speakers to this day have not accepted vy: for them ty remains the natural
and normal pronoun to address individuals, while vy strikes them as dis-
tant, formal, and artificial.
To recapitulate, an examination of the available data leads to the conclu-
sion that the Russian practice of using the second person plural pronoun vy
in addressing one person is not due to the influence of French,23 nor is it a
Russian innovation. Its appearance in Russian, as well as in other Euro-
pean languages such as German, French,24 and English,25 was due to the
common influence of Latin on all of them.

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 Russian vy 335

NOTES

1 Since the terms tjkan'e and v'kan'e are generally considered substandard and s
carry a marked negative connotation, they are replaced here by the terms ty-add
vy-address; on the use of ty and vy in contemporary Russian see Gerald L. May
Use of Ty and Vy in Modern Standard Russian," SEEJ 19 (1975), 435-42.
2 A. V. Isa6enko, Grammati'eskij stroj russkogo jazyka v sopostavlenii s slovackim
logija, pt. 2 (Bratislava: Izd. Slovackoj Akademii Nauk, 1960), 414.
3 The German second person plural pronoun Ihr, which began to perform the sa
tion as Latin vos in the ninth (or, possibly, tenth) century, was replaced by t
person plural pronoun Sie in the second half of the seventeenth century (F. I.
Istorieeskaja grammatika russkogo jazyka [M.: GOSUC-PEDIZ, 1959], 389). It is i
ing to recall that in the nineteenth century, servants, peasants, and mesane often
Russian third person plural pronoun oni (or one) in place of the singular pronoun
ona to refer to honored persons; for example: "Oni [referring to bratec] . . . r
6asov ne prixodjat" (Gon~arov, Oblomov); "Oni dama bol'naja, fit' v takom gor
nix tol'ko bespokojstvo odno" (Ostrovskij, Ne ot mira sego); "Celovek oni byli
jaznennyj" (texov, Proisgestvie). The hero of Leskov's Grabei uses the honorifi
rather, third person plural verbs) almost exclusively in reference to his mot
mamen'ka ... govorjat"; "mamen'ka ne uznali"; "Mamen'ka otve~ajut"; "Mam
pozvoljajut"; "Mamen'ka ispugalis'"; but also "Mamen'ka posmotrela." He nev
the honorific expression to his uncle ("On [djaden'ka] govorit"), and vacillates in r
to his aunt ("Tetugka otveiaet" and "Teten'ka opjat' otve'ajut"). On the other h
consistently addresses everyone with the polite vy, while they address him with ty
emergence of the honorific oni-used "[v] podobostrastno po~titel'noj redi ... v
on ili ona (razg., ustar.)" (D. N. Ugakov, ed., Tolkovyj slovar' russkogo jazyka [4
GIINS, 1935-40])-be attributed to the influence of German Sie? Possibly; but
likely not, if the following points are taken into account. In contrast to Sie, whi
went a semantic transformation, displaced Ihr, and began to be used in direct
polite address, oni has never been used in place of vy but only in indirect ref
either on or ona to demonstrate more servility than politeness. Moreover, the ho
oni has neither gained a permanent place in Russian, nor ever enjoyed literary
is even labeled "prostoredie" in V. V. Vinogradov and N. Ju. ?vedova, eds.,
istorieeskoj grammatike russkogo literaturnogo jazyka (M.: Nauka, 1964), 577.
as the honorific oni primarily characterized the speech of peasants, servants, and
it is possible that they themselves invented it by imitating the application of the
vy to a single person. However, a clearer picture of the origin of the honorific o
be best obtained by a thorough investigation of this temporary linguistic phen
something beyond the scope of the present study.
4 A. S. Pugkin, Polnoe sobranie soeinenij, 2nd ed. (9 vols.; M.: AN SSSR, 1956-58)
For more on this subject see the following studies, which examine the semanti
of ty and vy in nineteenth-century Russian literature and contrast the natural dis
of ty-vy with that observed in Russian translations of French: Krystyna Pom
"Zametka o pis'me Tat'jany," in Andrej Kodjak et al., eds., Alexander Pugkin Sy
II (Columbus: Slavica, 1980), 61-66; John Lyons, "Pronouns of Address in Ann
ina: The Stylistics of Bilingualism and the Impossibility of Translation," in Sidne
baum et al., eds., Studies in English Linguistics for Randolph Quirk (London: L
1980), 235-49. The author is indebted to Catherine V. Chvany for providing hi
copy of the first source and for suggesting the second.
5 P. M. Kravienko, "Upotreblenie mestoimenij my i vy v zna6enii edinstvenno
UWenye zapiski Azerbajdfanskogo pedagogiLeskogo instituta 7 (1958), 233.
6 Kravienko, 229.

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336 Slavic and East European Journal

7 Sister St. G. Byrne, "Shakespeare's Use of the Pronoun of Address; Its Significance in
Characterization and Motivation" (Ph.D. diss., The Catholic Univ. of America, 1936),
xvi.
8 Roger Brown and Albert Gilman, "The Pronouns of Power and Solidarity," in Thomas A.
Sebeok, ed., Style in Language (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1960), 255.
9 Byrne, xvi-xix.
10 Cited from Kravienko, 230.
11 Cited from Slovar' russkogo jazyka XI-XVII vv. (M.: Nauka, 1975-), III, 176.
12 M. Fasmer [M. Vasmer], Etimologiceskij slovar' russkogo jazyka (4 vols.; M.: Progress,
1964-73), IV, 290-91; Wendy Buehr, ed., History of Russia (New York: American Heritage,
1970), 75-90.
13 F. I. Buslaev, Russkaja xrestomatija (The Hague: Mouton, 1969; rpt. of 9th ed., 1904),
278-79.
14 0. A. Derzavina, ed., Russkaja dramaturgija poslednej cetverti XVII v. i nacala XVIII v.
(M.: Nauka, 1972), 59.
15 Buslaev, Russkaja xrestomatija, 323.
16 B. B. Kafengaus et al., eds., Pis'ma i bumagi imperatora Petra Velikogo, vol. 12 (M.:
Nauka, 1977).
17 G. N. Moiseeva, Russkie povesti pervoj treti XVIII veka (M.-L.: Nauka, 1965).
18 A. G. Kennedy, The Pronoun of Address in English Literature of the Thirteenth Century
(Stanford University, CA: The University, 1915), 80.
19 See V. V. Vinogradov, Oderki po istorii russkogo literaturnogo jazyka XVII-XIX vv., 2nd
ed. (M.: GOSUC-PEDIZ, 1938), 148-78.
20 Kravienko, 230, 225. Some Soviet scholars, particularly those who quote Marx, Engels,
Lenin, or Stalin in their works, have a tendency to deny any possibility of foreign influ-
ence on the Russian language or culture. Kravienko (225), for example, quotes Engels:
"Forty million Great Russians comprise too great a nation, and their development has
been too original for anyone to assume any outside influence." However, the well-known
and highly regarded pre-Soviet linguist, F. I. Buslaev (1818-97), presents a more objective
and accurate picture of the situation: "Upotreblenie 1-go lica vo mn. aisle, vm. edinstven-
nogo, vladetel'nymi licami, kogda oni govorjat o sebe, objazano svoim proisxoideniem
rimskomu i vizantijskomu ceremonialu" (Istoriceskaja grammatika russkogojazyka, 389).
21 It may be interesting to note that at times the use of ty and vy was governed by the
intervention of authorities. For example, "One of the first acts of the Provisional Govern-
ment in 1917 was to force all commissioned officers to use vy to privates, but the Red
Army reintroduced ty, eventually extending it to all subordinates" (Paul Friedrich,
"Social Context and Semantic Feature: The Russian Pronominal Usage," in John J.
Gumperz and Dell Hymes, eds., Directions in Sociolinguistics: The Ethnography of Com-
munication [New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1972], 282). Also, see n. 25 below.
22 L. V. Cerepnin et al., eds., Krest'janskaja vojna pod predvoditel'stvom Stepana Razina, vol.
4 (M.: Nauka, 1976), 40.
23 It is possible, however, that translations of French literature in the eighteenth century and
the frequent use of French (with vous), mainly by the Russian aristocracy, promoted
wider usage and acceptance of vy-address among other Russians; nevertheless, the origin
of singular vy reflects Latin influence, which came primarily through diplomatic corre-
spondence and close relations between Moscow and Rome-for instance, during the pro-
longed period of negotiations concerning the arrangements for the marriage of Ivan III
and Sofia Palaeologus. Since diplomatic correspondence was not limited to Rome, a
question may arise whether the Latin influence was direct or through an intermediary
language. In view of the fact that until the eighteenth century the language of diplomacy
throughout Europe was Latin, and that, as a consequence, diplomatic correspondence
among the European rulers was normally conducted in Latin, it would hardly be possible
to establish which language-if any-served as an intermediary.

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 Russian vy 337

24 Toward the end of the eighteenth century the Revolutionary Committee in France con-
demned the use of vous to refer to one person as a feudal remnant and ordered the use of
tu. The ban on vous, however, did not last long, and differences of power among various
social elements were soon expressed once again. See E Brunot, La pensee et la langue
(Paris: Masson et Cie., 1927).
25 Kennedy, The Pronoun . . ., 22. In seventeenth-century English thou and you (< ye)
created a bit of social controversy when the founder of the Quakers, George Fox, argued
that only thou should be used to address one person, regardless of social position, and
you to address many; Fox insisted that this was a natural and logical form of address. See
Brown and Gilman, "The Pronouns of Power .. ." 265.

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