“Thee” and “thou” in “The Lord of the Rings”

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Formy, I was also looking for that reference in the Letters, and was finally pointed in the direction of Appendix F by Hammond and Scull. Inzil quotes the beginning of the pertinent passage, and Tolkien goes into more detail following that (Section II - On Translation). That's the really interesting bit for this discussion!

The Westron tongue made in the pronouns of the second person... a distinction... between 'familiar' and 'deferential' forms. It was, however, one of the peculiarities of Shire-usage that the deferential forms had gone out of colloquial use. ... This was one of the things referred to when people of Gondor spoke of the strangeness of Hobbit-speech. Peregrin Took, for instance, in his first few days in Minas Tirith used the familiar for people of all ranks, including the Lord Denethor himself. This may have amused the aged Steward, but it must have astonished his servants. No doubt this free use of the familiar forms helped to spread the popular rumour that Peregrin was a person of very high rank in his own country.

As to the usage of the different forms, Tolkien adds a footnote:

In one or two places an attempt has been made to hint at these distinctions by an inconsistent use of thou. Since this pronoun is now unusual and archaic it is employed mainly to represent the use of ceremonious language; but a change from you to thou, thee is sometimes meant to show, there being no other means of doing this, a significant change from the deferential, or between men and women normal, forms to the familiar.

That touches on Rumil's comment concerning the everyday speech amongst the members of the Fellowship. We don't read of switches back and forth from one to another, which would be more annoying than helpful in English literature*, but the change is noted only in very special cases.


*When romantic novels are translated from English to German, for example, the translator has to find a place to insert the switch from formal to familiar - when do the lovers stop saying "Sie" and start saying "Du"?!