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So I did some follow-up research regarding my question in class Thursday about Latin pronouns. Nowhere on the Web, from university websites all the way to Wikipedia, did I find any mention of a formal/informal distinction between the Latin second-person pronouns.

On a closer look, I found this: Crystal mentions on 307 that the development of said formal distinction “had already taken place in French,” and that influence from French, then viewed as a more courtly or prestigious language by English nobles, likely caused the change in English. So it seems, indeed, that Latin never had the tu/vos informal/formal division, but that it developed in French and other Latin-derived languages after Latin was no longer popularly spoken.

I did some digging and found a couple of interesting links. We mentioned the Lord’s Prayer in class, which uses “thy” and such: the version here (http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/lordpray.htm) in Latin uses the “tu” form as well. Perhaps people, then, were accustomed to using a singular form when addressing God even before the formality question came into being.

Also, this discussion of thou and you from U. of Toronto (http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~cpercy/courses/6361Malton.htm) mentions the influence French had on the formal/informal development. All in all, a bit of a tangential issue, but I thought these were interesting and I should share them with all of you.