vos

Forms

vos (in the voseo of the Americas with the object form te and the possessives tu, tuyo; in the old reverential use with the object form os and the possessive vuestro)^[1] Old Spanish texts mostly spell it uos.^[2] Unstressed, the medieval object form vos gave modern os; popular speech also had us and vus.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin vōs (“you (plural)”).^[4][5][6][1] The same pronoun is Portuguese vós, Galician vós, Asturian vós, Catalan vós, Occitan vos, French vous, Italian voi and Romanian voi.^[7][3][1]

vōs continues Proto-Italic *wōs.^[8][1] According to de Vaan it was at first the stressed accusative, which had already replaced the old nominative in Proto-Italic.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140) already has both uses.^[4][5] The king says to the Infantes of Carrión „pues vos lo queredes, entremos en la razón” “since you wish it, let us come to the matter”, a plural, while „Cid, en el nuestro mal vos non ganades nada” “Cid, you gain nothing from our harm” addresses one man with respect.^[4]

Semantic evolution

From the 12th to the 14th century vos kept its Latin plural sense, as in Berceo's „si vos el mi consejo quisiéssedes tomar” “if you would take my counsel”, and served from the start as a reverential singular as well.^[4] To avoid the ambiguity Old Spanish built vosotros, first recorded in 1251; at first it was emphatic, “you and not others”, and by the 14th century it had become the ordinary plural.^[5][4]

By the Golden Age vos had spread so far, at the expense of tú, that it had lost its respect and marked only the absence of familiarity between equals, or a disdainful familiarity from a nobleman to an inferior;^[4][5] Don Quixote describes a man who llamava de vos a sus yguales.^[4][5] Respect passed to vuestra merced (early 15th century) and its reduced form usted (1620), and vos was avoided; in Spain it survived only in an elevated literary style, used to address God, the saints or high dignitaries.^[5][4][9]

In the Americas the rustic vos of the colonial countryside became the general familiar pronoun and pushed out tú in Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and most of Central America; in Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Costa Rica and parts of Bolivia and Peru it was long kept out of educated speech.^[4] Cuervo condemned this voseo, and Batres quoted Bello's condemnation of it.^[10][11] Henríquez Ureña found it in all of Central America, including Chiapas.^[12]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid uses vos as a plural and as a reverential singular (in a 14th-century copy).^[4][13]
• c. 1180 – the Auto de los Reyes Magos: „¿Sodes uos strelero?” “Are you an astrologer?”^[13]
• 1251 – vosotros first appears.^[5]
• c. 1256–1300 – the prose of Alfonso X uses vos as a form of address.^[14]
• early 15th century – vuestra merced appears as a new form of respect.^[5]
• 1620 – the first record of usted, which takes over the respectful use.^[5]
• early 17th century – the verb vosear is recorded.^[5]
• 1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades records vos as a form of respect to dignitaries and as one used by superiors to inferiors.^[15]
• 1884 – the Academy notes that vos is still used to address God, the saints and dignitaries.^[9]

Meanings

Pronoun

1. (Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Venezuela) you, familiar singular, as subject, in address and after a preposition: ¿Vos venís a la fiesta?^[6][16][1]
2. (archaic, solemn) You, as a reverential form for one or more persons of very high rank, with the verb in the plural: Vos, señora, sois la reina.^[6][17][1]
3. (obsolete) The object form now written os: vos digo “I tell you”.^[17][1]

Word family

• vosotros
• vosear
• voseo

Related words

• os
• vuestro
• usted
• Latin vōs
• Portuguese vós

Usage notes

Reverential vos takes a plural verb but a singular adjective: vos sois bueno.^[9][17] The verb forms of the American voseo differ from country to country; in the Río de la Plata the present ends in -ás, -és, -ís.^[17] The old object form vos for os survives in Canarian speech, as on La Gomera (¿Cuándo vos vais?).^[18]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. vos
3. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. vos
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 843
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. vos
6. ^ a b c Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. vos
7. ^ Coromines, Joan (1980–2001), Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana, 10 vols., Barcelona: Curial / La Caixa (online ed., Institut d'Estudis Catalans 2024), p. 9, 399
8. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. vos
9. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 1099
10. ^ Cuervo, Rufino José (1914), Apuntaciones críticas sobre el lenguaje bogotano, 6th ed., París: A. & R. Roger y F. Chernoviz, p. 170
11. ^ Batres Jáuregui, Antonio (1892), Vicios del lenguaje y provincialismos de Guatemala, Guatemala: Encuadernación y Tipografía Nacional, p. 548
12. ^ Henríquez Ureña, Pedro (2015), Obras completas, vol. 12: 1936–1940 III, ed. Miguel D. Mena, Santo Domingo: Ministerio de Cultura, p. 23
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. vos
14. ^ Kasten, Lloyd A.; Nitti, John J.; Gago Jover, Francisco (2002–), Diccionario de la prosa castellana del Rey Alfonso X, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (electronic edition 2024), p. s.v. vos
15. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 522
16. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. vos
17. ^ a b c d Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. vos
18. ^ Real Academia Española (2021–), Tesoro de los diccionarios históricos de la lengua española (TDHLE): Diccionario histórico (1933–1936), its unpublished slips, Diccionario histórico (1960–1996), DHECan, DHECR, DHEVen, https://www.rae.es/tdhle, p. s.v. vos