entry in the Oxford English Dictionary for ye as a V pronoun in place of the singular thou exists in a Middle English text of 1225 composed in 1200. The usage may have started among the Norman French nobility in imitation of Old French. It made noticeable advances during the second half of the 13th century. During the 16th century, the distinction between the subject form ye and the object form you was largely lost, leaving you as the usual V pronoun (and plural pronoun). After 1600, the use of ye in standard English was confined to literary and religious contexts or as a consciously archaic usage. David Crystal summarises Early Modern English usage thus: V would normally be used by people of lower social status to those above them by the upper classes when talking to each other, even if they were closely related as a sign of a change (contrasting with thou) in the emotional temperature of an interaction T would normally be used by people of higher social status to those below them by the lower classes when talking to each other in addressing God or Jesus in talking to ghosts, witches, and other supernatural beings in an imaginary address to someone who was absent as a sign of a change (contrasting with you) in the emotional temperature of an interaction The T–V distinction was still well preserved when Shakespeare began writing at the end of the 16th century. However, other playwrights of the time made less use of T–V contrasts than Shakespeare. The infrequent use of T in popular writing earlier in the century such as the Paston Letters suggest that the distinction was already disappearing from gentry speech. In the first half of the 17th century, thou disappeared from Standard English, although the T–V distinction was preserved in many regional dialects. When the Quakers began using thou again in the middle of the century, many people were still aware of the old T–V distinction and responded with derision and physical violence. In the 19th century, one aspect of the T–V distinction was restored to some English dialects in the form of a pronoun that expressed friendly solidarity, written as y'all. Unlike earlier thou, it was used primarily for plural address, and in some dialects for singular address as well. The pronoun was first observed in the southern states of the US among African-American speakers, although