Is there any language that differentiates between an inclusive "we" (you and I) and an exclusive "we" (third parties and I)?

Or, maybe better, is there an archaic or slang modern expression in English with the same function (akin to "y'all" as a 2nd person plural).


Welcome a’board, Redclaw – a good question! I don’t claim any highly specialised knowledge in this area, but here’s the outline I have picked up in language studies in case any of it interests you…

Starting with what’s perhaps known to you already: English, in common with most other languages originally had a more complex system of pronouns which amongst other things could discriminate between the plural and the singular referents, and also between formal/informal usage etc. This quality of the language got largely abraded because, between AD450 and 1100 there were two dominant blocks of language in use in the more populated parts of the British Isles – the Angles, Saxons and other north Germanic tribes who invaded and settled in the southern counties, and the Scandinavian (Viking) settlements that dominated the northern and some other coastal fringes. These languages had enough common roots from their mainland heritage to be able to share plenty of common ground but, like two pebbles rattled together in a concrete mixer the effect of this ‘language collision’ was to knock off and make similar the protruding elements of both – so a common English tongue emerged over time that took elements from both those stocks but eliminated a large measure of the awkward bits that might inhibit clear communication. With similar impacts from Latin and the later middle English assimilation of a lot of Norman and Parisian French, we thus ended up with a simplified system of pronouns – and other language features – which is nowadays simpler to use than most other Romance languages and many others (about which I confess to know only scraps) – but the cost is the broader less specific connotation about which you complained. Specifically to answer your question about the archaic forms, then: yes, we already use the plural form for everything, it’s the singular thou form you would have to resurrect. But is this true of all forms of English, given how wide a family the modern group actually is?

No. Typical pronoun usage in the North of England remains distinctive, for example by retaining the form thou, and able to communicate gradations of meanings lost to southern UK (ie, ‘Queen’s English’):

'Wheer as t'bin, mi Johnny lad,
Ah thowt they'd ner cum back;'

~ ask Rhuby for more of a demonstration! In Tyneside English there is a distinction made between the singular form you (which equates to the archaic form thou and the plural form yous (self explanatory!) I believe a similar form occurs in areas of the north-east and the north-west of England, in Scotland, Northern and Southern Ireland, parts of North America and Australia too. In the southern states of course, the plural can be made y’all to distinguish from the singular you, and as Jackie and AsP have taught all-y’all, there are further subtleties too (I await correction!)
http://wordsmith.org/board/showthreaded.pl?Cat=&Board=miscellany&Number=49023

My impression is that most of the far-eastern forms of language retain a lot more subtlety in these respects – as Mr B noted about Indonesian, so in other ways does Japanese encode social distinctions within its pronoun grammar such as the difference between boku if talking to a male boss and ore if talking to a mate. I’m less sure about the inclusive/exclusive thing ~ come in, our Japanese speakers! There is another language I have seen an interesting reference too: Bislama is a dialect of Melanesian Pidgin spoken in Vanatu, in which English is the lexifier language… they do not distinguish gender at all in their pronoun system, so hem/em can mean ‘he’, ‘she’, or ‘it’. The sentence Hem i stap long haos can mean:
He’s in the house
She’s in the house
It’s in the house ~ depending on context!
But in other ways it’s more complex and subtle than English, which bears on your question about number specifically – our ‘one size fits all’ second-person pronoun you can be singular or plural in most varieties, but Bislama has no less than four! Yu refers to thee (singular), yutufala refers to ‘you two’, yutrifala refers to ‘you three’, and yufala is ‘you all’ – hence yielding singular, dual, trial, and plural forms.

Sorry to go on at length - just thought all y’all might be interested in some of that.