Avy, thanks for that post and the poem. I find it interesting that a wide range of languages have this trait of using the 2nd person plural as the polite form of the singular. A couple of follow up questions, if I may:

Do these languages have a word for using the familiar form as French does (tutoyer)?

When and how did English lose the 2nd person singular? Was it through using the plural as a polite form and the English being over polite? . Like the story of the two Englishmen travelling on a train for days in India and not speaking to each other because they hadn't been introduced.

Rod