Spanish Dialects and Varieties - Grammar - Variation in Second-person Pronouns and Verbs - Second Person Singular

Second Person Singular

In most dialects the familiar second person singular pronoun is tú (from Latin tū), and the formal pronoun is usted (usually considered to originate from vuestra merced, meaning "your grace" or, literally, "your mercy"). In a number of regions in the Americas, tú is replaced by another pronoun, vos, and the verb conjugation changes accordingly (see details below). Spanish vos comes from Latin vōs, which was the second person plural pronoun in that language.

In any case, there is wide variation as to when each pronoun (formal or familiar) is used. In Spain, tú is familiar (for example, used with friends), and usted is formal (for example, used with older people). In recent times there has been a noticeable tendency to extend the use of tú even in situations previously reserved for usted. Meanwhile, in several countries—in parts of Central America and, especially, Colombia—the formal usted is also used to denote a closer personal relationship. Many Colombians and some Chileans, for instance, employ usted not only for a child to address a parent, but also for a parent to address a child. Some countries, such as Cuba and the Dominican Republic, prefer the use of tú even in very formal circumstances, and usted thus is seldom used. Meanwhile, in other countries, the use of formal rather than familiar second-person pronouns denotes authority. In Peru, for example, senior military officers use tú to speak to their subordinates, while junior officers use only usted to address their superior officers.

Using the familiar tú, especially in contexts where usted was to be expected, is called tuteo. The corresponding verb is tutear (a transitive verb, the direct object being the person addressed with the pronoun). The verb tutear is used even in those dialects where the familiar pronoun is vos, to mean "to treat with the familiar second-person pronoun".

Pronominal voseo, the use of the pronoun vos instead of tú, is the prevalent form of the familiar second person singular pronoun in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Paraguay, Argentina and Uruguay. In these countries it is used by all to address others in all kinds of contexts, often regardless of social status or age, including by cultured/educated speakers and writers, in television, advertisements, and even in translations from other languages. In Uruguay vos and tú are used concurrently, though vos is much more common. Both pronouns use the verb forms normally associated with vos (vos querés / tú querés, "you want").

The name Rioplatense is applied to the dialect of Spanish spoken around the mouth of the Río de la Plata and the lower course of the Paraná River, where vos, not tú, is inviariably used, with the vos verb forms (vos tenés). This area comprises the most populous part of Argentina (the provinces of Buenos Aires and Santa Fe) as well as an important part of Uruguay, including Montevideo, the capital.

In Ecuador, vos is the most prominent form throughout the Sierra region of the country, though it does coexist with usted and the lesser-used tú. In this region, vos is regarded as the conversational norm, but it is not used in public discourse or the mass media. The choice of pronoun to be used depends on the participants' likeness in age and/or social status. Based on these factors, speakers can assess themselves as being equal, superior, or inferior to the addressee, and the choice of pronoun is made on this basis, sometimes resulting in a three-tiered system. Ecuadorians of the highlands thus generally use vos among familiarized equals, or by superiors (in both social status and age) to inferiors; tú among unfamiliarized equals, or by a superior in age but inferior in social status; and usted by both familiarized and unfamiliarized inferiors, or by a superior in social status but inferior in age. In the more-populated coastal region, the form tú is used in most situations, usted being used only for unfamiliar and/or superior addressees.

Vos can be heard throughout most of Chile, Bolivia, and a small part of Peru as well, but in these places it is regarded as substandard. It is also used as the conversational norm in the Paisa Region and the southwest region of Colombia, in Zulia State (Venezuela), in Honduras, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Guatemala, and the state of Chiapas in Mexico.

In Chile, even though tú is the prestige pronoun among educated speakers, the use of "verbal voseo", i.e. «tú + verb conjugation of vos» (e.g. "tú podís") is widespread and is considered a usage that typically distinguishes Chileans.
On the other hand, "pronominal voseo", the use of the pronoun vos—pronounced with aspiration of the final "-s"—is used derisively in informal speech between close friends as playful banter (usually among men) or, depending on the tone of voice, as an offensive comment.

In Colombia, the choice of second person singular varies with location. In most of inland Colombia (especially the Andean region), usted is the pronoun of choice for all situations, even in speaking between friends or family; but in large cities (especially Bogotá), the use of tú is becoming more accepted in informal situations, especially between young interlocutors of opposite sexes and among young women. In Valle del Cauca (Cali), Antioquia (Medellín) and the Pacific coast, the pronouns used are vos and usted. On the Caribbean coast (mainly Barranquilla and Cartagena), tú is used for practically all informal situations and many formal situations as well, usted being reserved for the most formal environments. A peculiarity occurs in Boyacá and among older speakers in Bogotá: usted is replaced by sumercé for formal situations (it is relatively easy to identify a Boyacense by his/her use of this pronoun). Sumercé comes from su merced ("your mercy").

In parts of Spain, fifty years ago a child would not use tú, but rather usted to address a parent. Today, however, this usage is unusual. Among the factors for the ongoing replacement of usted by tú are the new social relevance of youth and the reduction of social differences. In particular, it has been attributed to the egalitarianism of the right-wing Falange party. By contrast, Spanish leftists of the early 20th century would address their comrades as usted as a show of respect and workers' dignity.

According to Joan Coromines, by the 16th century, the use of vos (as a second person singular pronoun) had been reduced to rural areas of Spain, regions which were a source of many immigrants to the New World, and thus vos became the unmarked form in many areas of Spanish America. See also Kany, pp. 58–63, for history and social status of vos.

A slightly different explanation is that in Spain, although vos (as a singular) originally denoted the high social status of those who were addressed as such (monarchs, nobility, etc.), these people never used the pronoun themselves, since there were few or no people above them in society. Those who used vos were people of the lower classes and peasants. When the waves of Spanish immigrants arrived to populate the New World, they primarily came from these lower classes. In the New World, wanting to raise their social status from what it was in Spain, they demanded to be addressed as vos. Through the widespread use of vos in the Americas, the pronoun was transformed into an indicator of low status not only for the addresser, but also for the addressee. Conversely, in Spain today vos is considered a highly exalted archaism that is confined virtually to liturgy.

Speakers of Ladino still use vos as it was used in the Middle Ages, to address people higher on the social ladder. The pronoun usted had not been introduced to this dialect of Spanish when the Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492, hence vos is still used in Ladino much as usted is used in modern Spanish.

A variant of usted, namely vusted, can be heard in Andean regions of South America. Other, less frequent forms analogous to usted are vuecencia (short for "vuestra excelencia"), and usía (from "vuestra señoría").