I do wish English had some common-use ones that were explicitly singular, though.
In the long run I predict that “they” will follow the same path as “you” - it’ll become increasingly more associated with the singular, until it’s the default interpretation. I also predict that both “they” and “you” will eventually require a pluraliser to convey the plural.
“Vos” (you, singular) in Rioplatense Spanish followed a similar path.
If that’s correct, eventually there’ll be explicitly singular second and third person pronouns.
I think that “all” is evolving in this direction. It was already used as an explicit pluraliser for “you” (alongside “guys”, -s, and others); and now I’m seeing “they all” more and more across the internet, even in situations where the “all” clearly does not convey “every single one of them”.
Just keep in mind that this is anecdotal from my part, not backed up by hard data.
In the long run I predict that “they” will follow the same path as “you” - it’ll become increasingly more associated with the singular, until it’s the default interpretation. I also predict that both “they” and “you” will eventually require a pluraliser to convey the plural.
“Vos” (you, singular) in Rioplatense Spanish followed a similar path.
If that’s correct, eventually there’ll be explicitly singular second and third person pronouns.
my prediction is for th’all and y’all or just thal and yal in the long run
My first bet is roughly in this direction, too.
Do we currently have an explicit pluralizer for they?
We can thank Harry for this one
Theys
I think that “all” is evolving in this direction. It was already used as an explicit pluraliser for “you” (alongside “guys”, -s, and others); and now I’m seeing “they all” more and more across the internet, even in situations where the “all” clearly does not convey “every single one of them”.
Just keep in mind that this is anecdotal from my part, not backed up by hard data.