We already do have a plural for you (apart from y’all) – You guys.
Granted, it’s not considered appropriate for very formal circumstances (such as a Supreme Court hearing), but it’s used by all of our teachers, in news interviews, and by the president (in press conferences, for example), as well as political figures (e.g., all the current presidential candidates).
No, I want ye/you for the plural (nominative/oblique). Actually, while we’re at it, let’s bring back the third person masculine singular accusative pronoun hine, and put in a good word for the weak declension genitive plural.
To the OP: would we also be bringing back the -est conjugation to go with thou?
Why did the english case system crumble anyway? It seems to me that as you follow languages back, they have much more structured cases. Sanskrit had 8 which kinda boggles my mind.
Thou/thee/thine/thy never completely went away - it’s still an active, everyday part of some dialects - for example, in Yorkshire.
I vote yes, because then after a while we can stop actually saying “thou” as it will be clear by the conjugation of the verb who is being addressed. And…well…that’s just so cool!
I mentioned this here once before, but I once did a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream with a girl from Texas who kept slipping up and saying “thou’all”. So we could always use that to further clarify.
You mean, “Seriously, thou, it won’t work…”
Try to keep up! 
Here in Newfoundland “ye” is still used on occasion.
Of course, there are a lot of linguistic oddities here. For example, the nice people at the Tim Hortons drive through will often say “I’ll be right with you, my lover”, which is a trifle forward until you get used to it. I’ve once in a while heard a young woman addressed as “maid”, as in “how you gettin’ on, maid?”.
Interesting- ‘My lover’ is used for total strangers in Bristol, in England, too- not come across it elsewhere. It is a trifle unnerving at first, especially when it’s some burly builder you’ve never met before.
Regarding the OP, Yorkshire/Lancashire folks tend to say ‘tha’ instead of ‘thou’, but ‘thee’ and ‘thou’ ain’t completely dead yet.
Wow. I forgot about this thread.
That’s not really a pronoun but a phrase and the genitive is confusing. Y’all is better.
Well we need some conjugation for it, so why not go with the old one? Dostn’t thou agree?
We should learn from their example.
Y’all’s had more time to get ground done. And you guys is better, personal preferences aside, because you guys is the second person plural that has been adopted throughout the majority of american english dialects. If I say y’all or y’inz or youse, I sound affected. You guys is natural speech regardless of one’s background.
That’s not surprising - a lot of the settlers of Newfoundland came from the west country of England (as well as Ireland), so constructions from those regions may have survived in Newfoundland.
Rather a lot of people here say “Youse” as the plural form of “You”.
The only time I’ve heard people not on TV or the internet say “Y’all,” they’re either from Texas or parodying/lampooning people who are.
“Y’all” has become a generic filler word. It is no longer used just for 2nd person plural. I hear it all the time for the singular case. “Did y’all find what you were looking for?” when it’s just me standing there.
People also throw it into sentences in random ways. The worst is Paula Deen (Mrs. FtG watches her shows). She says things “And now we’ll put that in a 350 degree oven, y’all.” As in “We’ll put that in a 350 degree oven, you.”???
It’s practically in the same category as “um” and “er” now.
Note on proper use of “thee”/“you”. You use “you” to refer to a superior or equal. “Thee” to refer to a subordinate.
Talk to thee later.
I haven’t heard either of these. Where is Paula Deen from?
That depends on when and where thou art from. From Wikipedia:
“Originally, thou was simply the singular counterpart to the plural pronoun ye, derived from an ancient Indo-European root. Following a process found in other Indo-European languages, thou was later used to express intimacy, familiarity or even disrespect, while another pronoun, you, the oblique/objective form of ye, was used for formal circumstances (see T–V distinction).”
I was going for the singular/plural distinction.
They’re commonly found in Romance languages. So, we’d be a new Romantic, looking for the T-V sound.
According to the book The Year 1000, English conjugations/declensions got lost due to friction with old Norse. Norse and the Anglo-Saxon language had a lot of vocabulary in common, but they had different endings for words. When the two languages were exposed to each other, the dissimilar endings got dropped and the stems of the words were retained.
Hmm. that’s basically what The Unfolding of Language says. I wonder if there’s a text somewhere that goes into greater detail.
Ah sure jaysus around here ye say “ye” and “ye’s”.
Ooh! There’s a woman who works in a supermarket here who seems to speak inappropriately to customers, only no one ever catches exactly what she’s saying, but it’s not the usual “There ye go”… I tried to catch what she was saying and it sounded like “my lover”, and she does have a non Irish accent … perhaps she’s from Newfoundland!
Ƿ for the wynn! 