A few facts about the “King James English.” The language of the King James Bible is Early Modern English, the stage of the English language from roughly 1500-1800. Therefore, those who call King James English “Old English” do not know their terminology. This Bible has been and is a major influence on the English language.
The impact of the King James Bible, which was published 400 years ago, is still being felt in the way we speak and write, says Stephen Tomkins.
No other book, or indeed any piece of culture, seems to have influenced the English language as much as the King James Bible. Its turns of phrase have permeated the everyday language of English speakers, whether or not they’ve ever opened a copy.[i]
Another interesting thing about “King James English” is that statements such as “we don’t speak that way anymore” are not completely correct. There are dialects that maintain some of this structure.[ii]
There are two major Traditional Dialect areas of England which have preserved this distinction [between “thou” and “you”] – one northern area and one western area – although even here most Modern Dialects have lost or are losing it. The northern area consists of the Lower North (Cumbria, Durham, North Yorkshire and East Yorkshire) plus the Lancashire and Staffordshire areas, including the Potteries of the Central region. Parts of the South Yorkshire area have also kept the thou forms. The western area consists of the Northern Southwest, and the Western Southwest (Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, Dorset, Wiltshire, Hampshire), including the city of Bristol...Traditional Dialects which preserve thou/thee normally also have distinctive verb forms of the type familiar from the King James version of the Bible... [iii]
I am not claiming these uses are exactly comparative to the KJV usage – for example, Trudgill notes that some speakers maintain the familiar/formal distinction. Often the pronunciation may not be that expected by modern readers of the KJV (for example, in spelling thy but in pronunciation tha).
I have read general statements that some English dialects in America and Australia still use thee and thou, but as yet have not found any specific people or region identified. However, I would not be surprised that it exists in certain pockets, among older people. In addition, it is said by some that ye is still used in Ireland.
“For the most part, at least in normal linguistic use, thou has been largely supplanted in modern times by you, although it does exist still in certain dialects in Northern England and Scotland, as well as in the community of the Religious Society of Friends (commonly referred to as Quakers).” (From Merriam-Webster)
Interesting also is that some (many?) regional dialects “fix” the second person pronoun problem of “Standard English” by creating/using a distinct form for second person plural, such as y’all, you guys, all y’all, you’uns, and such like.
[ii] “It seems that in virtually every instance where thee/thou is still being used – whether in dialects, liturgy, or Quakerism – it is most often used by the elders in that setting. My own hypothesis is that thee/thou will continue its progression toward obsolescence, though it will probably survive longest in liturgical environments.” – “Thou, Thee, and Archaic Grammar” and “Introducing Archaic English” by A. Davies, R. Lipton, D. Richoux, et al., p. 19.
[iii] Peter Trudgill. The Dialects of England (Second Edition), Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, Ltd. 1999, p. 92.
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