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I've been reading The Hobbit in Spanish and come across something completely puzzling. In the first scene, in which Gandalf introduces himself alone to Bilbo, Bilbo consistently uses the vosotros form to him (lleváis, sentaos, tomad, etc). Later he uses the vosotros form to the dwarves as well, even when only speaking to one. Why is he using the plural form to one person?

Are you sure he's using vosotros for one? Maybe what's going on is he's using the vosotros forms with the subject vos, which was the practice in former times to mean something like Your Mercy.

Brazilian dude

That could be, but as far as I know there was no stated subject; it was all implicit in the verbs.

Right, you need not (better: you should not) use the subject all the time, as it's implied in the ending.

Brazilian dude

Yes, I'm familiar with that. What I was saying was that I could not be sure if the subject was vosotros or vos.

But it doesn't matter, does it? To me it doesn't

En castellano antiguo, se distinguían exclusivamente dos formas de segunda persona: tú y vos, tú se empleaba para el singular y vos para el plural y para hablar cortésmente a una sola persona, de forma análoga a lo que sucede en francés con tu y vous. Este sistema se fue conservando añadiendo formas de cortesía, pero se mantuvo hasta más o menos el siglo de oro.

Brazilian dude

Ah! I see! Many thanks.

You (pl.) are lucky. In Hindi, there are three levels for 2nd person addressing: tu (extremely familiar, best avoided for foreigners), tum to equals or family, aap for courtesy.

But for example Tibetan is much worse. Nouns! may have up to four levels, depending on whom is addressed: Example 'mother': normal a-ma, honorific yum-ku-sho, high honorific hla-yum ku-sho, and for the mothers of Dalai and Tashi Lamas gye-yum ku-sho. Fathers have to make do with two levels, normal a-pha and hon. yab.

If you are familiar with Buddhist art, you will now have understood the meaning of the label yab-yum to describe the position/action in one sculpture gengre: Father-mother. Try this interesting discussion.

Anders, don't tell me you'd call someone 'aap' out of courtesy?

Anders, don't tell me you'd call someone 'aap' out of courtesy?

That's a point I overlooked. Please compare the Tarzan thread.

It really is a with a macron or rather आप but I was too lazy. Even more weird, to have my utility give me the correct Hindi, I had to write Apa (ape/monkey in Swedish).