vocêvocês

VocêVocês is a term used in linguistics and education to describe the pair of second-person pronouns in Portuguese: você for singular and vocês for plural. In contemporary usage, especially in Brazilian Portuguese, eles form the central means of addressing one person (você) and multiple people (vocês), while other regional forms exist for informal or formal address.

Etymology and development: você originates from the contraction of vossa mercê, a polite form meaning Your Grace, dating from early modern Portuguese. Over time, this courtesy form became the standard second-person pronoun in many varieties, and the plural form you all, vocês, emerged as the plural adaptation of você. The result is a pronoun system where both singular and plural forms are third-person in verb agreement.

Grammar: quando you is used, the accompanying verb is conjugated as third person singular (ex: você é, você tem). quando you all is used, the verb is conjugated as third person plural (ex: vocês são, vocês têm). Possessive determiners align with the subject: seu/sua (your) and de você (of you) are commonly used alternatives to the possessive forms of vocês.

Usage and variation: In Brazil, você and vocês are widely used across regions and social classes, often replacing tu in informal speech. Tu persists in some regions (notably parts of the south and rural areas) with corresponding verb forms. In Portugal and several African varieties, tu remains common for informal address, while você is less dominant and can carry a more formal or distant tone; nonetheless, vocÊs is understood and used for addressing groups. The VocêVocês pair thus reflects a key aspect of contemporary Portuguese second-person reference and its regional and social variation.