The Archaic Polite De/Dem/Deres

Most European languages keep a polite "you" for formal situations: German Sie, French vous, Spanish usted. Norwegian had one too — the capitalised De / Dem / Deres — but it is now almost entirely dead. This is the single most important fact on this page, and the one English speakers get wrong: Norwegian did not keep a living formal "you," so the instinct to "be polite by switching to the formal pronoun" is a mistake here. You learn De mainly so you can read older literature and letters and recognise their tone — producing it in modern speech is, in nearly every case, wrong. The universal du (everyone, including strangers and your boss, is du) has its own page; this page is about the form du replaced.

What the forms are

The old polite second person was a T–V system like German's, using a capitalised pronoun set distinct from the third-person plural it derives from:

The crucial orthographic point: the polite forms are capitalised (De, Dem, Deres) precisely to distinguish them from the identical-sounding everyday pronouns de "they," dem "them," and deres "their/theirs." In speech they sound the same; only the capital letter (and context) marks the polite reading. So De kommer could mean "They are coming" (de) or, in an old formal register, "You [sir/madam] are coming" (De) — the capital disambiguates on the page.

A grammatical quirk: De takes plural-style agreement

Like the third-person plural it comes from, the polite De historically pairs with the verb form and reflexives of a "they"-subject in older usage, and addresses a single respected person with a grammatically plural-flavoured pronoun. This is why it can look, at a glance, like "they." Don't over-engineer this as a learner — you are recognising the form, not conjugating around it — but it explains why the pronoun is the third-person-plural word dressed up with a capital.

Why Norway abandoned it: the du-reform

Here is the history that makes Norwegian different from German. Through the 19th and early 20th centuries, Norwegian had a full, anxiety-inducing T–V system: you used De "upward" (to superiors, elders, strangers, customers) and risked offence by getting it wrong. Then, across the 1960s and 1970s, Norway underwent a broad egalitarian flattening — the du-reform (du-reformen). Driven by the era's strong social-democratic, anti-hierarchical values, society collectively decided that addressing everyone as du was the friendlier, more equal default. Workplaces, schools, broadcasters and shops shifted to du across the board.

The result is striking: within roughly a generation, the polite De went from normal to marked. Today, addressing a stranger as du is not rude — it is the unmarked, expected choice. This is the opposite of the German situation, where defaulting to du with a stranger can be presumptuous. English speakers who know German routinely mis-analogise and reach for a "Norwegian Sie" that no longer functions.

Why using De today sounds wrong

Because De is now archaic, deploying it in ordinary modern interaction does not read as "extra polite." It reads as one of three things, depending on context:

1. Stiff / old-fashioned — like someone reading from a 1950s etiquette manual.
2. Distant / cold — putting deliberate ceremonial distance between you and the listener, which can feel unfriendly.
3. Ironic / sarcastic — Norwegians sometimes use De jokingly to mock pomposity or to tease, exactly because it is so marked.

So the well-meaning learner who switches to De to show respect often achieves the opposite effect of the one intended.

Where De still survives

It is not quite extinct. There is a short list of residual contexts where De (or its forms) is still correct or at least unremarkable — and these are worth knowing precisely so you don't over-correct a genuine appearance of it:

• Addressing royalty and the highest dignitaries. The royal house is addressed with De and with the set phrase Deres Majestet ("Your Majesty"), Deres Kongelige Høyhet ("Your Royal Highness"). This is fixed protocol.
• Very formal, legal, or ceremonial letters. Some old-fashioned official correspondence, certain legal documents, and very formal complaint or condolence letters may still open with De/Deres. It now signals heightened, somewhat dated formality.
• Some elderly speakers, especially when addressing other elders or in service contexts, may still use or expect De out of lifelong habit.
• Certain customer-service formality, in a few conservative settings (a traditional bank, a high-end shop, an old-school hotel), as a deliberate marker of deference — though even here du now dominates.
• Historical and period texts — 19th- and early-20th-century literature, where De pervades dialogue between strangers and across class lines. This is the main reason a modern learner needs it: to read the classics correctly.

The distinguishing insight

The reason this page matters is almost entirely passive, and that inversion is the insight competitors skip. For Sie in German or vous in French, the practical lesson is "learn to produce it correctly or you will seem rude." For Norwegian De, the practical lesson is the reverse: learn to recognise it so you can read older texts and catch the tone, and almost never produce it, because in modern Norway producing it is the marked, often counter-productive choice. English speakers transfer the German/French model and get it backwards — they treat De as a tool of politeness when it is now, in everyday life, a tool of distance, ceremony, or irony.

Common Mistakes

Key Takeaways

• De / Dem / Deres (capitalised) is the old polite "you" — now near-extinct in everyday Norwegian.
• It is the third-person-plural set (de/dem/deres "they/them/their") dressed up with a capital letter, which is the only written signal.
• Norway dropped it in the 1960s–70s du-reform, an egalitarian flattening; today du is the polite default, even with strangers and superiors.
• Using De now reads as stiff, distant, or ironic — the opposite of German Sie.
• It survives in royal/ceremonial protocol (Deres Majestet), some very formal letters, a few elderly or old-school-service speakers, and period literature — which is the main reason to learn it: to read, not to speak.