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Until the earlier 20th century, jij was considered exclusively colloquial and hardly appeared in writing. The standard equivalent was the doublet gij. However, the latter’s object and possessive forms u and uw interfered with the polite pronoun u that had developed in the northern Netherlands and this could be odd-sounding e.g. in private letters. Therefore the Hollandic colloquial system (with jij, jou and jullie) came to be fully standardized after WWII. Gij has since been restricted to religious and highly formal contexts in the Netherlands, but remains common in Belgium.
(second-person singular subjective personal pronoun)you
Jij was er niet. ― You weren't there.
Usage notes
Like several other Dutch personal pronouns, jij has the unstressed variant je, which is used when the pronoun lacks sentence stress. This is usually also reflected in writing.
In dat restaurant kun je heerlijk eten, ben je daar wel eens geweest? — Nee, jij?
You can get great food in that restaurant, have you ever been? — I haven't, have you?
5) Archaic. Nowadays used for formal, literary or poetic purposes, and in fixed expressions. 6) To differentiate from the singular gij, gelle (object form elle) and variants are commonly used colloquially in Belgium. Archaic forms are gijlieden and gijlui ("you people").
