From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Pluralis majestatis ("majestic plural") is the plural pronoun where it is used to refer to a single person holding a high office, such as a monarch, bishop, pope, or university rector. It is also called the "Royal 'we'" or the "Victorian 'we'." The more general word for the use of we to refer to oneself is nosism.^[1]

The idea behind the pluralis majestatis is that a monarch or other high official always speaks for his or her people.^{[citation needed]} For example, the Basic Law of the Sultanate of Oman opens thus:

On the Issue of the Basic Law of the State We, Qaboos bin Said, Sultan of Oman…^[2]

Famous examples of purported instances:

• We are not amused. — Queen Victoria (in at least one account of this quotation, though, she was not speaking for herself alone, but for the ladies of the court.^{[citation needed]})
• The abdication statement of Nicholas II of Russia uses the pluralis majestatis liberally, as in "In agreement with the Imperial Duma We have thought it well to renounce the Throne of the Russian Empire and to lay down the supreme power."^[3]
• We are a grandmother. — Margaret Thatcher announcing the birth of Mark Thatcher's son Michael in 1989.^{[citation needed]}

Another view^{[citation needed]} of the form is that it reflects the fact that when a monarch speaks he or she speaks both in his own name and in the name of his function, office or status.

United States Navy Admiral Hyman G. Rickover told a subordinate who used the royal we: "Three groups are permitted that usage: pregnant women, royalty, and schizophrenics. Which one are you?"^{[citation needed]} This was said as the subordinate was speaking for superiors without authority as well as in an unofficial capacity.

It is to be distinguished from pluralis modestiae, also pluralis auctoris (inclusion of readers or listeners, respectively), often used in mathematics. For instance:

Let us calculate! — Leibniz

We are thus led also to a definition of "time" in physics. — Albert Einstein

The tradition of the Royal We may be tracked to the same origins as of the Mughals of India and Sultans of Banu Abbas and Banu Umayyah. This tradition use "Royal We" to express their dignity or highest position either understood as strictly hierarchical or as referential to an alternate "higher" than ego identity. This use of "Royal We" has been understood as totally different from the concept of its Western, or Occidental use. Western use here denotes a "Royal We" used by Kings / Queens speaking on behalf of their people.^{[citation needed]}, in other words modernized to a secular symbolic. The distinction between Oriental and Occidental Monarchic traditions seem to be superfluous as these monarchic, and wider cultural traditions (i.e. indo-european) seem to go along the similar genealogic lineages, traces as the linguistic and genetic evolutions.

• We
• T-V distinction
• Elohim, a plural name of the Hebrew deity Yahweh.