Ladino, historically spoken by Sephardic Jews, employs some personal pronouns that have fallen out of use in Spanish.
Information contained in verb endings often renders the explicit use of subject pronouns unnecessary and even erroneous although they may still be used for clarity or emphasis: English subject pronouns are generally not translated into Spanish if neither clarity nor emphasis is an issue.
The third-person neuter singular pronoun ello is likewise rarely used as an explicit subject in everyday language, although such usage is found in formal and literary contexts.
In contrast, the use of tú or vos implies that the person addressed is an equal, a comrade, a friend, someone with whom one has a close relationship, or a child or other social inferior, including (traditionally) a maid or other household employee.
Usage changed in the 20th century in Spain,[3] and a woman who addressed her mother as madre, 'mother' using usted could experience that her children call her mamá, 'mom' and use tú.
Spanish has a verb, tutear, meaning to use the familiar form tú to address a person.
In the Canary Islands as well as those parts of western Andalusia, in addition to all of Spanish America, vosotros is not used except in very formal contexts such as oratory, and ustedes is the familiar as well as the polite plural.
"Tu casa" (tú with an (acute) accent is the subject pronoun, tu with no accent is a possessive adjective) means "your house" in the familiar singular: the owner of the house is one person, and it is a person with whom one has the closer relationship the tú form implies.
In Spanish, two (and rarely three) clitic pronouns can be used with a single verb, generally one accusative and one dative.
The pronoun vos was once used as a respectful form of address, semantically equivalent to modern usted.
Vos and its related forms are still used in literature, cinema, etc., when attempting to depict the language of past centuries.
In some areas, like the River Plate region, vos has become the only generic form of address for the second-person singular, that is, it has the same meaning that tú has elsewhere (informal and intimate).
In other areas, like Chile, it persists as a fairly stigmatized form alongside the more prestigious tú.
In some other areas, it is employed among equals but not for very close people (couples or family) or to inferiors (children, animals etc.
In the local Spanish-based creole, Chavacano, the use of vos coexists alongside tú and usted depending on level of intimacy, commonality, and formality.
Today, the informal second-person plural pronoun vosotros is widely used by Spaniards except in some southwestern regions and in most of the Canary Islands, where its use is rare.
Among the former colonies of the Spanish Empire, the use of vosotros and its normal conjugations is also retained in the Philippines and Equatorial Guinea.
[b] In the Ladino of Sephardic Jews, the only second person plural is vozotros (i.e. there is no ustedes, as in standard Spanish).
The use of vosotros was more widespread in formal, educated speech in Hispanic America around the time of the Spanish American wars of independence.
[10] Even in modern times, the use of vosotros may still be found in oratory, legal documents, or other highly formal or archaic contexts.
In Chavacano, spoken in the Philippines, vo is used alongside tu as a singular second-person pronoun in Zamboangueño, Caviteño, and Ternateño.
Papiamento, spoken in Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao, maintains boso (singular) and bosonan (plural).