Difference between singular and plural formal form of address?

Question

When using the formal address, both you (sing.) and you (pl.) get translated to Sie, when in nominative case, of course. This question is more general. Are there any hints in the language (e.g. verb conjugation, declension, agreements, etc) that allows one to distinguish between the singular and the plural? I'm not restricting to the nominative case here.

Answer 1

The formal 'you' in German (Sie) actually comes from the word 'they' (sie). The capitalization of 'Sie' is a way to tell the two words apart, but they are still nevertheless the same word. So the formal 'you' in German can be both singular and plural since it was not originally a 'you' word. The informal does make a distinction between singular and plural, however: 'du' is singular, while 'ihr' is plural.