Breto:Kind of a shame, though. Even if it were not standard usage in day-to-day speech, it seems like it would be nice to have for literary translations from languages with a T-V distinction. It'd be nice to have distinct singular and plural forms, too. Even English dialects abound with workarounds like "y'all", "youse", "you guys", etc. How are these things usually handled in translations?

You can also do so in Esperanto:
"y'all" and "youse" can be translated by "vi ĉiuj".

If you want to stress a certain quantity you could say "vi ambaŭ/du", "vi tri", "vi kvar" and so on.

See here.

If you put a plural noun in front of the persoal pronoun, it should be clear that it is about plurality.

For example:
Vi ĉiuj ja povas legi, ĉu ne? (All of you are able to read, aren't you?)
Ĉu vi tri bonvole povus min helpi porti la grandan kuvon? (Could you three please help me carry the big tub?)
Hej knaboj, ĉu vi bonvole povus ĉesi fumi ĉi tie? (Hey guys, could you please stop smoking here?)

Also if you use constructions like

'esti' + adjective
'esti' + 'verb root' + 'ant/ont/int' + 'a/aj'
'esti' + 'verb root' + 'at/ot/it' + 'a/aj'

you can distinguish between plurality and singularity.

For example:
singular:
Vi estas belega. (You are beatiful.)
Vi estis aŭtanta, kiam mi povis vin telefoni. (You were driving, when I tried to call you.)
Vi estis dirita, ke vi iru hejmen. (You were said to go home.)

plural:
Vi estas altaj. (You are tall.)
Vi estis irantaj hejmen, kiam ekpluvis. (You were going home when it started to rain.)
Se vi krimos ĉi-vespere, vi estos punitaj. (If you commit a crime this evening, you are punished.)

darkweasel:In Esperanto it simply cannot be determined - it's so rarely used that you cannot really tell what nuance it "normally" conveys.

That says it all. The only thing you can be sure about is that using "ci" will mark you as a friend of extremely unusual words.

As this is an English-language forum I hope you don't mind me asking for advice on how to use the pronouns in English. I'm used to separate singular and plural pronouns in my own language, so I thought I'll start using "thou" on my nex visit to London: "How art thou?" "Is this bag thine, Sir?" – Don't you think it's a good idea?

Tempodivalse:I guess I'm guilty of that. But is it really so wrong to occasionally condense "de la" to de l'" for euphony? I have one (very professionally-done) EO translation of a novel by Aleksej Tolstoj in my library that does this as a matter of course. I must admit I found it much more pleasing on the ear, without sounding inappropriately "poetic". "De la artikolo" is a mouthful compared to "De l' artikolo", for instance.

But I think one should just spell it out in writing, even if it comes out elided in speech. It bothers me to see written "would've", "there're", or "what d'y'all" in writing, but I wouldn't blink if someone spoke the phrases as such.

Ondo:

darkweasel:In Esperanto it simply cannot be determined - it's so rarely used that you cannot really tell what nuance it "normally" conveys.

That says it all. The only thing you can be sure about is that using "ci" will mark you as a friend of extremely unusual words.

As this is an English-language forum I hope you don't mind me asking for advice on how to use the pronouns in English. I'm used to separate singular and plural pronouns in my own language, so I thought I'll start using "thou" on my nex visit to London: "How art thou?" "Is this bag thine, Sir?" – Don't you think it's a good idea?

"Do ye not think…?"

orthohawk:Are you gonna be all offended when the next Quaker or Yorkie you come across calls you "thou"? ..lemme ask thee a question, Miland ..: What, truly, is thy first reaction when thee's addressed as "ci"? ..

Why, to judge the matter by thine own words - that the speaker hath converted to Quaker oats, or Yorkie, as the case may be, of course. Which the latter be a good thing too, for Yorkie tasteth better than H::::*y, if thou asketh me, especially the type that be adulterated with a multitude of almonds.

Ondo:

darkweasel:In Esperanto it simply cannot be determined - it's so rarely used that you cannot really tell what nuance it "normally" conveys.

That says it all. The only thing you can be sure about is that using "ci" will mark you as a friend of extremely unusual words.

As this is an English-language forum I hope you don't mind me asking for advice on how to use the pronouns in English. I'm used to separate singular and plural pronouns in my own language, so I thought I'll start using "thou" on my nex visit to London: "How art thou?" "Is this bag thine, Sir?" – Don't you think it's a good idea?

I think you should, and record people's reactions with a hidden camera. It sounds like a fun social experiment to me.

As a side note, because I'm anal about such things: "Thou" is the singular, subject form, "thee" is the singular object form, and "thy/thine" is the singular possessive. "Ye" is the plural subject form, while "you" is the object form and "your" and "yours" work as usual (unless I suppose they might be "yer" and "yers", with unchanged pronunciation).

Also, if you're putting this kind of effort into it, thou-verbs end in -st ("thou wouldst..." ), and both "thy/thine" and "my/mine" have the same relationship with following vowels as "a/an".

Not that any of that has anything to do with "ci", of course.

darkweasel:

Miland:I don't use ci myself, and it is true that it fell out of use very early.

AFAIK it never was used frequently - it certainly wasn't in the Unua Libro.

As for finding it offensive - in other languages it can certainly be somewhat offensive to use the informal pronoun in a situation where this is not expected. In Esperanto it simply cannot be determined - it's so rarely used that you cannot really tell what nuance it "normally" conveys.

Certainly if I see ci, I notice that that person talks in an exceptional way, and their intention may be to sound offensive - though normally it just sounds strange.

Maybe i'm just too trusting or whatever, but I can see no advantage (or reason other than to be cantankerous and pick a fight) to immediately jumping to the conclusion that a person who addresses me with "ci" is doing so to be offensive....even if that conclusion is "just" possible rather than probable or certain.

jchthys:

Tempodivalse:I guess I'm guilty of that. But is it really so wrong to occasionally condense "de la" to de l'" for euphony? I have one (very professionally-done) EO translation of a novel by Aleksej Tolstoj in my library that does this as a matter of course. I must admit I found it much more pleasing on the ear, without sounding inappropriately "poetic". "De la artikolo" is a mouthful compared to "De l' artikolo", for instance.

But I think one should just spell it out in writing, even if it comes out elided in speech. It bothers me to see written "would've", "there're", or "what d'y'all" in writing, but I wouldn't blink if someone spoke the phrases as such.

I'd much rather see "would've" than "would of" (shudder)......

Breto:As a side note, because I'm anal about such things: "Thou" is the singular, subject form, "thee" is the singular object form, and "thy/thine" is the singular possessive. "Ye" is the plural subject form, while "you" is the object form and "your" and "yours" work as usual (unless I suppose they might be "yer" and "yers", with unchanged pronunciation).

Also, if you're putting this kind of effort into it, thou-verbs end in -st ("thou wouldst..." ), and both "thy/thine" and "my/mine" have the same relationship with following vowels as "a/an".

Not that any of that has anything to do with "ci", of course.

Heh. Actually, DEscriptive grammar (as opposed to PROscriptive) says that "you" is both subject and object. And on the singular end of things, in plain speech (aka Quaker talk) "thee" is likewise a subject as well as object, and for the record it goes with the -s form of the verb (third person form),

It seems to me that, unfortunately, 'ci' had from the beginning a connotation of familiarity or intimacy rather than merely a signification of singularity and nothing more. I myself, as native speaker of (US) English have often experienced awkwardness that (modern) English 'you' does not distinguish between singular and plural when I would have preferred to be able to make the distinction with a simple word rather than with circumlocutions.

Ido, for instance, as possibly some natural languages (although I do not have an example ready to hand), has surmounted this problem. Ido 'vu' is merely singular (as distinguished from plural 'vi' ) with no connotation at all of familiarity or intimacy. It is merely singular. For familiarity or intimacy, use 'tu'. (The pronoun system is the one way in which I personally think Ido is genuinely preferable to Esperanto, and otherwise not.)