Unless I'm mistaken, Esperanto doesn't have a plural from of "you", right? You'd use "vi" regardless of whether you were talking to a person or a crowd? If so, why not? (I know this isn't really the place, but why not in English either?)

Sorry if the wording is a bit clumsy.

Zesana:Unless I'm mistaken, Esperanto doesn't have a plural from of "you", right? You'd use "vi" regardless of whether you were talking to a person or a crowd? If so, why not? (I know this isn't really the place, but why not in English either?)

Sorry if the wording is a bit clumsy.

Ĝuste! Kaj verŝajne pro tio, ke Esperanto devas esti simpla, kaj pluraj pronomoj por la "dua persono" malfaciligas la lingvon. Tamen oni rajtas diri "vi ĉiuj" se oni volas emfazi la pluralon.

Yup! Probably because Esperanto is supposed to be simple, and multiple pronouns for the second person makes things more difficult. However you can say "vi ĉiuj" if you want to stress the plural.

Hyperboreus:English had different forms for 2nd person singular and plural, but lost them a long time ago. Cf. "thou art" vs "ye are".

So, to answer your question "why not?":
Because English got rid of it.

With Esperanto I do not know.

Thanks for the English explanation. I think it's kind of funny that it was dropped, seeing how many created plurals for it there are, like "y'all" and "you-uns," at least in the US (though they're not really used much anymore.)

Zamenhof said in his "Lingvaj respondoj" (Language responses) that "vi" is used for both singular and plural "you" to eliminate problems he saw in European languages, where both forms are used.

In some languages the singular and plural "you" literally only mean singular and plural. But in many European languages the plural form is used to indicate formality/respect, and Zamenhof thought that if Esperanto had a separate singular and plural "you", Europeans would use them to indicate informality and formality. In Zamenhof's opinion, that would have added a lot of complications and uncomfortable situations where you're not totally sure how to address someone, so you avoid calling them any form of "you" at all.

He was probably right.

You can read his text (in Esperanto) on the topic in this page of Lingvaj Respondoj. Scroll down to "Pri la pronomo 'ci' ".

To me it's not a big deal to add a couple of words on the rare occasions when it's necessary to distinguish between a singular and plural you.

erinja:Zamenhof said in his "Lingvaj respondoj" (Language responses) that "vi" is used for both singular and plural "you" to eliminate problems he saw in European languages, where both forms are used.

In some languages the singular and plural "you" literally only mean singular and plural. But in many European languages the plural form is used to indicate formality/respect, and Zamenhof thought that if Esperanto had a separate singular and plural "you", Europeans would use them to indicate informality and formality. In Zamenhof's opinion, that would have added a lot of complications and uncomfortable situations where you're not totally sure how to address someone, so you avoid calling them any form of "you" at all.

He was probably right.

You can read his text (in Esperanto) on the topic in this page of Lingvaj Respondoj. Scroll down to "Pri la pronomo 'ci' ".

To me it's not a big deal to add a couple of words on the rare occasions when it's necessary to distinguish between a singular and plural you.

Thank you for the explanation!

The qualification of 'vi' is not limited to vi ĉiuj. You can also say vi ambaŭ (addressing two people), or vi tri. But vi naŭdek ok would seem strange.

erinja:Zamenhof said in his "Lingvaj respondoj" (Language responses) that "vi" is used for both singular and plural "you" to eliminate problems he saw in European languages, where both forms are used.
...
To me it's not a big deal to add a couple of words on the rare occasions when it's necessary to distinguish between a singular and plural you.

Yes, but by no means are all languages European languages. Is Esperanto for all the people of the world, or is it only for speakers of west European languages -- specifically excluding English -- ? I, as an educated speaker of (General American) English, have *often* encountered ambiguity, even when speaking to my own family members, from the loss of singular and plural second person pronouns. This distinction in no way has to have to do with a supposed distinction between familiar and informal, such as French "tu/vous". I have often had to resort to awkward circumlocations to make the distinction. This is one matter in which I sincerely am of the opinion that the Ido pronoun system, which has a clear singular/plural distinction which is *not* familiar/formal (as well as third person distinctions), is superior to that of Esperanto. (Of course, that one point does not in and of itself make Ido superior to E-o on balance.)

bartlett22183:

erinja:Zamenhof said in his "Lingvaj respondoj" (Language responses) that "vi" is used for both singular and plural "you" to eliminate problems he saw in European languages, where both forms are used.
...
To me it's not a big deal to add a couple of words on the rare occasions when it's necessary to distinguish between a singular and plural you.

Yes, but by no means are all languages European languages. Is Esperanto for all the people of the world, or is it only for speakers of west European languages -- specifically excluding English -- ? I, as an educated speaker of (General American) English, have *often* encountered ambiguity, even when speaking to my own family members, from the loss of singular and plural second person pronouns. This distinction in no way has to have to do with a supposed distinction between familiar and informal, such as French "tu/vous". I have often had to resort to awkward circumlocations to make the distinction. This is one matter in which I sincerely am of the opinion that the Ido pronoun system, which has a clear singular/plural distinction which is *not* familiar/formal (as well as third person distinctions), is superior to that of Esperanto. (Of course, that one point does not in and of itself make Ido superior to E-o on balance.)

Adopt "plain speech" (aka "Quakerese): use "thee" for the singular with the -s form of the verb: does thee want some fries with that? (just an example; I doubt any fast food manager would allow dialect speech in dealing with customers)

bartlett22183:Is Esperanto for all the people of the world, or is it only for speakers of west European languages -- specifically excluding English -- ? I, as an educated speaker of (General American) English, have *often* encountered ambiguity, even when speaking to my own family members, from the loss of singular and plural second person pronouns.

In my opinion, speakers of Western European languages yield outsize influence when it comes to Esperanto usage. The language is for everyone, but you do see complaints that the language is very 'Euro-centric' and I can't really say that people complaining about that are wrong. The early speakers were Europeans, Zamenhof was European, and yes, it influences the way people talk, even in situations where the language itself doesn't require it. I could very easily see this happening with turning a simple singular/plural into a formal/informal.

Why?

Because I have seen users in these very forums complaining that they want to use 'ci' to talk to people in on a more personal level (they aren't complaining about singular/plural only). Because I see people (mainly Europeans) being very precise on the -in- ending, including it every single time they talk about a female, even when it isn't important, and even though for most words, the meaning is gender-neutral without -in-.

And then these same people - sorry, but they are usually speakers of highly gendered Western European languages - they use -in- alllll the time, but they don't consistently use ge- to indicate both genders, as you would expect they might. So they might talk with an instruisto and an instruistino, and they go to a kuracistino, but when you have a big group of people - it's seldom geinstruistoj, geesperantistoj, geitaloj, it's instruistoj, esperantistoj, italoj. Or, more often than not, they'll use ge- maybe once in their writing ("geesperantistoj" ), then forget to use it the other times in the same text ("italoj" ). Because they're used to treating the 'neutral' form as male, and they're used to using a male form to indicate a large group of mixed gender, and they're used to specifically indicating whenever someone is female (every. single. time.), and they import these attributes into Esperanto, which ends up complicating matters unnecessarily.

So... yes. I do see a danger in introducing both a singular and a plural 'you' pronoun. I think things would quickly fall into a formal/informal pattern in addition to a strict singular/plural pattern, and I see that as a negative development.

erinja:
In my opinion, speakers of Western European languages yield outsize influence when it comes to Esperanto usage. The language is for everyone, but you do see complaints that the language is very 'Euro-centric' and I can't really say that people complaining about that are wrong. The early speakers were Europeans, Zamenhof was European, and yes, it influences the way people talk, even in situations where the language itself doesn't require it. I could very easily see this happening with turning a simple singular/plural into a formal/informal.

...

So... yes. I do see a danger in introducing both a singular and a plural 'you' pronoun. I think things would quickly fall into a formal/informal pattern in addition to a strict singular/plural pattern, and I see that as a negative development.

My own take would be that, again, it would be primarily Europeans who might turn a singular/plural distinction into an informal/informal one due to their native habits. I would not, and quite possibly many non-Europeans would not, either. Here again there seems to be the heavy influence of the Europeans on what is supposed to be a worldwide language. It might just take enough non-Europeans to sway things. On another forum I participate in, there is one person who sometimes posts in Esperanto (any language is permitted). He is a Spaniard, but when he is responding to an individual, he commonly uses 'ci' but usually definitely is *not* being "familiar."