But 'please close the door' is not a translation of 'close the door''.

That's not the point I am making, but rather why it should be interesting to know how to express both the polite request and the command in 6 different languages.

Of course it is useful to know within one language different ways of getting someone to close a door.

Knowing the social effect of different renderings is undeniably useful.

By the way, I think we have had the door open quite long enough. Would you mind ..?

Hyperboreus:

komenstanto:There are many differences in languages, but it seems Esperanto most copies French.

Q'eqchi sounds extremely interesting and straight forward. I have been thinking sometimes about learning a Native American language. I studied mildly one from the North East region. It denotes a prefix to a noun to denote possession. In many cases, Indian languages are extremely clear and logical, giving even Esperanto competition:

http://www.native-languages.org/mikmaq_possessio...

Now completely off-topic: Q'eqchi' and all other Mayan languages I know (or have seen at least) have possessed and unpossessed forms as you described. In the example given above "xpuur" is "his cigar" and for example "the cigars of our mother" would be "xpuur qana'" = "her cigar our mother". And yes, the mayan languages are extremely straight forward. No irregular verbs (as far as I can tell), no guessing about what could mean which morpheme in which place and what I think is quite funny is the following: Some (e.g. K'iche') do mark phrase traces! I mean, it looks like if they were contructed by a linguist and every time a phrase is moved around while passing from D-Structure to S-structure the gap that's left behind is filled with a "directional particle".

Example:
Normal word order:
E k'oo pa k'ayib'al ri numi'aal.
[Pl] [Aux] [ON] [BUY.PLACE] [Det] [1SgErg.DAUGHTER_OF_MALE]
My daughters are at the market.

If we now ask "where" and must do the wh-movement, the trace left behind by [PP: pa k'ayib'al] is marked with "wi".
Jawi(1) e k'oo wi(t1) ri numi'aal.
[WHERE] [Pl] [Aux] [DirP] [Det] [1SgErg.DAUGHTER_OF_MALE]
Where are my daughters?

If this isn't logical, straight-forward and cool, ...

(If you esperantize these phrases they would be something like: "oj est en vend'ej mi'filin" and "kie oj est mi'filin")

Thanks for discussing this, it gave me incentive to study Native American languages again. Who knows, maybe if Esperanto becomes the language of the European union, we in the Americas can take a Native language such as the one you mention, and use it as a way of uniting Latin America and North America, turn it into an auxiliary language and alter it to make it easier.

Good luck Komenstanto, you're always welcome back to Esperantujo whenever you want.

Forigite

You never know, it might catch on, and if Americans start speaking it, then Europeans would have to learn it!

Imagine how angry Europeans would be to have to learn an indigenous language as the global language!

I had a vision of a humming bird as the symbol, due to its being small and compact and symmetrical. It would fly into peoples' ears, so easy to learn. And since I am an "idioto", it would be even more regularly made than Esperanto.

Forigite

There are not a lot of Mayan resources on the internet for learning it. On the other hand, for Míkmaq there are quite a few tutorials. Considering the rarity of Míkmaq, it's strange to see it has so much online help.

http://web.archive.org/web/20041013121327/http:/...

http://www.languagegeek.com/algon/mikmawisimk/mi...

http://www.mikmaqonline.org/http://www.languagesandnumbers.com/how-to-count-...

etc...

Yes, it would be fun, but who knows - if it was really easy, it could be promoted quite easily in the USA.

Forigite

Hyperboreus:Just to follow this crazy idea: If L.L. Zamenhof hadn't decided to take indoeuropean grammar, but mayan grammar, the Patro Nia would maybe have looked like this (again taking E-o word stems and morphemes) (and we would be struggling now, not to pronounce ĥ but ejective consonants.):

Kiu ĝien la ĉiel nipatr,
uĝinonisankt vinom,
uĝinven viregn,
uĝinonifar vivol,
kiel ĝien la ĉiel, ĝisur la ter.
Uĝinvidon ĉiutaga nipan hodiaŭ,
uilinvipardon niŝuld nivizaĝ,
kiel ankaŭ asilinnipardon ilivizaĝ ul ŝuld.
Ne uninvikonduk ĝien la tent,
ja uninviliber ĝide la malbon.
Uĝinest.

The noise of Catholics crossing their chests as they read this is almost tangible. You no doubt stirred them up.

I have not studied Ido. Does it change grammar as well?

komenstanto:
I have not studied Ido. Does it change grammar as well?

Yes, for example there’s no obligatory accusative or adjectival declension anymore.