bartlett22183: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 think it would be imitated by non-Europeans as well, if it was done on a large scale in Europe, which is (like it or not) the center of most Esperanto activity.

I have met plenty of Asians who seem to use -in- a lot (cases like "ŝi estas instruistino" ); I heard a lot of unnecessary -in- in Taiwan. Chinese is not a very gendered language at all; it surely is not Chinese that is encouraging people to add -in- every single time they're talking about a person who happens to be female, and Esperanto surely doesn't require it, so obviously these people are getting this habit from elsewhere, and I tend to point the finger at Europe.

erinja:

bartlett22183: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 think it would be imitated by non-Europeans as well, if it was done on a large scale in Europe, which is (like it or not) the center of most Esperanto activity.

...

Possibly, but should this be? I myself am interested in the idea of (some or another) constructed international auxiliary language which is truly international, i.e., worldwide, and not just eurocentric (which would include speakers of what someone elsewhere referred to as WENSA, i.e., primarily western European in different parts of the world). I grant that Zamenhof himself might have been limited by his own narrow experiences, but I want to go beyond the merely narrow European ambience. Nevertheless, having been around the conIAL field for many years, I admit that various "worldlang" proposals have not yet gone anywhere, if any of them even will. But must the entire world be captive to a neo-colonialist europeanness?

bartlett22183:

erinja:

bartlett22183: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 think it would be imitated by non-Europeans as well, if it was done on a large scale in Europe, which is (like it or not) the center of most Esperanto activity.

...

Possibly, but should this be?

No. It shouldn't be that way. But it is, and what are you going to do, force non-Europeans to stop imitating Europeans?

It's a bit like saying "The people in my city eat too much and they're fat. It shouldn't be that way, so let's change it".

Easier said than done when dealing with large groups of people, each with their own ideas.

bartlett22183:Possibly, but should this be? I myself am interested in the idea of (some or another) constructed international auxiliary language which is truly international, i.e., worldwide, and not just eurocentric (which would include speakers of what someone elsewhere referred to as WENSA, i.e., primarily western European in different parts of the world). I grant that Zamenhof himself might have been limited by his own narrow experiences, but I want to go beyond the merely narrow European ambience. Nevertheless, having been around the conIAL field for many years, I admit that various "worldlang" proposals have not yet gone anywhere, if any of them even will. But must the entire world be captive to a neo-colonialist europeanness?

Learn Lojban if that's what interests you. A priori vocabulary and grammar. Not as widespread as Esperanto though...

bartlett22183:
Possibly, but should this be? I myself am interested in the idea of (some or another) constructed international auxiliary language which is truly international, i.e., worldwide, and not just eurocentric (which would include speakers of what someone elsewhere referred to as WENSA, i.e., primarily western European in different parts of the world). I grant that Zamenhof himself might have been limited by his own narrow experiences, but I want to go beyond the merely narrow European ambience. Nevertheless, having been around the conIAL field for many years, I admit that various "worldlang" proposals have not yet gone anywhere, if any of them even will. But must the entire world be captive to a neo-colonialist europeanness?

Ne ĉio estas "eŭropeca". Ekzmemple "vi ĉiuj" ankaŭ estas uzata en aziaj lingvoj (ni men en Ĉinan, anata tachi en Japanan).

Kaj "ni ĉiuj" ankaŭ estas uzebla frazo (ne nur "ni"). Sed ne mi ĉiuj! (eble tamen se vi estas en la "Borg"...)

Not everything is Europeanness-ish. For example, "vi ĉiuj" is also used in Asian languages (ni men in Chinese, anata tachi in Japanese).

And "we all" is also a usable phrase (not only "we"). But not "me all"! (however, perhaps if you are in the "Borg"...)

erinja: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.

The irony's not lost on me that in writing Zamenhof would often capitalise 'Vi' to indicate formality, so though he had no audible marker of formality, he certainly had a written one

Timtim:The irony's not lost on me that in writing Zamenhof would often capitalise 'Vi' to indicate formality, so though he had no audible marker of formality, he certainly had a written one

He actually mentioned that in his "Lingvaj respondoj", if I remember correctly, accompanied by a comment that Esperanto doesn't require this and technically you probably shouldn't do it, but that he did it out of habit. Or something to that effect.

According to the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis a language forms the native speakers' way of thinking, acting and reacting.

So if one's language consist of differentiation the way of addressing someone else one can't get rid off this pattern.
And such patterns influence every further language one learns.

One's brain would need a huge amaunt of its resources just for focussing using another pattern.

That's like trying to use your non-handed hand for writing. It is very difficult but you can increase its fine motor skills by practising and a lot of focussing, anyhow, if someone distracted you and gave you a pencil you'd automatically grap it with your handed hand because the brain isn't able to keep the focus all the time just on using the non-handed hand.

A language example:
The English 'wet floor' and the German 'frisch gewischt(=just wiped)' contain the same statement: The floor is wet.
The English describes 'how the floor is' and the German describes 'what happend to the floor' so the English statement is more precise than the German one. I guess it's obvious that these are two different patterns.

And I'm firmly convinced that every English native speaker will find a lot more of German patterns in my message.

Given by this reason, one can't hide its native language's patterns.

That means for Esperanto there will be more discussion like this thread.

It's worth mentioning that most people tend to have problems with grammatical features of Esperanto that are different from their own languages.

It may seem to you that the lack of a plural second person makes Esperanto more ambiguous, but what about the first person plural? Many languages distinguish between "we" forms that include or exclude the person being spoken to. (Does "we" mean you and me? Me and some other people? Me and you and some other people? And how many people?*) We could argue that to be a truly international language, Esperanto would have to include forms to mirror those features in other languages, but when would you stop? I'm sure a native speaker of Navajo would want Esperanto verbs to be chock full of explanatory prefixes, but a non-Navajo would rather learn "konduki" than whatever prefixes would be needed to say, in one word, "I'm in the act of driving some vehicle (into something) & getting stuck."*

* In Tok Pisin, these pronouns are fun: mi, mipela (I and others), mitupela, mitripela, yumi, yumipela, yumitupela, yumitripela...

::an example from the Wikipedia article on the Navajo language

You could use the Ido word Vu for singular 2nd person. It resembles the German Du and, I think French equivalent. Which means that some people may take it badly if you use it, for fundementaj reasons or because it resembles their familiar pronoun. Also it seems that Vi is the second person plural in some Slavic Languages, so it would then be used as the plural. Of course that would be improper Esperanto, but it might catch on.