Nile:Oh, how Middle English enjoys me.
Orthohawk, "y'all" is not always considered informal.
What is the best way to indicate plurality in Esperanto?

It's not middle English. If i were using ME, thee wouldn't even understand me.

and yes, "y'all" IS considering always informal/non-standard. Try writing "y'all" in a government form or an academic treatise and see what happens. The standard is "you are" not "y'all are".....

intrestingly, though, sociolinguistics is discovering that "y'all" as a singular is starting to take on the exact "familiar" connotation that has glommed onto "tu" et al of other languages. And, so, the circle comes around.........

orthohawk:

kaŝperanto:

Am I missing something about "thee"? That is twice that thou hast used "thee" as though it were nominative. And whence the lack of proper conjugations?

my speech mode uses "thee" as the subject and object, just as standard English uses "you" (originally solely the object form) for "ye" and "you".

the -s form of the verb is perfectly valid. The -st form is actually an innovation; the original was -s; it is found in all the older manuscripts where as the -st form was found in the later ones. The theory goes that in the north (where the -st forms first appeared) when the verb and subject were reversed the th- of the subject pronoun assmilated to t- and when the two words were run together thing became confused and people started writing the verb with a -t on the end, making -st the "new" ending. So, in all, "thee has" is a perfect parallel to "you have."

I see, but I feel like the inflections sound much more fluid and natural. Simply shoving "thee" into the sentence feels unnatural, though I suppose any old-modern English will be unnatural to anyone who hasn't read Shakespeare or a King James Bible. It's like seeing "who" used in all situations, even when "whom" is the proper word.
Why not just use "cin" in all circumstances? Or ci?
I also quite like the -th ending in "hath" for he/she/it.

We could always use "v'ĉiuj" as plural to be in harmony with "y'all".

I totally meant to say Early Modern English. I actually had a thought while writing that "This is Early Modern English, not Middle English.", but I must of typed it while I was thinking of the latter. Oops!
I didn't say that "y'all" is never considered informal; I said that it is not always considered informal, i.e. there are times/places where it is considered neutral.
There's more than one dialect of English.

Nile:I totally meant to say Early Modern English. I actually had a thought while writing that "This is Early Modern English, not Middle English.", but I must of typed it while I was thinking of the latter. Oops!
I didn't say that "y'all" is never considered informal; I said that it is not always considered informal, i.e. there are times/places where it is considered neutral.
There's more than one dialect of English.

But the government and most large institutions are going to use that same non-regional American dialect that news anchors and weathermen/women must learn in order to perform their jobs.

kaŝperanto:

I see, but I feel like the inflections sound much more fluid and natural. Simply shoving "thee" into the sentence feels unnatural, though I suppose any old-modern English will be unnatural to anyone who hasn't read Shakespeare or a King James Bible. It's like seeing "who" used in all situations, even when "whom" is the proper word.
Why not just use "cin" in all circumstances? Or ci?
I also quite like the -th ending in "hath" for he/she/it.

We could always use "v'ĉiuj" as plural to be in harmony with "y'all".

They sound perfectly natural to those of us who have experience with them.

and the use of accusative for nominative is not a phenomenon in Esperanto (at least i've not ever seen it yet. ugh).
as it is, English preferred the -s form for third person (the -th form was originally the northern form that is perfectly cognate with the 3rd person forms in other IE languages) that gave way to the -s form in Middlesex)

kaŝperanto:
We could always use "v'ĉiuj" as plural to be in harmony with "y'all".

Hmmm. I was just reading "Lingvaj Respondoj", a compilation of Zamenhof's answers to questions about Esperanto posted in various Eo-periodicals of the time, and he recommended "vi ĉiuj" or "vi ambaŭ" to emphasize plurality (or duality) when necessary.

orthohawk:

kaŝperanto:

Am I missing something about "thee"? That is twice that thou hast used "thee" as though it were nominative. And whence the lack of proper conjugations?

my speech mode uses "thee" as the subject and object, just as standard English uses "you" (originally solely the object form) for both subject and object.

So you use only "ci" and not "cin" in Esperanto, is that correct? I'm a little confused with the choice to use archaic vocabulary with modern grammar. Seems arbitrary, especially since modern English still uses an accusative for pronouns (he/him, she/her, etc).

erinja:

orthohawk:

kaŝperanto:

Am I missing something about "thee"? That is twice that thou hast used "thee" as though it were nominative. And whence the lack of proper conjugations?

my speech mode uses "thee" as the subject and object, just as standard English uses "you" (originally solely the object form) for both subject and object.

So you use only "ci" and not "cin" in Esperanto, is that correct? I'm a little confused with the choice to use archaic vocabulary with modern grammar. Seems arbitrary, especially since modern English still uses an accusative for pronouns (he/him, she/her, etc).

No, I use ci, cin and cia as appropriate in Esperanto.
I don't understand what there is to be confused about: "Thee" is both subject and object, it is used with what is actually the original 2nd person form of the verb, which happens to look like the modern third person.
As to the charge of "arbitrary" see my historical grammar explanation I gave to kaŝperanto above.
modern english does not use different forms for the second person (both are "you" )as well as the 3rd person neuter (it)

orthohawk: I have been trying to research the use of thee/thou/etc as a prescription of Eastern Orthodox so I won't have some ilinformed opinion but my search has been fruitless and I'm more confused than ever!

Is there some literature you can point me to advocating its use?

The most confusing aspect is why use thee/thou/etc but not retain any of the other old styles of word choice and word spelling?

That's a good point. Besides the pronouns, English has "lost" some other pretty cool words too, like "thence" and "whither".