nornen:

kaŝperanto:..., but I find it highly unnecessary to distinguish the gender of someone I am talking to directly. It would feel highly demeening, like in "You girl, go fetch me some more wine." I can see no informational purpose to distinguish gender when talking directly with someone.

This might be due to your linguistic (anglophone) background. Spanish has a distinction between vosotros (you males) and vosotras (you females) for instance, and I don't know a single person who would deem that "demeening".

Also in English you do distinguish the gender of the person you are talking to when you say "Mr Black" and "Mrs Black". Is this unnecessary and demeening, too? Does this distinction have an informational purpose?

Seriously, "demeening"?

----
About the "highly unnecessary" part: This no doubt is true. But the same holds for a lot of items of any language (including Esperanto and English).
If English works without distinction of thou and ye, then surely the distinction between I and we is highly unnecessary, too.
Other languages don't make a difference between he, she and it, and hence this distinction is highly unnecessary, too.
Other languages have no personal pronouns at all, so why bother at all?

I have no doubt that my linguistic background influences my opinion. In fact, that was the entire point of my post, in response to your question about whether I as a native speaker of English have ever felt a need for such distinctive power. I was simply stating my subjective feelings about a gender neutral 2nd-person pronoun in English.

I am aware of vosotros/as, but also that it is more used in Spain than in Latin America. It would of course not be demeaning (oops, you caught me) if it was already a part of the language, but for me to make the distinction as the language is now would feel highly irregular and somewhat demeaning. Mr and Mrs are titles and a sign of respect (again, background here), and it does have informational purpose. If we went by "Blah Black" for everyone it would be difficult to distinguish between "Joe Black" and "Julie Black" in every case, unlike with "you", where I can look or point since "you" are always in the same area or are the subject of my sentence.

In reality this issue is more along the lines of "does distinction X merit its own pronoun, or do we distinguish trait X by adding more information in another way". In my English-speaking opinion, a gender-distinct second-person pronoun does not merit its own pronoun. It simply would convey redundant or unnecessary information most of the time. However, I do feel a need for the neutral third-person pronoun, though (thus frequent uses of "their" and "they" when speaking of one gender-ambiguous person, or the tedious "he/she" ). These feelings don't mean that I would support the idea, though.

I am a native speaker of US English, and very very frequently am frustrated over the lack of a singular/plural "you" that one can use without being mocked, especially because "you guys" (the default where I lived) can't be used in any even slightly formal context. This is probably because I've been learning Swedish, Icelandic and Japanese which all have two distinct forms, but I feel like many many languages have this sing./plur. "you" distinction so it's strange that Esperanto doesn't. (I know ex. "we two, you two" is possible to say but it's so clumsy and long.)

As for the gender thing, in English I find no problem in saying "he" for "he or she". Then again I grew up in the 90's where it was still used that way, and I've read a lot of older literature where it was used that way (it was used without a problem for hundreds of years until now, after all!). Many times you can of course say "one" and "someone". I also find no problem in saying "it, they" for gender-neutral or unknown people, but people take offense at "it".

Of course in Esperanto I would use ĝi for gender neutrality, as that's the rule.

I have been thinking about using ci and vi to distinguish between plurality. I wouldn't ever use them for formal/informal distinction, only for singular/plural distinction. To make something formal I do the same as whatever I'd do for making third-person formal, or I'd just use third-person as was done in English, Swedish etc. in the past to formal-ize things ("The Author wishes to..." instead of "I, who am writing this..." and "Would Mrs. Blomberg like some coffee?" instead of "Would you like...?").

(For any Swedish-speakers, as told to me by linguist teachers here at Uppsala Uni, historically, Swedish did not actually use "ni (ye)" as a formal "du (thou)" but instead they used nouns and titles etc, as we did in English. Ex. "The Author of this book" instead of "I [who am writing this book]", and "If (the) Sir would step up here, please". However modern speakers mistakenly believe it was true, just because other European languages did have that formal/informal distinction. I haven't read enough old Swedish that even mentions "you" yet to confirm with my own experience though.)

Anyway, based on this thread and a few others I've read where multiple people want a distinction, I'm going to definitely start using the distinction. It's only as dead as we make it dead!

marbuljon:I am a native speaker of US English, and very very frequently am frustrated over the lack of a singular/plural "you" that one can use without being mocked, especially because "you guys" (the default where I lived) can't be used in any even slightly formal context. This is probably because I've been learning Swedish, Icelandic and Japanese which all have two distinct forms, but I feel like many many languages have this sing./plur. "you" distinction so it's strange that Esperanto doesn't. (I know ex. "we two, you two" is possible to say but it's so clumsy and long.)

As for the gender thing, in English I find no problem in saying "he" for "he or she". Then again I grew up in the 90's where it was still used that way, and I've read a lot of older literature where it was used that way (it was used without a problem for hundreds of years until now, after all!). Many times you can of course say "one" and "someone". I also find no problem in saying "it, they" for gender-neutral or unknown people, but people take offense at "it".

Of course in Esperanto I would use ĝi for gender neutrality, as that's the rule.

I have been thinking about using ci and vi to distinguish between plurality. I wouldn't ever use them for formal/informal distinction, only for singular/plural distinction. To make something formal I do the same as whatever I'd do for making third-person formal, or I'd just use third-person as was done in English, Swedish etc. in the past to formal-ize things ("The Author wishes to..." instead of "I, who am writing this..." and "Would Mrs. Blomberg like some coffee?" instead of "Would you like...?").

(For any Swedish-speakers, as told to me by linguist teachers here at Uppsala Uni, historically, Swedish did not actually use "ni (ye)" as a formal "du (thou)" but instead they used nouns and titles etc, as we did in English. Ex. "The Author of this book" instead of "I [who am writing this book]", and "If (the) Sir would step up here, please". However modern speakers mistakenly believe it was true, just because other European languages did have that formal/informal distinction. I haven't read enough old Swedish that even mentions "you" yet to confirm with my own experience though.)

Anyway, based on this thread and a few others I've read where multiple people want a distinction, I'm going to definitely start using the distinction. It's only as dead as we make it dead!

and if thee really wants to freak people out, start using Plain Speech pronouns in English! ("thee" with the -s form of the verb for a singular you)

nornen:What has caused the death of "ci"?

Just a note about this (and apologizes for my bad English):

It was the other way around - "ci" was never alive. Zamenhof didn't like it and it is missing in the Unua Libro (First Book 1887) in which he invited the public to react to his language within a year. Some people expressed ideas similar to those expressed in this "fadeno". So he discussed "ci" in his Dua Libro (Second Book, DL 1888), the first book fully written in Esperanto. In a subtil, hidden manner he expressed that according to him there is no need for a familiar "ci" besides formal singular "vi" (it was never about distinguishing sg and pl "vi" - these are two different topics).

Also in DL 1888 (§ 17) there is a longish translation of an Andersen tale (La Ombro - The Shadow). The Shadow is the servant of the educated scholar, but he gains more and more power over him until he becomes his master and finally let him kill after marrying the princess. At the turning point of the master-servant-relation the Shadow addresses his former master informally with "Du" instead of "Sie" (Z translated into Esperanto from German and Russian translations of the Danish original). But even this key moment of the tale Z translated without using "ci".

Five years later, in 1893, he prepared his Ekcerzaro which appeared in 1894, was revised in 1898 and became part of the Fundamento in 1905. While in 1888 Z still dedicated four sentences to "ci", in 1893 it was only one and the main message is "normally we use 'vi' instead of 'ci'".

The case is a typical example for the way Z acted in language questions. Seldom - at least until 1906 - he clearly said 'no', but accepted proposals in a compromise formular and let the esperantists themselves come to the solution he preferred.

An overview about the story you find in the Berlina Komentario pri la Fundamento de Esperanto (download BK I and see § 5 Grammar). In more details you can read it in this blog: http://www.ipernity.com/blog/bernardo/330789.

A comparison of the early Shadow of 1888 with the classical Shadow (about 1916, a year before Z's death in 1917) you find here: http://www.ipernity.com/blog/bernardo/330667

Enjoy!

Bernadox:A comparison of the early Shadow of 1888 with the classical Shadow (about 1916, a year before Z's death in 1917) you find here: http://www.ipernity.com/blog/bernardo/330667

Enjoy!

I did enjoy the link with the comparison of the two versions of the story! Thanks Bernadox!

One matter is that not even the Lord Zamenhof Himself claimed to be the final authority, inasmuch as He put Esperanto into the public domain. Yes, without question, His opinions are definitely worthy of respect, no doubt about it, but not even Z Himself was an infallible oracle or guru.

As an educated speaker of General American English, I have often felt the lack of distinguishing number, singular and plural, pronouns in the second person, when in modern English we have only the indifferent 'you', so that I have sometimes have had to use makeshifts for a distinction.

In its earliest form, Esperanto had 'ci' as a second person singular pronoun, albeit that it (perhaps sloppily) referred to a sort of intimate/formal distinction, as with French 'tu/vous' (and in other languages). Nevertheless, in my life experience I have felt the lack of a singular/plural distinction without regard to intimate/formal, and because 'ci' existed in Esperanto from the beginning, even if Lord Z Himself later deprecated it, I think it would only be a matter of users extending the use of an already existing word, and it could appropriately come into use with an extended meaning.

bartlett22183:... because 'ci' existed in Esperanto from the beginning, even if Lord Z Himself later deprecated it, I think it would only be a matter of users extending the use of an already existing word, and it could appropriately come into use with an extended meaning.

I'm certainly the wrong person to discuss this as I'm not so much interested about how Esperanto could be or should be according to the personal taste of a person or another, but just how it is and how it became what it is.

There is a general basic agreement about "right" and "wrong" in Esperanto, called the Fundamento (1905). In its Antauparolo (A) it difines (and motivates) the criteria according to which Esperanto has to develop. It's a system of balance between evoluipovo and stabileco. Its highest priority is unity of the language, and between living esperantist (horizontal unity) and between them and esperantist of former generations (vertical unity, see A 1.1). This is still right. According to the Fundamento there is no such criteria as "feelings of an educated speaker of General American English". So for me this is as irrelevant as the pronoun system in East Albanian Mountain Urdu of th 16th century.

You're right: "esperantist could use ci this way" - but dispite several attempts, the majority never did during the last 125 years, as they don't feel a "efektiva neceseco" (A 9.3). PMEG summarizes the story. BK I explains the criteria and value system of the Fundamento.

By the way: Your description "'ci' existed in Esperanto from the beginning" is historically wrong, see Lingva Respondo 87 (1908) in BK II searching for "ci".

PS: Articles pro and con 'ci' from 1923 until now you find in EBEA http://www.esperantoland.org/ebea/ searching for >'ci'< (with the '..' ).

More about "ci" now in Berlina Komentario with arguments why reshaping the pronoun scheme to

mi, ci (instead of vi), li, shi, ghi, ni, vi, ili

is just against the Fundamento and therefore simply wrong Esperanto.

"Se vi estas preta..."
"Se vi estas pretaj..."
"Se oni estas preta..."
In English these three phrases are expressed with the same and single:
"If you are ready..."
So I can well understand that you are looking for more distinct expressions for English. But be aware that Esperanto already has a more diversified system.