In Greek, interrogative intonation is often "rising-falling" instead of just "rising" like Western Europeans are used to. This was quite confusing to me when I first started learning Greek, especially since there is usually no other way to distinguish between a statement and a question.

I can imagine a non-Western European getting similarly confused with the omission of ĉu in speech. Is that person telling me something or agreeing with me, in a truncated manner (perhaps for emphasis), or is he asking me a yes/no question? Even facial cues don't always help when (say) a Cambodian is conversing with a Swede.

Given the lack of an obvious and truly "international" set of intonations, my belief is that one should rely only minimally on intonation in Esperanto, especially when talking to people whose native language is radically different from one's own. This means that ĉu should be used more or less consistently.

It seems to me two statements can be made to sum up the whole thing.

1. Sometimes, people omit cxu, so it might be encountered.
2. According to Esperanto grammar, cxu is used to mark questions.

Since people do all kinds of stuff while speaking Esperanto that is nonstandard, just like any other language, it becomes a question of what to model one's own usage after as a foreign language learner.

DuckFiasco:It seems to me two statements can be made to sum up the whole thing.

1. Sometimes, people omit cxu, so it might be encountered.
2. According to Esperanto grammar, cxu is used to mark questions.

Since people do all kinds of stuff while speaking Esperanto that is nonstandard, just like any other language, it becomes a question of what to model one's own usage after as a foreign language learner.

Amen. Way too much time is used on these forums on insignificant discussion regarding the grammar of a language with a couple of hundred thousand speakers. This energy could be much better put to use doing something like making Esperanto known to other people out in the world.

DuckFiasco:It seems to me two statements can be made to sum up the whole thing.

1. Sometimes, people omit cxu, so it might be encountered.

They hardly omit "ĉu" which doesn't mean that you can't find quotes, where someone does.

2. According to Esperanto grammar, cxu is used to mark questions.

Since people do all kinds of stuff while speaking Esperanto that is nonstandard, just like any other language, it becomes a question of what to model one's own usage after as a foreign language learner.

There are nonstandard things that people are doing far more often than ommiting "ĉu". For example wrong usage of accusative and wrong usage of transitivity / intransitivity. And those are widely considerd mistakes.

DuckFiasco:
1. Sometimes, people omit cxu, so it might be encountered.

Since people do all kinds of stuff while speaking Esperanto that is nonstandard, just like any other language, it becomes a question of what to model one's own usage after as a foreign language learner.

That's not quite the issue Duck. Nobody would suggest that ĉu-omission is a model to be imitated, or to be included in coursebooks.

However, the Tekstaro proves that truncated questions in Esperanto are common enough in print. This leads naturally to wondering how these might be vocalised when such texts are read aloud, and what the vocalisation is when such truncated questions occur in informal speech.

I found this on the UEA website.

Male oni ankoraŭ ŝajnas havi malaltan konscion pri la fenomenoj de intonacio,
en kiu esence ĉiu sekvas sian nacian modelon. La nura lingvisto, kiu miascie
interesiĝis pri intonacio en Esperanto (Blazio Wacha), ankoraŭ ne produktis
libroforme la rezultojn de siaj observoj.

This assumption that everybody follows the model of his or her mother tongue, seems to be just armchair speculation. Where's the proof?

When foreigners use English or French as a lingua franca, do they just impose their own intonation patterns? (Both English and French use statement-like phrases as questions without the formal syntactic devices).

If Esperanto has not yet evolved its own characteristic melodies in speech, how come there are so few misunderstandings at international Esperanto events? And particularly so if all the Esperantists are using national language patterns and these have no commonality.

Vikungen:Way too much time is used on these forums on insignificant discussion regarding the grammar of a language with a couple of hundred thousand speakers. This energy could be much better put to use doing something like making Esperanto known to other people out in the world.

I agree with the sentiment, Vikungen, that the Esperanto movement tends to be inward-looking, and too little effort is devoted to thinking about tactics to promote wider use of Esperanto, or changing its public image.

However one can hardly prevent Forum members from discussing topics related to Esperanto that they find interesting.

sudanglo:...the Esperanto movement tends to be inward-looking, and too little effort is devoted to thinking about tactics to promote wider use of Esperanto...

If there was some way to provide a financial incentive to learn Esperanto then people will do it. For example, if it would help a person get a job. Or, if there were scholarships for Esperanto speakers. Or, if speaking it would help people in business and trade.

The Esperanto community has done well to host travellers, which saves people a lot of money. I heard that people learn Esperanto just so they can travel for free.

People need tangible rewards for doing things.

Alkanadi:

sudanglo:...the Esperanto movement tends to be inward-looking, and too little effort is devoted to thinking about tactics to promote wider use of Esperanto...

If there was some way to provide a financial incentive to learn Esperanto then people will do it. For example, if it would help a person get a job. Or, if there were scholarships for Esperanto speakers. Or, if speaking it would help people in business and trade.

The Esperanto community has done well to host travellers, which saves people a lot of money. I heard that people learn Esperanto just so they can travel for free.

People need tangible rewards for doing things.

In reality the ability to speak Esperanto will make you spend more money on traveling rather than saving.

We need to be that honest to admit, that it is totally rediculous attracting people to learn Esperanto by a financial reward. There are maybe some 20 jobs in the world, that require Esperanto skills. Ok, let's say 100 jobs. Noone will learn Esperanto in order to get one of them. Scholarships for Esperanto speakers ... maybe the university in Poznan has something funded by EU. Very limited. Again, noone will learn Esperanto to get chances there.

If speaking Esperanto would help people in business and trade? Well it doesn't.

There are lot's of rewards or incentives to Esperanto speakers, but not financial ones.

sudanglo:

DuckFiasco:
1. Sometimes, people omit cxu, so it might be encountered.

Since people do all kinds of stuff while speaking Esperanto that is nonstandard, just like any other language, it becomes a question of what to model one's own usage after as a foreign language learner.

That's not quite the issue Duck. Nobody would suggest that ĉu-omission is a model to be imitated, or to be included in coursebooks.

However, the Tekstaro proves that truncated questions in Esperanto are common enough in print. This leads naturally to wondering how these might be vocalised when such texts are read aloud, and what the vocalisation is when such truncated questions occur in informal speech.

I found this on the UEA website.

Male oni ankoraŭ ŝajnas havi malaltan konscion pri la fenomenoj de intonacio,
en kiu esence ĉiu sekvas sian nacian modelon. La nura lingvisto, kiu miascie
interesiĝis pri intonacio en Esperanto (Blazio Wacha), ankoraŭ ne produktis
libroforme la rezultojn de siaj observoj.

This assumption that everybody follows the model of his or her mother tongue, seems to be just armchair speculation. Where's the proof?

When foreigners use English or French as a lingua franca, do they just impose their own intonation patterns? (Both English and French use statement-like phrases as questions without the formal syntactic devices).

If Esperanto has not yet evolved its own characteristic melodies in speech, how come there are so few misunderstandings at international Esperanto events? And particularly so if all the Esperantists are using national language patterns and these have no commonality.

With regard to Esperanto intonation, Zamenhoff suggested imitating the sound of Italian. Italian uses a rising tone to indicate a question and a falling tone to indicate an exclamation. It is important to note, however, that unlike Italian, Engish is a stress-timed language, in which key words (and key syllables) are stressed, then other words and syllables are rushed or even swallowed to keep the rhythm...a big difference. In Italian (as well as other Romance languages), the syllables are kept even, and the important element is moved to the end of the sentence.

Just facing reality, most people learn Esperanto from book or computer sources. Reading and interacting through writing doesn't lend itself to emulating ideal speech models---and even experienced "fluparolantoj" (fluent speakers) often still produce sounds as they would in their national languages---so the practical overrules the ideal with regard to maintaining two-way oral comprehension. Speaking clearly, slowly enough to process, and being meticulous about features such as ĉu for questions will help all of us to get our spoken communication past such linguistic impediments as national accents, differences in phonology, and interferences such as national language word order.

Polaris:Speaking clearly, slowly enough to process, and being meticulous about features such as ĉu for questions will help all of us to get our spoken communication past such linguistic impediments as national accents, differences in phonology, and interferences such as national language word order.

+1. QFT. Having such an awesome particle to unambiguously mark questions, why should we refrain from using it.