Mesaĝoj: 95
Lingvo: English
annadahlqvist (Montri la profilon) 2008-januaro-27 20:59:36
Is ci oldfashioned or a way to rule out the plural "you" or why are there two words?
RiotNrrd (Montri la profilon) 2008-januaro-27 21:16:48
annadahlqvist:Is ci oldfashioned or a way to rule out the plural "you" or why are there two words?"Ci" in Esperanto is like "thou" in English. You can use it if you want, and people will understand it, but it might strike them as a bit strange.
Frankouche (Montri la profilon) 2008-januaro-27 22:10:09
Personaly, i use "ci" when i speak to someone in Eon and "vi" to a group. "cidiras" is rarely used, although i meet people who agree with me, especially locutors of t-v languages , and some english locutors too.
However, the most of esperanto speakers don't agree with this form which is not in the rules of the fundamento (so not correct) and should be angry (tsss
)...I use this form because i think that it's important for a language which pretends to be precise, to distinguish at least between one person and a group.
So it's my choice.
erinja (Montri la profilon) 2008-januaro-27 22:21:40
Even in the early days of Esperanto, "ci" was seldom used. You can use it if you want to but it's good to be aware that it's not common.
I think we have had this discussion on the forum before regarding precision and ci/vi. My personal point of view is that in most cases it doesn't really matter whether you are talking to a single person or to a group (and if it matters, you could always say "vi ĉiuj" to make it clear that you mean everyone). Also, that if you really wanted precision, then Esperanto should do what a language like Hebrew does, and have not only singular and plural "you", but male and female "you". Because aren't we being incredibly imprecise when we say "vi", since we don't know if we're talking to a man or a woman? And since we differentiate between "li" and "ŝi", shouldn't we also have male and female versions of "you" and "I" as well?
I am not suggesting adding pronouns to Esperanto, but I hope you see my point - there is some kind of middle ground between being extremely precise, and being extremely general, and what seems to be obviously necessary to one person ("Of COURSE we should use a singular pronoun "you" all the time!") seems unnecessarily precise to another person.
Frankouche (Montri la profilon) 2008-januaro-27 23:33:36
But it's an other subject, that's right, we wrote about before in the forum.
richardhall (Montri la profilon) 2008-januaro-28 00:39:16
(Though this Yorkshireman is obliged to point out that in some regional dilects of English, 'thee' and 'thou' are still very much with us!)
erinja (Montri la profilon) 2008-januaro-28 01:11:43
Frankouche:I disagree with you, Erinja. I think that the gender of pronouns is less important that the number.Evidently, however, it is not ever so important, as we see in English. English *had* singular and plural "you" pronouns, but the singular fell out of use because evidently people didn't see the need for it (except in a rare few dialects, as Richard correctly points out).
Frankouche (Montri la profilon) 2008-januaro-28 01:53:06
erinja: but the singular fell out of useThe singular form is away unlike its sense. When you say "you all", you use the plural form with a singular sense that you seem "repluralize", don't you?
What about this curious form yall (never heard about before)?
erinja:evidently people didn't see the need for itThat's right
. Is there an explanation? Why english? 
Viktoro44 (Montri la profilon) 2008-januaro-28 05:48:57
Because aren't we being incredibly imprecise when we say "vi", since we don't know if we're talking to a man or a woman? And since we differentiate between "li" and "ŝi", shouldn't we also have male and female versions of "you" and "I" as well?(My English is not good. I'm sorry)
I think the reason for this difference is that when you use the first and second person of the verb (before the existence of the modern communication systems, of course) people are one in front of the other, and then is evident which are their genders. When you say "you" (looking at your interlocutor or hearing his or her voice) you know his o her gender. When you say "I", your interlocutor sees your gender. But, very often, when you say "he" or "she", this third person is not in the same place, so the gender difference is important and significative (and number difference too, of course).
Now, in the internet age, could be interesting the gender difference in the first and second person pronouns, because we may not know (in a forum, messenger...) who are our interlocutors. But I think that this kind of linguistic changes are rare and very slow.
Otherwise, when I started learn Eo, the lack of number difference of the "vi" pronoun shocked mi. In Catalan (mia gepatra lingvo) and in Spanish (my second language) are different forms for the second person of the singular and the plural (cat: tu-vosaltres; sp: tu-vosotros). There are formal forms too (vostè-vostès; usted-ustedes).
Formal/informal distinction perhaps is not in the aim of Esperanto, but I think that Eo is a very analytical language and this case is an exception. Ĉu ne?
Ĝis!
mnlg (Montri la profilon) 2008-januaro-28 10:06:43
Erinja:Evidently, however, it is not ever so important, as we see in English.I think English does not really speak for everyone (!). As Frankouche pointed in his post, many languages introduce a distinction between singular and plural "you", at times assigning a different degree of formality. I am not an expert on its history but I think we can fairly say that English evolved in a rather, let's say, unkempt manner, with norms taking place at different times, a huge amount of loan words, and shifts in pronunciation. The singular "you" might have fallen out of use in the "standard" variation of English, but it seems that in a few dialects the speakers have felt the need to keep it (or to recreate it), so I wouldn't be that hasty in defining the reasons for the simplification, and in general the argument does not hold much weight for me.
Esperanto does not distinguish, but I have to agree with those who say that it would be nice if it did. The pronoun "ci" should not be used, but if it was official, I would be happy to use it. The possibility to speak formally, or to make it clear that you are avoiding formality even when you should use it, would add more depth to the language (think business relations, or youth slang). In my opinion this is not a matter of specificity (gender is not a big issue; as a matter of fact, I even think "li" and "ŝi" could be simplified into one pronoun without too much of a loss; there are languages proving that this would work) but of enriching the layers of social relations.