Ah, so basically the less words, the less context, and the changing of the verb from t- form to w- form slowly makes it increasingly ruder? Perhaps humans think (unless they're busy) that more words means that the other speaker is really dedicated to sincerely speaking to you...

ceigered:Ah, so basically the less words, the less context, and the changing of the verb from t- form to w- form slowly makes it increasingly ruder? Perhaps humans think (unless they're busy) that more words means that the other speaker is really dedicated to sincerely speaking to you...

You could not be more right!

On the issue of how to give short answers to questions framed in the negative, it seems to me that there is a clear answer, despite comments in PMEG.

Esperanto is a European language largely spoken by Europeans, so common practice across the European languages prevails.

The same principle may apply in the case of the relative politeness of a question - if there is a common interpretation of the effect in the European languages.

In any case, the tradition in Esperanto is the avoidance of a possible misunderstanding in an international context. So more explicit forms revealing ones intention may be employed where such risk is perceived.

sudanglo:
Esperanto is a European language largely spoken by Europeans, so common practice across the European languages prevails.

A bit controversial there, Sudanglo. I would support a more international approach.

sudanglo:
In any case, the tradition in Esperanto is the avoidance of a possible misunderstanding in an international context. So more explicit forms revealing ones intention may be employed where such risk is perceived.

Yes, indeed. Take this for example:

Ĉu vi ne ŝatas ruĝajn aŭtojn?

- [Ne], mi ne ŝatas [ilin]
- [Jes], mi ne ŝatas [ilin]

- [Ne], mi ŝatas [ilin]
- [Jes], mi ŝatas [ilin]

All of the above examples are perfectly understandable due to the presence of the verb. I would probably not bother with the 'ilin' as this seems unnecessary.

So, around the world there are different ways of answering negative questions, but I think that the above system enables Esperanto to incorporate all of them quite happily.

As far as I'm aware, the Chinese don't have a word for 'yes' or 'no' - they just repeat the verb or another part of the sentence to answer. So to answer the question 'Ĉu vi ne ŝatas ruĝajn aŭtojn?" a Chinese speaker could answer 'mi ŝatas' or 'mi ne ŝatas', which is perfectly understandable.

Chainy:

sudanglo:
Esperanto is a European language largely spoken by Europeans, so common practice across the European languages prevails.

A bit controversial there, Sudanglo. I would support a more international approach.

Well, there's always the "European languages are the most dispersed across the entire world" argument, but I guess it's better to say that languages are just not that different from each other and any differences are in the scheme of things inconsequential

EDIT: (this statement of course is not entirely serious and is a mass simplification of the actual state of affairs)

Alright Chainy - if you want to be pedantic.

'Largely spoken by speakers of European languages.'

But despite its underlying structure of putting together unchanging elements - a structure which has little to do with the traditional classifications of languages - it is essentially a European language.

Even among the speakers of Esperanto in the far East, I suspect that most of them have some familiarity with a European language (probably English).

And if you tot up speakers in the US, Australia, Brazil, China and Japan, I doubt that they would come to any significant proportion of the total.

Undoubtedly, speakers of non-European languages would look to common practice among the Esperanto speakers who have Euopean mother tongues for authority.

sudanglo:Alright Chainy - if you want to be pedantic.

'Largely spoken by speakers of European languages.'

I wasn't being pedantic. Seems you missed my point as you ignored the part that I had the problem with:

"so common practice across the European languages prevails."

When I say that I prefer a more international approach, I mean that I don't like the idea of anyone thinking that the European languages should automatically 'prevail' in a discussion about Esperanto. Sounds a bit extreme, to me.

We should always stay open-minded not only to speakers of European languages, but also to how people from other parts of the world think and do things. I believe in the 'internacieco' of Esperanto.

Obviously, the roots of Esperanto are in Europe, but that doesn't mean that its development should be restricted to something within the framework of only European languages, as if nobody else deserves a say!

sudanglo:Even among the speakers of Esperanto in the far East, I suspect that most of them have some familiarity with a European language (probably English).

Maybe, maybe not. It's kind of irrelevant.

sudanglo:Undoubtedly, speakers of non-European languages would look to common practice among the Esperanto speakers who have Euopean mother tongues for authority.

This sounds rather arrogant to me. Who cares if a person is a native speaker of a European language or not?!

I'm perfectly happy to accept anyone from any part of the world as an authority on Esperanto - it's a question of how good they are at the language, not where they come from.

Sudanglo, before you post anything back on this, I'd rather you did it in the Esperanto-language forum here.

I'd like to hear you say it in Esperanto in front of our friends that are not native speakers of a European language.

Especially, make sure you translate that gem about you feeling that your opinions should 'prevail' due to the fact that you're a native speaker of a European language. I'm sure it will go down well. Also don't forget to mention that thing about 'authority'. Should be entertaining.

No matter where this conversation occurs, there's going to be bias. Be it Chainy, Sudanglo, or me, or Zamenhoff himself. Moving this to the EO forum isn't going to take bias away, it'll only create the false impression that someone's argument is justified because a whole lot of OTHER biased people will have their input

I'm biased too which makes the following a bit pointless to say, but IMHO, European languages have the most influence on the world over any other languages thanks to the reality that the entire world was treated as a colonial play thing by the various European empires. As a result, the European languages exerted a lot of influence onto languages across the entire world (and in this internet era, we could say the same about English, Spanish, Japanese and Chinese), but at the same time no doubt they also received a lot of influence from various languages (e.g. "look-see" from chinese pidgin English). After all, we "westerners" are sometimes like mongrels, we've got heritage from everyone ranging from neanderthals to romans to mongols to moors to celts to etc etc....

So internationally, even if it's unfair, European languages do have a large amount of influence, and aren't all that special or so strange that our language culture (or lack of unique culture) is incompatible with the rest of the world.

That all said, normally, most non-European languages are still very similar to European languages, which I guess is how some linguists feel so certain about concepts like universal grammar. I like to think of it as we of european ancestry being extremely plain overall, rather than other cultures being insignificant.

This train of thought would mean then that there's no reason to make Europeans a point of reference for Esperanto, since there's also nothing particularly special, and at the same time it would mean that there's also no reason not to. What do you know! The whole argument is pointless!

Ultimately it doesn't matter, we humans are generally very similar to each other, and if we're afraid about bias then Esperanto's already biased enough (as Lidepla enthusiasts might like to point out).

Anyway, as a result I don't think a European input on how negative questions should be done would be a bad thing simply because it's biased in some manner, especially since Europeans tend to talk in eachothers languages a lot.

Anyone here who has been voyaging around that extension of asia, and talking in a variety of languages, ever come across a negative question and had to formulate a response, or vice-versa?