Ganove:
Also if you use constructions like

'esti' + adjective
'esti' + 'verb root' + 'ant/ont/int' + 'a/aj'
'esti' + 'verb root' + 'at/ot/it' + 'a/aj'

you can distinguish between plurality and singularity.

For example:
singular:
Vi estas belega. (You are beatiful.)
Vi estis aŭtanta, kiam mi povis vin telefoni. (You were driving, when I tried to call you.)
Vi estis dirita, ke vi iru hejmen. (You were said to go home.)

plural:
Vi estas altaj. (You are tall.)
Vi estis irantaj hejmen, kiam ekpluvis. (You were going home when it started to rain.)
Se vi krimos ĉi-vespere, vi estos punitaj. (If you commit a crime this evening, you are punished.)

Sorry to resurrect an old post, but I was going thru, well, old posts on this subject, and the thought occurred to me that had not before: When one says "vi estas alta" this sounds to me just as bizarre (dare I say "wrong"?) as does "ili estas alta": "alta" is referring to ONE person. To me, "vi" (as well as "vous" or "vosotros" or "you" ) means more than one person. Since my adoption of Plain Speech is comparatively recent, I guess it's a testament to the validity of the Sapir-Worf hypothosis, lol.

sudanglo:

Ci is just not used in normal conversation

Absolutely. And in the Maigret in question the offending translator uses it to render normal dialogue. So I still want my money back.

again, sorry to resurrect but a question on this just occurred to me: in the context of the story, is Maigret et al. speaking in Irish? It's my understanding that the tu in Irish does not have any connotation of intimacy; it's just the pronoun used when speaking to one person. Even if I'm wrong in this, assuming this is a book written in Irish being translated into Esperanto, what pronoun was used in "the original"? "Tu"? then the use of "ci" is entirely appropriate here.
"there is no offense where none is taken"

erinja:If you wanted to emphasize that is everyone, you can say "Vi ĉiuj povas manĝi". If you wanted to emphasize that it's one person only, it's "Johano, vi povas manĝi". or two people - "Johano kaj Filipo, vi povas manĝi" or "Vi du povas manĝi", with gesture.

But really, it would be quite rude to announce to a whole group "You can eat" and mean only one person.

I never ever use "y'all" in English so this comes totally naturally to me. We do not have a plural "you" in my dialect of English.

You don't say "you guys"? (as thee can see, the dialect where I come from has "you guys", lol)

Bruso:

orthohawk:

RiotNrrd:

orthohawk:Says who??

Says Zamenhof.

Really? I don't see anywhere in Lingvaj Respondoj (AFAIK the only place other than the vocab list that introduced it where his own words on "ci" are even in existence) I don't see even one instance of any kind of directive not to use it.

In Ekzercaro 16

"Ci skribas (anstataŭ „ci” oni uzas ordinare „vi”)"

Exactly: ORDINARE, meaning, conversely, in certain UNORDINARY contexts, vi is NOT used. and how much more unordinary is a population of less than 1000 people?

From the other thread:

Benjamino:In Ancient Hebrew there was no informal second person singular pronoun. Nor was there an informal second person singular pronoun in Ancient Greek. So no one in the Bible ever said "thee" except in translation. You don't have to worry! It might have made a lot of sense at one time to someone, but it doesn't anymore.

Just because it doesn't make sense to THEE, doesn't mean it doesn't make sense to everyone. There are those to whom it makes a great deal of sense.
The AH and AG lexical equivalents of thou/thee/thy/thine were used and are properly translated using the equivalent English pronouns.

And what are the AH lexical equivalents of thou/thee/thy/thine?

I think if you *really* want to match Ancient Hebrew, you should call everyone "vi viro", "vi ino", "vi viroj" and "vi inoj".

orthohawk:

erinja:If you wanted to emphasize that is everyone, you can say "Vi ĉiuj povas manĝi". If you wanted to emphasize that it's one person only, it's "Johano, vi povas manĝi". or two people - "Johano kaj Filipo, vi povas manĝi" or "Vi du povas manĝi", with gesture.

But really, it would be quite rude to announce to a whole group "You can eat" and mean only one person.

I never ever use "y'all" in English so this comes totally naturally to me. We do not have a plural "you" in my dialect of English.

You don't say "you guys"? (as thee can see, the dialect where I come from has "you guys", lol)

Yep, some varieties of American English say "y'all", and in some varieties of British English there's "youse" as a plural (e.g. "are you youse lot coming with us?" ), but in both cases it's a very informal and sociolinguistically low-prestige way of saying it: even people who'd usually say that wouldn't say it if they were trying to speak really formally (e.g. in a job interview).

It's funny, because vous was originally the plural form in French, but then it likewise became the formal way of addressing everyone -- and now as society becomes more informal, tu is being used more and more again, whereas we've lost "thou" for good (except in some dialects which are dying off as well now, like Yorkshire English, and the kind of religious speech you use).

Anyway, I wouldn't use thee or thou in English, so I wouldn't use ci in Esperanto unless I intentionally wanted to sound archaic or pretentious.

Benjamino:From the other thread:

Benjamino:In Ancient Hebrew there was no informal second person singular pronoun. Nor was there an informal second person singular pronoun in Ancient Greek. So no one in the Bible ever said "thee" except in translation. You don't have to worry! It might have made a lot of sense at one time to someone, but it doesn't anymore.

Just because it doesn't make sense to THEE, doesn't mean it doesn't make sense to everyone. There are those to whom it makes a great deal of sense.
The AH and AG lexical equivalents of thou/thee/thy/thine were used and are properly translated using the equivalent English pronouns.

And what are the AH lexical equivalents of thou/thee/thy/thine?

I think if you *really* want to match Ancient Hebrew, you should call everyone "vi viro", "vi ino", "vi viroj" and "vi inoj".

Re: AH lexical equivalents: Thee is the son of the covenant, thou tell me.
re; other ridiculous statement: why would I want to do that when I'm speaking english?? (and by the way, according to E-o conventional usage, they should be "virvi" and "vi-in")

orthohawk:

erinja:If you wanted to emphasize that is everyone, you can say "Vi ĉiuj povas manĝi". If you wanted to emphasize that it's one person only, it's "Johano, vi povas manĝi". or two people - "Johano kaj Filipo, vi povas manĝi" or "Vi du povas manĝi", with gesture.

But really, it would be quite rude to announce to a whole group "You can eat" and mean only one person.

I never ever use "y'all" in English so this comes totally naturally to me. We do not have a plural "you" in my dialect of English.

You don't say "you guys"? (as thee can see, the dialect where I come from has "you guys", lol)

orthohawk:

Benjamino:From the other thread:

Benjamino:In Ancient Hebrew there was no informal second person singular pronoun. Nor was there an informal second person singular pronoun in Ancient Greek. So no one in the Bible ever said "thee" except in translation. You don't have to worry! It might have made a lot of sense at one time to someone, but it doesn't anymore.

Just because it doesn't make sense to THEE, doesn't mean it doesn't make sense to everyone. There are those to whom it makes a great deal of sense.
The AH and AG lexical equivalents of thou/thee/thy/thine were used and are properly translated using the equivalent English pronouns.

And what are the AH lexical equivalents of thou/thee/thy/thine?

I think if you *really* want to match Ancient Hebrew, you should call everyone "vi viro", "vi ino", "vi viroj" and "vi inoj".

Re: AH lexical equivalents: Thee is the son of the covenant, thou tell me.
re; other ridiculous statement: why would I want to do that when I'm speaking english?? (and by the way, according to E-o conventional usage, they should be "virvi" and "vi-in")

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?

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

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.

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."