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Vi for both you(singular) and you(Plural) ?
I’m a little bit irritated is there just one you for both singular and plural in Esperanto? (Yeah sure in English you is the same too, but in most languages you (singular) and you (plural) are different words.)
23 Comments
Zamenhof proposed "ci" for the singular you. You can use it. But very very few people use it, so some courses do not even teach it.
In fact, it's more than "some courses." The only courses that do mention it in passing. Including it in a course merely serves to cause confusion.
Ok thanks. ^^ So did it just happened, that people didn’t use ci and just vi, or was the idea to use vi, for both?
"Vi" is intended for singular and plural since the beginning of Esperanto. Later Zamenhof introduced "Ci" to facilitate the translation of works from a language that uses a special word for the singular "Vi". Source : https://eo.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pronomo#Vi_kaj_ci
I love Esperanto, but if I could change ONE thing, it would be Ti= you (singular) and Vi=you (plural). :)
the problem with "ti" would be its possessive form, "tia", which of course is identical to one of the tabelvortoj. There aren't many letters left that would not give a tabelvorto in the possessive or just are not a Fundamenta root in the first place: di wouldn't work (it's a root, so the hypothetical possessive, would be identical to the word "dia-divine"), nor would fi, ki, pi. Luckily there already exists a form: ci. It's out there available if thee chooses to use it. But beware: thee will be mocked and censured for it.....not by everyone but some who think it's their god-given right to be mean to others for no good reason.
Ow! Ow ow ow!
If thou wantest to use "thou", thou shouldst use the correct cases and verb endings with it, forsooth!
Oh noooo! Eeek! I don't want to be mocked!
But I do hope that they create an Esperanto for Spanish speakers so I can reinforce my Spanish while learning Esperanto!
(Then they could create Esperanto for all languages, all languages for Esperanto speakers and we could ALL be set! But that's another discussion topic entirely!)
I wouldn't worry about. "those types" are usually not worth the time and effort anyway ;). If thee wants to use it, use it and nay-sayers be danged!
And sometimes thee gets accosted by different "those types" who think they know better than thee.........
XD If you changes things, Esperanto soon would have lot of different dialects or something, which would be against the idea of Esperanto I think.
Yes, that's right - it works like English in this respect.
There is a theoretical singular form that was proposed for use in poetry, but it's never used in normal speech.
Just "vi", whether it's singular or plural, formal or informal.
Together with "imi", "iŝi", and "iĝi"? Why not? Though "iĝi" would collide with "become".
I like it! But, sensibly, it's not going to replace to current system, so unless you're planing to form a splinter group . . . .
Also, if you're going to splinter, you might as well go with the biggest splinter group already existing (i.e. Ido) rather than forming yet another one.
Because it's not needed. There already is a singular pronoun. One just has to start using it.
