Re: Question words and word order

From: John Swindle (jcswindle_at_msn.deletethispart.com)
Date: 03/06/05 

Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 01:14:34 GMT

<ranjit_mathews@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1110069098.174335.87130@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
> John Swindle wrote:
>> The word order is flexible, but a question word is needed. In this
>> case it's the little word "chu" at the begining of a sentence that
> turns
>> a statement into a question. (That may be like the Russian "-li"
>> question, but I think the Russian requires a modified word order.)
>> In Esperanto,
>
> Why not estas?
>
>> Mi fartas bone. (I am okay.)
>> Chu vi fartas bone? (Are you okay?)
>

Good question. "Estas" is certainly possible there. It is
however more common in Esperanto to say "Kiel vi fartas?"
(lit., "How are you faring?") than "Kiel vi estas?" (lit.,
"How are you?").

Esperanto is billed as regular and easy to learn and as having
only sixteen rules. Speakers of European languages certainly
seem to find it easy to learn. But besides rules, Esperanto also
has customary usages, and these take longer to discover.

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