The word base of Esperanto was originally defined by Lingvo internacia, published by Zamenhof in 1887. It contained some 900 root words. However, the rules of the language allowed speakers to borrow words as needed, recommending only that they look for the most international words, and that they borrow one basic word and derive others from it, rather than borrowing many words with related meanings. In 1894, Zamenhof published the first Esperanto dictionary, Universala Vortaro, which was written in five languages and supplied a larger set of root words. Look up Esperanto in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... L. L. Zamenhof Dr. Ludovic Lazarus (Ludwik Lejzer, Ludwik Łazarz) Zamenhof (December 15, 1859 – April 14, 1917) was an eye doctor, philologist, and the initiator of Esperanto, the most widely spoken and successful constructed language in the world. ...

Since then many words have been borrowed from other languages, primarily but not solely from western European languages. Not all such words catch on and come into general use. In recent decades, most of the new borrowings or coinages have been technical or scientific terms; terms in everyday use are more likely to be derived from existing words (for example komputilo [a computer], from komputi [to compute]), or extending them to cover new meanings (for example muso [a mouse], now also signifies a computer input device, as in English). There are frequent debates among Esperanto speakers about whether a particular new borrowing is justified or whether the need can be met by derivation or extending the meaning of existing words.

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Image File history File links Flag_of_Esperanto. ... Look up Esperanto in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Esperanto is a constructed auxiliary language based on the languages of Europe. ... The creator of Esperanto, L. L. Zamenhof, did not specify phonemic-phonetic correspondences for his language. ... Esperanto is written in a Latin alphabet of twenty-eight letters, upper and lower case. ... The constructed international auxiliary language Esperanto was developed in the 1870s and 80s by L. L. Zamenhof, and first published in 1887. ... L. L. Zamenhof Dr. Ludovic Lazarus (Ludwik Lejzer, Ludwik Łazarz) Zamenhof (December 15, 1859 – April 14, 1917) was an eye doctor, philologist, and the initiator of Esperanto, the most widely spoken and successful constructed language in the world. ... Proto-Esperanto (or pra-Esperanto in the language itself) is the modern term for any of the stages in the evolution of L. L. Zamenhofs language project, prior to the publication of his Unua Libro in 1887. ... Unua Libro por Rusoj (first edition, 1887, in Russian) Unua Libro por Angloj (first edition in English, 1888) The Unua Libro (First Book) was the first publication to describe the international language, Esperanto (then called Lingvo Internacia, inter-national language). It was first published in Russian on July 26, 1887... The Declaration of Boulogne (Bulonja Deklaracio) was a document written by L. L. Zamenhof and endorsed by the attendees of the first world congress of Esperanto in Boulogne-sur-Mer, France in 1905. ... The Fundamento de Esperanto (Foundation of Esperanto) is a book by L. L. Zamenhof, published in the spring of 1905. ... The Prague Manifesto (or Manifesto de Prago) is a set of seven widely-shared principles of the Esperanto movement. ... The language Esperanto is often used to access an international culture. ... An Esperantist is a person who participates in the diffusion of Esperanto. ... Esperantujo, also Esperantio, is a term used by speakers of the planned international language Esperanto to refer to the sphere of activity taking place in that language. ... // Feature films There are two feature films known to have been shot exclusively in the constructed language Esperanto. ... Internacia Televido is an Internet-based Esperanto-language television station, launched on the 5th of November, 2005. ... La Espero (The Hope) is a poem written by L. L. Zamenhof (1859-1917), the initiator of the Esperanto language. ... The following Esperanto libraries and collections of works in the Esperanto language are worthy of note: The Montagu Butler Library of Esperanto materials, maintained by the British Esperanto Association, whose collection of 30,000 items is often quoted. ... Since Esperanto is the largest planned language, there are over 25,000 books in Esperanto and the largest Esperanto book service at the World Esperanto Association sells over 4,000 books. ... Music in a variety of styles is written, recorded, and performed in Esperanto, a planned language used for international communication. ... Native Esperanto speakers (in Esperanto denaskuloj) come to be in families in which Esperanto (and usually other languages) is spoken. ... The constructed language Esperanto has been used in a number of films and novels. ... December 15 (Zamenhof Day, Zamenhofa Festo) is the birthday of L. L. Zamenhof, the initiator of Esperanto. ... Amikeca Reto (Friendship Network) is a directory of people around the world who do not necessarily want to host other Esperanto speakers, but want to work together and exchange ideas with others around the world. ... The Akademio de Esperanto is, according to its website, an independent language institute whose task is to conserve and protect the fundamental principles of the language Esperanto and control its evolution. ... Kurso de Esperanto is a free language course software with 12 units for the constructed language Esperanto. ... The Encyclopedia of Esperanto is an encyclopedia about the Esperanto Movement. ... The Pasporta Servo (Passport Service) is a publication in Esperanto. ... The Breton village of Plouézec has hosted an International Meeting annually since 1997. ... TEJO is the Tutmonda Esperantista Junulara Organizo, or World Esperanto Youth Organization. ... The World Esperanto Association (in Esperanto UEA: Universala Esperanto-Asocio) is the largest international organization of Esperanto speakers, with members in 119 countries (as of 2000) and in official relations with the United Nations and UNESCO. In addition to individual members, 95 national Esperanto organizations are affiliated to UEA. Its... Sennacieca Asocio Tutmonda (SAT; in English, World Anational Association) was founded in 1921 by Eugène LANTI. SAT is a world-wide worker movement active in socialist, peace, trade union, feminist and environmental issues. ... The World Congress of Esperanto (in Esperanto: Universala Kongreso de Esperanto) has the longest tradition among international Esperanto conventions, with an almost unbroken run of nearly a hundred years. ... The International Youth Congress of Esperanto or Internacia Junulara Kongreso is the biggest annual meeting of young esperantists in the world and participants usually number around 300 but have been know to have more than 1000 esperanto-speakers from all over the world coming for the entire week. ... Junularo Esperantista Brita British Esperantist Youth (JEB) is the organisation for young esperantists in Great Britain. ... SATEB (Workers’ Esperanto Movement) is the British affiliate of the non-nationalist world organisation SAT (Sennacieca Asocio Tutmonda) which is a world-wide worker movement active in socialist, peace, trade union, feminist and environmental issues. ... Esperanto was conceived as a language of international communication, more precisely as a universal second language. ... Esperantido is the term used within the Esperanto and constructed language communities to describe a language project based on or inspired by Esperanto. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... Reformed Esperanto was a reformed version of Esperanto created in 1894. ... Riism (Riismo in Esperanto) is a modification of Esperanto to simplify it, to make it symmetric, and to incorporate non-sexist language and gender-neutral pronouns into it. ... This article attempts to highlight the main differences between Esperanto and Ido, two constructed languages that have a related past but have since parted ways. ... This article attempts to highlight the main differences between Esperanto and Interlingua, two planned languages which have taken radically different approaches to the problem of providing an International auxiliary language. ... Wikibooks has more about this subject: Novial // Alphabet and Pronunciation Both Esperanto and Novial are written using versions of the Latin alphabet. ... An international auxiliary language (sometimes abbreviated as IAL or auxlang) is a language used (or to be used in the future) for communication between people from different nations who do not share a common native language. ... An artificial or constructed language (known colloquially as a conlang among aficionados), is a language whose phonology, grammar and vocabulary are specifically devised by an individual or small group, rather than having naturally evolved as part of a culture the way natural languages do. ... Ido (pronounced //), a constructed language, was created to become a universal second language for speakers of different linguistic backgrounds, easier to learn than any ethnic language. ... The constructed language Interlingua is an international auxiliary language (IAL) published in 1951 by the International Auxiliary Language Association (IALA). ... Novial [nov-, new + IAL, International Auxiliary Language] is a constructed language devised by Professor Otto Jespersen, a Danish linguist who had previously been involved in the Ido movement. ... Volapük is a constructed language, created in 1879-1880 by Johann Martin Schleyer, a Catholic priest in Baden, Germany. ... Signuno alphabet & numerals Signuno is signed Esperanto, derived from Gestuno roots and Esperanto morphology by an anonymous author. ... Anationalism is a term originating from the community of Esperanto speakers. ...

Origins

Esperanto occupies a middle ground between "naturalistic" conlangs such as Interlingua, which borrow words en masse from their source languages with little internal derivation, and a priori conlangs such as Solresol, in which the words have no historical connection to other languages. In Esperanto, root words are borrowed and retain much of the form of their source language, whether the phonetic form (eks- from ex-) or orthographic form (teamo from team). However, each root can then form dozens of derivations which may bear little resemblance to equivalent words in the source languages, such as registaro (government), which is derived from the Latinate root regi (to rule). An artificial or constructed language (known colloquially as a conlang among aficionados), is a language whose vocabulary and grammar were specifically devised by an individual or small group, rather than having naturally evolved as part of a culture as with natural languages. ... The constructed language Interlingua is an international auxiliary language (IAL) published in 1951 by the International Auxiliary Language Association (IALA). ... Solresol is an artificial language, devised by a Frenchman, Jean François Sudre, beginning in 1817. ... The root is the primary lexical unit of a word, which carries the most significant aspects of semantic content and cannot be reduced into smaller constituents. ...

Source languages

Most Esperanto root words are taken from languages of the Italic and Germanic families of Indo-European. A large number are what might be called common European international vocabulary, or generic Romance: Roots common to several languages, such as vir- (man, found in words such as virile) and okul- (eye, found in oculist), etc. The Italic subfamily is a member of the Centum branch of the Indo-European language family. ... The Indo-European languages comprise a family of several hundred languages and dialects [1], including most of the major languages of Europe, as well as many in Southwest Asia, Central Asia and South Asia. ... Romance languages in the world: Blue – French; Green – Spanish; Orange – Portuguese; Yellow – Italian; Red – Romanian The Romance languages, a major branch of the Indo-European language family, comprise all languages that descended from Latin, the language of the Roman Empire. ...

The main languages contributing to Zamenhof's original vocabulary were Italian, French, English, and German, the modern languages most widely learned in schools around the world at the time Esperanto was devised. The result was that about two thirds of this original vocabulary is Romance, and about one third Germanic. Only a few roots were taken directly from the classical languages: The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ...

Latin: sed (but), tamen (however), post (after), kvankam (although), hodiaŭ (today), abio (fir), and the adverbial suffix -e.

Classical Greek: kaj (and), pri (about), the plural suffix -j, the accusative case suffix -n ["muse" in Greek is the a-declension word musa, musaj, musan and in Esperanto is muzo, muzoj, muzon; cf. also the Greek o-declension word logos, logoj, logon (word), and parallel adjectival declensions such as aksia, aksiaj, aksian (worthy)]. Greek was perhaps also the model of stressed i in Esperanto words like familío (family), which follows the common Greek pattern of aksía (worthy) and ojkíaj (houses).

Surprisingly few roots appear to have come from other modern European languages, even those Zamenhof was most familiar with. What follows is a fairly comprehensive list: Latin is an ancient Indo-European language originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. ... An adverb is a part of speech-class. ... Greek (, IPA - Hellenic) is an Indo-European language with a documented history of 3,500 years, the longest in the Indo-European family if the Anatolian languages are excluded. ... Look up Plural in Wiktionary, the free dictionary Plural is a grammatical number, typically referring to more than one of the referent in the real world. ... The accusative case of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a verb. ... MuSE is an acronym that stands for Multiple Streaming Engine. ... In linguistics, declension is a paradigm of inflected nouns. ...

Russian and Polish: barakti (to flounder), barĉo (borscht), bulko (a bread roll), celo (an aim, goal), ĉu (whether), eĉ (even), kaĉo (porridge), kartavi (to pronounce R in the throat), klopodi (to take steps), kolbaso (a sausage), krado (a grating), krom (except), luti (to solder), [via] moŝto ([your] highness), nepre (without fail), nu (well!), ol (than), pilko (a ball), po (per), pra- (proto-), prava (right [in opinion]), svati (to matchmake), ŝelko (suspenders), vosto (a tail), and perhaps the collective suffix -ar-;

Lithuanian: tuj (immediately);

Hebrew: perhaps the jussive mood in -u (but see below);

Swedish: Comparative the (as in "the more the merrier") ju ... des.

Other languages were only represented in so far as they were cognate with, or as their words had become widespread in, Esperanto's source languages. However, since that time many languages have contributed words for specialized or regional concepts, such as haŝio (chopsticks) from Japanese and boaco (reindeer) from Saami. BORSCHT is an acronym for: Battery Overvoltage protection Ringing Signalling Coding Hybrid Testing The electronic functions collectively known as BORSCHT are used in Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS) telephony signaling, line supervision and telephone terminal operation. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Hebrew (עִבְרִית, ‘Ivrit) is a Semitic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family spoken by more than seven million people in Israel and Jewish communities around the world. ... Esperanto is a constructed auxiliary language based on the languages of Europe. ... Esperanto is a constructed auxiliary language based on the languages of Europe. ... Chopsticks, a pair of small even-length tapered sticks, are the traditional eating utensils of East Asia (China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam, the four chopstick countries) as well as Thailand, where they are now restricted to just soup and noodles since the introduction of Western utensils by King Rama V... Binomial name Rangifer tarandus (Linnaeus, 1758) Caribou redirects here. ... Sami is a general name for a group of Finno-Ugric languages spoken in parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia, in Northern Europe. ...

A few roots appear to be unique to Esperanto, or at least haven't yet been traced to another source:

ĝi (it, s/he), -ujo (suffix for containers).

The etymology of a couple others would be opaque if Zamenhof hadn't explained them. For example, edzo (husband) derives from the transcription kronprincedzino of the German Kronprinzessin (crown princess), internally analyzed as kron- (crown) princ- (prince) edzino (wife); edzo (husband) is then a back-formation of edzino and the feminine suffix -in-, parallel to other indirect German borrowings such as fraŭlo (bachelor) from fraŭlino (Miss).[1] However, few words have histories this convoluted. In etymology, the process of back-formation is the creation of a neologism by reinterpreting an earlier word as a compound and removing the spuriously supposed affixes. ... Miss is a title, typically used for an unmarried woman. ...

The correlatives, although clearly derived from European languages (for example, ki- is cognate with French-Italian [ki] 'who' and other Romance k- words; ti- with English th- words and related forms in Romance and Slavic; -es with the Germanic genitive, including English -’s, etc.), have been analogically leveled to the point that they are often given as examples of Esperanto innovations. This is especially true for the indefinite forms like io (something), which were devised by iconically removing the consonant of the ki- and ti- forms. Likewise, the restriction of the Italian and Greek masculine noun and adjective ending -o to nouns, and the feminine noun and adjective ending -a to adjectives and the article la, is an Esperanto innovation using existing forms. The word base of Esperanto was originally defined by Lingvo internacia, published by Zamenhof in 1887. ... Analogy is either the cognitive process of transferring information from a particular subject (the analogue or source) to another particular subject (the target), or a linguistic expression corresponding to such a process. ... In cognitive linguistics, iconicity is the conceived similarity between a form of language and its meaning. ...

Some smaller words have been modified to the extent that they're difficult to recognize. For example, Italian a, ad (to) became al (to) under the influence of the contraction al (to the), to better fit the phonotactics of the language, and in a parallel change, Slavic od (by, than) may have became ol (than). Esperanto also has an a-i-o ablaut for present/past/future tense which has partial parallels in Latin present amat, perfect amavit, and the corresponding infinitives amare, amavisse. The infinitive suffix -i may perhaps derive from Latin deponent verbs, such as loqui (to speak). With elements like these that are only one or two letters long, it is difficult to know whether resemblances are due to the forms being related, or just coincidence. For example, it is speculated that the jussive -u is from the Hebrew imperative -û, but it could also be from the Greek [u] imperative of deponent verbs such as dekhou (receive!); or perhaps it was inspired by [u] being found in both Hebrew and Greek. Otto Jespersen said of the ablaut that, In linguistics, the term ablaut (from German ab- in the sense down, reducing + Laut sound) designates a system of vowel gradations in Proto-Indo-European and its far-reaching consequences in all of the modern Indo-European languages. ... A deponent verb is a verb that is active in meaning but takes its form from a different voice, most commonly the middle or passive. ... Jens Otto Harry Jespersen or Otto Jespersen (July 16, 1860-April 30, 1943) was a Danish linguist who specialized in the grammar of the English language. ...

This play of vowels is not an original idea of Zamenhof's: -as, -is, -os are found for the three tenses of the infinitive in Faiguet's system of 1765; -a, -i, -o without a consonant are used like Z's -as, -is, -os by Rudelle (1858); Courtonne in 1885 had -am, -im, -om in the same values, and the similarity with Esperanto is here even more perfect than in the other projects, as -um corresponds to Z's -us. —An International Language (1928)

Technical vocabulary

Modern international vocabulary, much of it Latin or Greek in origin, is of course used as well, but frequently for a family of related words only the root will be borrowed directly, and the rest will be derived from it using Esperanto means of word formation. For example, the computer term 'bit' was borrowed directly as bito, but 'byte' was then derived by compounding bito with the numeral ok (eight), for the uniquely Esperanto word bitoko ('an octet of bits'). Although not a familiar form to speakers of European languages, the transparency of its formation is helpful to those who do not have this advantage.

With the exception of perhaps a hundred common or generic plant and animal names, Esperanto adopts the international binomial nomenclature of living organisms, using suitable orthography, and changing the nominal and adjectival grammatical endings to -o and -a. For example, the binomial for the guineafowl is Numida meleagris. In Esperanto, therefore, a numido would be any bird of the genus Numida, and a meleagra numido the helmeted guineafowl specifically. Likewise, a numidedo is any bird in the guineafowl family Numididæ. In biology, binomial nomenclature is the formal method of naming species. ... Binomial name Numida meleagris Linnaeus, 1766 The Helmeted Guineafowl (Numida meleagris) is the best known of the guineafowl bird family, Numididae. ... Genera  Agelastes  Numida  Guttera  Acryllium The guineafowl are a family of birds in the same order as the pheasants, turkeys and other game birds. ...

Competing root forms

There is some question over which inflection to use when assimilating Latin and Greek words. European national standards differ in this regard, resulting in debate over whether, for example, the asteroid Pallas should be Palaso in Esperanto, parallel to French and English names Pallas, or whether it should be Palado, as in Italian Pallade, Russian Паллада, and the English adjective Palladian. In some cases there are three possibilities, as can be seen in the English noun helix, its plural helices (c = [s]), and its adjective helical (c = [k]). Although the resulting potential for conflict is frequently criticized, it does present an opportunity to disambiguate what would otherwise be homonyms based on culturally specific and often fossilized metaphors. For example, all three of the forms of Latin helix are found as Esperanto roots, one with the original meaning, and the other two representing old metaphors: helico (a spiral), heliko (a snail), helikso (the incurved rim of the ear). Inflection or inflexion refers to a modification or marking of a word (or more precisely lexeme) so that it reflects grammatical (i. ... An asteroid is a small, solid object in our Solar System, orbiting the Sun. ... 2 Pallas (pal-us, Greek Παλλάς) was the first asteroid discovered after 1 Ceres. ... A homonym is one of a group of two or more words that have the same phonetic form (i. ... In language, a metaphor (from the Greek: metapherin) is a rhetorical trope defined as a direct comparison between two or more seemingly unrelated subjects. ...

Normally the Latin or Greek inflectional ending is replaced with the Esperanto inflectional ending −o. However, the original inflection will occasionally be retained, as if it were part of the root, in order to disambiguate from a more common word. For example, a virus (from Latin vir-us) is redundant virus-o instead of the expected *vir-o in order to avoid confusion with vir-o (a man), and the Latin root corp-us is the source of both korp-o (a living body) and korpus-o (a military corps). Similarly, when the sound ĥ is replaced with k, as it commonly is (see Esperanto phonology), the word ĥoro (a chorus) is replaced with the redundant form koruso to avoid creating a homonym with koro (a heart). The creator of Esperanto, L. L. Zamenhof, did not specify phonemic-phonetic correspondences for his language. ...

Word formation

One of the ways Zamenhof made Esperanto easier to learn than ethnic languages was by creating a regular and highly productive derivational morphology. Through the judicious use of lexical affixes (prefixes and suffixes), the core vocabulary needed for communication was greatly reduced. It has been estimated that on average one root in Esperanto is the communicative equivalent of ten words in English. Morphology is a subdiscipline of linguistics that studies word structure. ... Look up affix in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... In linguistics, a prefix is a type of affix that precedes the morphemes to which it can attach. ... Look up affix in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... The root is the primary lexical unit of a word, which carries the most significant aspects of semantic content and cannot be reduced into smaller constituents. ...

However, a contrary tendency is apparent in cultured and Greco-Latin technical vocabulary, which most Europeans see as "international" and therefore take into Esperanto en masse, despite the fact they are not truly universal. Many Asians consider this to be an onerous and unnecessary burden on the memory, when it is so easy to derive equivalent words internally (for example by calquing them, which is what Chinese often does). This sparks frequent debates as to whether a particular root is justified, and sometimes results in duplicates of native and borrowed vocabulary. An example is "calligraphy", which occurs both as a calqued belskribo ('writing of beauty') and as the direct borrowing kaligrafio. Something similar has also happened in English (brotherly vs fraternal), German (Ornithologie vs Vogelkunde for ornithology), Japanese (beesubooru vs yakyuu for baseball), French (le weekend vs. la fin de semaine), etc. However, while the debates in ethnic languages are motivated by nationalism or issues of cultural identity, in Esperanto the debates are largely motivated by differing views on how to make the language practical and accessible. This article or section contains information that has not been verified and thus might not be reliable. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... Liberty Leading the People by Eugène Delacroix Nationalism is a form of identity that holds that (ethnically or culturally defined) nations are the fundamental units for human social life, and makes certain cultural and political claims based upon that belief; in particular, the claim that the nation is the...

Affixes

One of the most immediately useful derivational affixes for the beginner is the prefix mal-, which derives antonyms: peza (heavy), malpeza (light); supren (upwards), malsupren (downwards); ami (love), malami (hate); lumo (light), mallumo (darkness). However, except in jokes, this prefix is not used when an antonym exists in the basic vocabulary: suda (south), not "malnorda" from 'north'; manki (to lack), not "malesti" from 'to be'. Antonyms, from the Greek anti (against) and onoma (name) are word pairs that are opposite in meaning, such as hot and cold, fat and thin, and up and down. ...

When a root receives more than one affix, the order does matter, as affixes modify the entire stem they're attached to. That is, the outer ones modify the inner ones. Most affixes, like roots, have an inherent part of speech, and this is indicated by the final part-of-speech vowel in the suffix list below. A few affixes do not affect the part of speech of the root; for the suffixes listed below, this is indicated by a hyphen in place of the final vowel. This article is in need of attention. ...

Lexical (i.e. derivational) affixes may act as roots by taking one of the grammatical suffixes: mala (opposite), eta (slight), ano (a member), umo (a doohickey), eble (possibly), iĝi (to become), ero (a bit, a crumb). Also, through compounding, lexical roots may act as affixes: vidi (to see), povi (to be able to), vidpova (able to see, not blind); ĉefo (head, chief), urbo (a city), ĉefurbo (a capital). It is quite common for prepositions to be used as prefixes: alveni (to arrive), from al (to) and veni (come); senespera (hopeless), from sen (without) and espero (hope); pripensi (to consider), from pri (about) and pensi (to think); etc. Definition A lexeme is an abstract unit of morphological analysis in linguistics, that roughly corresponds to a set of words that are the same in basic meaning. ... In linguistics, derivation is the process of creating new lexemes from other lexemes, for example, by adding a derivational affix. ... Inflection or inflexion refers to a modification or marking of a word (or more precisely lexeme) so that it reflects grammatical (i. ... In politics, a capital (also called capital city or political capital — although the latter phrase has an alternative meaning based on an alternative meaning of capital) is the principal city or town associated with its government. ...

The creation of new words through the use of grammatical (i.e. inflectional) suffixes, such as nura (mere) from nur (only), tiama (contemporary) from tiam (then), or vido (sight) from vidi (to see), was mentioned in the article on Esperanto grammar. What follows is a list of the main lexical affixes. Esperanto is a constructed auxiliary language based on the languages of Europe. ...

There are, in addition, affixes not listed here: technical affixes, such as the biological family suffix -edo seen in numidedo above; a few taken from Ido, such as -oza (full of) in montoza (mountainous); and literary or poetic proposals at varying degrees of acceptance, such as the laudative (praising) suffix -el- in skribelo (fine penmanship) [compare skribaĉo (scrawl)], or kia domelo! (what a house!) [compare domaĉo (hovel)]. Ido (pronounced //), a constructed language, was created to become a universal second language for speakers of different linguistic backgrounds, easier to learn than any ethnic language. ...

List of lexical suffixes

Look up pejorative in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... The imperfective aspect, sometimes known as the continuous or progressive aspect, is a grammatical aspect. ... // A nickname is a short, clever, cute, derogatory, or otherwise substitute name for a person or things real name (for example, Bob, Rob, Robby, Robbie, Robi, Bobby, Rab, Bert, Bertie, Butch, Bobbers, Bobert, Bobadito, Robban, (in Sweden), is short for Robert). ... An augmentative is a suffix or prefix added to a word in order to convey the sense of a larger size. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ... The shield and spear of the Roman God Mars are often used to represent the male sex In heterogamous species, male is the sex of an organism, or of a part of an organism, which typically produces smaller, mobile gametes (spermatozoa) that are able to fertilise female gametes (ova). ... In English grammar, a transitive verb is a verb that requires both a subject and one or more objects. ... An intransitive verb is a verb that has only one argument, that is, a verb with valency equal to one. ... Inchoative aspect is a verbal category, referring to an action soon to take place. ... Voice, in grammar, is the relationship between the action or state expressed by a verb, and its arguments (subject, object, etc. ... The mirror of the Roman Goddess Venus is often used to represent the female sex. ... // A nickname is a short, clever, cute, derogatory, or otherwise substitute name for a person or things real name (for example, Bob, Rob, Robby, Robbie, Robi, Bobby, Rab, Bert, Bertie, Butch, Bobbers, Bobert, Bobadito, Robban, (in Sweden), is short for Robert). ...

List of prefixes

In grammar, the perfective aspect is an aspect that exists in many languages. ... Antonyms, from the Greek anti (against) and onoma (name) are word pairs that are opposite in meaning, such as hot and cold, fat and thin, and up and down. ...

Compounds

Compound words in Esperanto are similar to English, in that the final root is basic to the meaning. The roots may be joined together directly, or with an epenthetic (linking) vowel to aid pronunciation. This epenthetic vowel is most commonly the nominal suffix -o-, used regardless of number or case, but other grammatical suffixes may be used when the inherent part of speech of the first root of the compound needs to be changed. In poetry and phonetics, epenthesis (Greek epi, on × en, in + thesis, putting) is the insertion of a phoneme or syllable into a word, usually to facilitate pronunciation. ...

kantobirdo (a songbird) versus birdokanto (a birdsong)

velŝipo (a sailship) versus ŝipvelo (a ship sail)

centjaro (a centennial [a year of a hundred]) versus jarcento (a century [a hundred of years])

multekosta (expensive, with an adverbial -e-)

Prepositions are frequently found in compounds, and behave much like prefixes,

pripensi ion (to consider something) versus pensi pri io (to think about something).

Since affixes may be used as root words, and roots may combine like affixes, the boundary between the two is blurred. Indeed, many so-called affixes are indistinguishable from other roots. However, "true" affixes are grammatically fixed as being either prefixes or suffixes, whereas the order of roots in compounds is determined by semantics.

Reduplication

Reduplication is only marginally used in Esperanto. It has an intensivizing effect similar to that of the suffix -eg-. The two common examples are plenplena (chock-full), from plena (full), and finfine (finally, at last), from fina (final). So far, reduplication has only been used with monosyllabic roots that don't require an epenthetic vowel when compounded. Reduplication, in linguistics, is a morphological process in which the root or stem of a word, or only part of it, is repeated. ...

Some examples

amantino (a [female] lover)

aminda (lovable)

amema (loving)

malameti (to feel distaste for)

esperiga (hopeful [of a situation: inspiring hope])

esperema (hopeful [of a person: tending to hope])

Esperantujo (the Esperanto community)

esperantaĉo (broken Esperanto)

Affixes may be used in novel ways, creating new words that don't exist in any national language. Sometimes the results are poetic: In one Esperanto novel, a man opens an old book with a broken spine, and the yellowed pages disliberiĝas [from the root libera (free) and the affixes dis- and -iĝ-]. There is no equivalent way to express this in English, but it creates a very strong visual image of the pages escaping the book and scattering over the floor. More importantly, the word is comprehensible the first time one hears it. Esperantujo, also Esperantio, is a term used by speakers of the planned international language Esperanto to refer to the sphere of activity taking place in that language. ...

Derivation by affix greatly expands a speaker's vocabulary, sometimes beyond what they know in their native language. For instance, the English word ommatidium (a single lens of a compound eye) is rather obscure, but a child would be able to coin an Esperanto equivalent, okulero, from okulo 'an eye' (or perhaps, more precisely, okularero, by first coining okularo for 'a compound eye'). In this way the Esperanto root vid- (see) regularly corresponds to some two dozen English words: see (saw, seen), sight, blind, vision, visual, visible, nonvisual, invisible, unsightly, glance, view, vista, panorama, observant etc., though there are also separate Esperanto roots for some of these concepts.

In the Fundamento, Zamenhof illustrated word formation by deriving the equivalents of recuperate, disease, hospital, germ, patient, doctor, medicine, pharmacy, etc. from sana (healthy). Not all of the resulting words translate well into English, in many cases because they distinguish fine shades of meaning that English lacks: Sano, sana, sane, sani, sanu, saniga, saneco, sanilo, sanigi, saniĝi, sanejo, sanisto, sanulo, malsano, malsana, malsane, malsani, malsanulo, malsaniga, malsaniĝi, malsaneta, malsanema, malsanulejo, malsanulisto, malsanero, malsaneraro, sanigebla, sanigisto, sanigilo, resanigi, resaniĝanto, sanigilejo, sanigejo, malsanemulo, sanilaro, malsanaro, malsanulido, nesana, malsanado, sanulaĵo, malsaneco, malsanemeco, saniginda, sanilujo, sanigilujo, remalsano, remalsaniĝo, malsanulino, sanigista, sanigilista, sanilista, malsanulista. Perhaps half of these words are in common use, but the others (and more) are available if needed.

Correlatives

The correlatives or "table words" are a paradigm of proforms, used to ask and answer the questions what, where, when, why, who, whose, how, how much, and what kind. There are nine endings for these nine questions, plus five initial elements that correspond to asking, answering, denying, etc; by learning these 14 elements the speaker acquires a tableau of 45 adverbs and pronouns. A pro-form is a function word that substitutes a word, phrase, clause, or sentence whose meaning is recoverable from the context, and it is used to avoid redundant expressions. ... A pro-form is a function word that substitutes a word, phrase, clause, or sentence whose meaning is recoverable from the context, and it is used to avoid redundant expressions. ...

The correlatives beginning with ti- correspond to the English demonstratives in th- (this, thus, then, there etc.), while ĉi- corresponds to every- and i- to some-. The correlatives beginning with ki- have a double function, as interrogative and relative pronouns and adverbs, just as the wh- words do in English. Demonstratives are deictic words that indicate which entities a speaker refers to, and distinguishes those entities from others. ... An interrogative word (also known simply as an interrogative) is a function word used for the item questioned in a question. ... A relative clause is a subordinate clause that modifies a noun. ...

The adjectival determiners ending in -u have the usual dual function of adjectives: standing alone as proforms, as in ĉiu (everyone); and modifying a noun, as in ĉiu tago (every day). A demonstrative pronoun in grammar and syntax is a pronoun that shows the place of something. ...

The adjectival correlatives, ending in -ia and -iu, agree in number and case with the nouns they modify, like any other adjectives. They, as well as the independent determiners ending in -io, also take the accusative case when standing in for the object of a clause. The accusative of motion is used with the place correlatives in -ie, forming -ien (hither, whither, thither, etc.). A demonstrative pronoun in grammar and syntax is a pronoun that shows the place of something. ...

Table of correlatives

An interrogative word (also known simply as an interrogative) is a function word used for the item questioned in a question. ... Demonstratives are deictic words that indicate which entities a speaker refers to, and distinguishes those entities from others. ... The genitive case is a grammatical case that indicates a relationship, primarily one of possession, between the noun in the genitive case and another noun. ... A demonstrative pronoun in grammar and syntax is a pronoun that shows the place of something. ... A demonstrative pronoun in grammar and syntax is a pronoun that shows the place of something. ...

Correlative particles

Several adverbial particles are used primarily with the correlatives: ajn indicates generality, ĉi proximity, and for distance.

kio ajn (whatever)

io ajn (anything)

tio (that [general]) [cannot modify a noun]

tiu (that one) [can modify a noun: tiu knabo (that boy)]

tiuj (those)

tiu ĉi (this one)

tiu for (that one yonder)

tien ĉi (hither [to here])

ĉiu hundo (each/every dog)

ĉiuj hundoj (all dogs)

An extension of the original paradigm

Sometimes the correlative system is extended to the root ali- (other), at least when the resulting word is unambiguous,

aliam (at another time), alies (someone else's).

Alie, however, would be ambiguous as to whether the original meaning "otherwise" or the correlative "elsewhere" were intended, so aliloke (from loko "place") is used for "elsewhere".

Interrogative vs relative pronouns

Examples of the interrogative versus relative uses of the ki- words:

Kiu ŝtelis mian ringon? (Who stole my ring?)

La polico ne kaptis la ŝtelistojn, kiuj ŝtelis mian ringon. (The police haven't caught the thieves who [plural] stole my ring.)

Kiel vi faris tion? (How did you do that[accusative]?)

Mi ne scias, kiel fari tion. (I don't know how to do that.)

Also,

Kia viro li estas? (What kind of man is he?)

Kia viro! (What a man!)

Note that standard Esperanto punctuation puts a comma before the relative word (a correlative in ki- or the conjunction ke, "that").

Derivatives

Various parts of speech may be derived from the correlatives, just as from any other roots: ĉiama (eternal), ĉiea (ubiquitous), tiama (contemporary), kialo (a reason), iomete (a little bit), kioma etaĝo? (which floor?) [This last requests a quantified answer of how many floors up, like la dek-sesa (the 16^th), rather than simply pointing out which floor, which would be asked with kiu etaĝo?.]

Although the initial and final elements of the correlatives are not roots or affixes, in that they cannot normally be independently combined with other words (for instance, there is no genitive case in -es for nouns), the initial element of the neni- correlatives is an exception, as seen in neniulo (a nobody), from neni- plus -ulo.

Gender

Some Esperanto roots are semantically masculine or feminine. In general, feminine words are derived from their masculine equivalent. It has been suggested that natural gender be merged into this article or section. ... It has been suggested that natural gender be merged into this article or section. ...

Masculine roots

A small (and decreasing) number of noun roots, mostly titles and kinship terms, are inherently masculine unless the feminine suffix -ino is added. For example, there are patro (father) and patrino (mother), with no good word for parent.

The original setup

In the early twentieth century, members of a profession were assumed to be masculine unless specified otherwise with -ino, reflecting the expectations of most industrial societies. That is, sekretario was a male secretary, and instruisto was a male teacher. This was the case for all words ending in -isto, as well as -ulo (riĉulo "a rich man"), -ano and ethnicities (kristano "a male Christian", anglo "an Englishman"), -estro (urbestro "a male mayor"), and the participles -into, -anto, -onto, -ito, -ato, -oto (komencanto "a male beginner"). Many domestic animals were also masculine (bovo "bull", kapro "billygoat"). These generally became gender-neutral over the course of the century, as many similar words did in English, because of social transformation. Esperanto is a constructed auxiliary language based on the languages of Europe. ...

The current situation

There is still variation in many of the above words, depending on the social expectations and language background of the speaker. Many of the words are not clearly either masculine or epicene today. For example, the plural bovoj is generally understood to mean "cattle", not "bulls", and similarly the plurals angloj (Englishpeople) and komencantoj (students); but a masculine meaning reappears in bovo kaj bovino "a bull & cow", anglo kaj anglino (an Englishman & Englishwoman), komencanto kaj komencantino (a male & female beginner).

We are left with several dozen fairly clearly masculine roots:

Words for boys and men: bubo (brat), fraŭlo (bachelor - the feminine fraŭlino is used for miss), knabo (boy), masklo (a male), viro (man), etc.;

Kin terms: avo (grandfather), edzo (husband), fianĉo (fiance), filo (son), frato (brother), kuzo (cousin), nepo (grandson), nevo (nephew), onklo (uncle), patro (father), vidvo (widower);

Nobility: barono (baron), caro (czar), emiro (emir), grafo (count), mikado (mikado), princo (prince), reĝo (king), sinjoro (lord, sir), ŝaho (shah), etc.;

Religious orders: abato (abbot), monaĥo (monk), papo (Pope), rabeno (rabi), imamo (imam), etc.

Basic words for domestic animals: koko (rooster);

Dedicated masculine words for domestic animals that already have a separate epicene root: boko (buck), kapono (castrated rooster), okso (castrated bull), stalono (stallion), taŭro (bull), etc.;

The word for friend: amiko.

A few of these, such as masklo and the words dedicated for male animals, are essentially masculine and are never used with the feminine suffix. The others remain masculine mainly because, officially at least, Esperanto has no good way of indicating masculine gender. One work-around, using vir- (man) as a prefix, is used with animals, but it's ambiguous: virbovo can mean either a bull or a minotaur, and therefore both taŭro and minotaŭro have been borrowed into the language to disambiguate.

Not all of these words are stably masculine. Native English speakers, among others, tend to treat kuzo (a cousin) and amiko (a friend) as gender-neutral, and nepo (a grandson/grandchild), bubo (a brat), and koko (a rooster/chicken) are often ambiguous as well. Once such a word is used ambiguously by a significant number of speakers or writers, it can no longer be assumed to be masculine. Language guides suggest using all ambiguous words neutrally, and many people find this the least confusing approach—and so the ranks of masculine words gradually dwindle.

Feminine roots

Besides the suffix -ino, there are several dozen feminine roots:

Words for women: femo (a woman) femalo (a female), hetajro (concubine), matrono (married woman), megero (shrew/bitch);

Professions: almeo (dancing girl), gejŝo (geisha), meretrico (prostitute), primadono (prima donna), subreto (soubrette);

Titles: damo (lady, queen), madono (Madonna);

Mythological figures: amazono (Amazon), furio (Fury), muzo (Muse), nimfo (nymph), etc.

Unlike their masculine counterparts, feminine words have not generally been reinterpreted as epicene.

Common approaches to regularizing Esperanto gender

Some people, including many English speakers, feel that deriving feminine from masculine words is sexist, and attempt to avoid gendered language; others, such as many German speakers, have the opposite view, feeling that subsuming women under a masculine term is sexist, and so consistently specify gender. Either way, gender is often a fuzzy issue in Esperanto. The sign of the headquarters of the National Association Opposed To Woman Suffrage Sexism is commonly considered to be discrimination against people based on their sex rather than their individual merits, but can also refer to any and all differentiations based on sex. ...

Gender asymmetry is both one of the biggest issues people have with the Esperanto language (the others being adjectival concord, the accusative, the letters with diacritics, and the eternal debate over borrowing vs deriving technical vocabulary), and the one that seems easiest to "fix". Numerous solutions have been proposed over the years. However, two of these recur repeatedly, as they derive from existing resources of the language. These are the masculine suffix -iĉo and the epicene prefix ge-.

The masculine suffix -iĉo

Some people remedy the Esperanto gender asymmetry with an unofficial masculine suffix *-iĉo [created by analogy with -ĉjo] alongside feminine -ino, with the bare root now becoming epicene, as the names of professions such as dentisto did half a century ago:

patro (*parent)

patrino (mother)

*patriĉo (father)

(asterisked words and meanings are not officially recognized).

Compare,

panjo (mama)

paĉjo (papa).

There have been a few books published with such usage. There is also a proposed suffix -uko for castrated animals, creating bovuko for okso.

However, even with the availability of a masculine suffix, some speakers maintain viro (a man) as an inherently masculine word and use *femo (the etymological root of such Esperanto words as femalo, feminismo) for "a woman", with adolto or plenkreskulo (a grown-up) for "an adult". This may be due to the number of established masculine derivatives of the root vir-, such as the adjective vira (male), or perhaps to a desire to have basic dedicated roots for "man" and "woman".

Other Esperantists argue that removing the gender asymmetry requires making all noun roots gender-neutral, and that in such usage viro should mean "an adult". However, feminine nouns such as damo (a lady) will retain their gender regardless, as will inherently masculine words such as taŭro (a bull), so complete gender neutrality will not be accomplished unless such words are removed from the language.

The main objection to this suffix, other than the concern of tinkering with the fundamentals of the language, is that some perceive it as being too similar to the pejorative suffix -aĉ-, and thus consider it to be disparaging to men. However, with the word stress on the vowel, -iĉo and -aĉo are as distinct as many other pairs of Esperanto suffixes, such as -ino -ano, -ilo -ulo, etc, and the brain would soon filter out the similarity as meaningless.

The epicene prefix ge-

Another approach to gender asymmetry that is often seen is the use of ge- as an epicene prefix in the singular,

*gepatro (parent)

patro (father)

patrino (mother).

To prevent confusion, some -iĉo users adopt this usage of ge- as well and specify gepatro, patrino, or patriĉo, avoiding the bare root patro entirely.

Singular ge- is not generally accepted, however. Ge- is traditionally used only with semantic plurals, and is officially inclusive, indicating both sexes together, rather than epicene. Some argue that singular gepatro describes a hermaphroditic individual that is both mother and father.

Gendered pronouns

Esperanto personal pronouns distinguish gender in the third-person singular: li (he), ŝi (she); but not in the plural: ili (they). There are two practical epicene third-person singular pronouns: the demonstrative pronoun tiu (that one), and Zamenhof's suggestion, ĝi.

See the discussions at Esperanto personal pronouns and riism. Esperanto is a constructed auxiliary language based on the languages of Europe. ... Riism (Riismo in Esperanto) is a modification of Esperanto to make its treatment of gender symmetric, by incorporating non-sexist language and gender-neutral pronouns. ...

Antonyms

People sometimes object to using the prefix mal- to derive highly frequent antonyms, especially when they're as long as malproksima (far). There are a few alternative roots in poetry, such as turpa for malbela (ugly) and pigra for mallaborema (lazy) — some of which originated in Ido, — that find their way into prose. However, they are rarely used in conversation. This is a combination of two factors: the great ease and familiarity of using the mal- prefix, and the relative obscurity of most of the alternatives, which would hamper communication. This results in English borrowings such as ĉipa (cheap), for malmultekosta (inexpensive), failing to find favor even among native English speakers. Ido (pronounced //), a constructed language, was created to become a universal second language for speakers of different linguistic backgrounds, easier to learn than any ethnic language. ...

Two root antonyms are frequently encountered: eta (little), and dura (hard [not soft]). However, their popularity is due to their iconicity. Eta is derived from the diminutive suffix and more properly means slight, but it's a little word, and its use for malgranda (little) is quite common. The reason for the popularity of dura is similar: official malmola simply sounds too soft to mean "hard"! In cognitive linguistics, iconicity is the conceived similarity between a form of language and its meaning. ...

Other antonymic words tend to have a different scope. For example, instead of malbona (bad) we may see aĉa (of poor quality) or fia (shameful), but these are not strict antonyms.

Idioms and slang

There's not as much slang in Esperanto as in many ethnic languages, as slang tends to make international communication difficult, thereby working against Esperanto's main purpose. However, some slang, as well as a fair amount of derivational wordplay, is used to spice up the language, and some idiomatic expressions have either been borrowed from Esperanto's source languages, or developed naturally over the course of Esperanto's history. There are also various expletives based on body functions and religion, as in English. The word expletive is currently used in three senses: syntactic expletives, expletive attributives, and bad language. The word expletive comes from the Latin verb explere, meaning to fill, via expletivus, filling out. It was introduced into English in the seventeenth century to refer to various kinds of padding -- the padding...

Idioms

In addition to the root words and the rules for combining them, a learner of Esperanto must learn some idiomatic compounds that are not entirely straightforward. For example, eldoni, literally "to give out", means "to publish", and vortaro, literally "a compilation of words", means "a glossary" or "a dictionary". Almost all of these compounds, however, are modeled after equivalent compounds in native European languages: eldoni after the German herausgeben, and vortaro from the Russian словарь slovar^j.

Contractions

Saluton (hello) is sometimes clipped to sal, and saluĝis (from saluton – ĝis la revido) is seen as a quick hello-goodbye on internet chatrooms. Similarly, there's,

espo (Esperanto)

kaŭ (from kaj/aŭ, and/or)

’stas (from estas, to be)

The latter contraction shifts the stress to the tense suffix, which makes the tenses easier to distinguish than they are in formal estas, effectively recapturing some of the stress patterns of Proto-Esperanto (see below).

Word play

Sometimes Esperanto derivational morphology is used to create humorous alternatives to existing roots. For instance, with the antonym prefix mal-, one gets,

maltrinki (from trinki to drink) to urinate (normally urini)

malmanĝi (from manĝi to eat) to vomit (normally vomi).

As in English, some slang is intentionally offensive, such as substituting the suffix -ingo (a sheath) for the feminine -ino in virino (a woman), for viringo (a cunt [a woman as a sexual object]). However, such terms are usually coined to translate from English or other languages, and are rarely heard in conversation.

Cultural "in" words

Esperanto has some slang in the sense of being in-group talk as well. Some of this is borrowed; for example, fajfi ion (to whistle something) means not to care about it, as in German. Other expressions deriving from Esperanto history or dealing with specifically Esperantist concerns have arisen over the years. A volapukaĵo, for example, is something needlessly incomprehensible, derived from the name of the rather stilted, complex, and proprietary constructed language Volapük, which preceded Esperanto by a few years and was replaced by it. An artificial or constructed language (known colloquially as a conlang among aficionados), is a language whose phonology, grammar and vocabulary are specifically devised by an individual or small group, rather than having naturally evolved as part of a culture the way natural languages do. ... Volapük edition of Wikipedia This article is about the international auxiliary language. ...

Words and phrases reflect what speakers of a language talk about. Tellingly, Esperanto has five expressions for speaking a language other than Esperanto when Esperanto would be regarded as more appropriate, as at an Esperanto convention, whereas there is nothing equivalent in English:

krokodili (to crocodile) to speak one's native language instead of Esperanto;

kajmani (to caiman) as above, but where the language is not native to all of the interlocutors;

aligatori (to alligator) where the language used is native to no one;

lacerti (to lizard) to speak another conlang, such as Ido.

These words are subsumed under the general term reptilumi (from reptilo, reptile, plus the undefined suffix -um), though this is rare and krokodili is generally used instead. There is even a term gaviali (to gharial), for speaking Esperanto in situations where another language would be more appropriate. The oldest of these expressions, krokodili, may come from the legend of crocodile tears (in that to come to an Esperanto function yet choose to speak one's native language might be viewed as hypocritical); the others were coined by analogy with it. An artificial or constructed language (known colloquially as a conlang among aficionados), is a language whose phonology, grammar and vocabulary are specifically devised by an individual or small group, rather than having naturally evolved as part of a culture the way natural languages do. ... Ido (pronounced //), a constructed language, was created to become a universal second language for speakers of different linguistic backgrounds, easier to learn than any ethnic language. ... Crocodile tears is the false or insincere weeping, a hypocritical display of emotions. ...

Jargon

Technical jargon exists in Esperanto as it does in English, and this is a major source of debate in the language. To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...

However, the normal wordplay people use for amusement is occasionally carried to the extreme of being jargon. One such style is called Esperant’, found in chat rooms and occasionally used at Esperanto conventions. (See Esperantido.) Esperantido is the term used within the Esperanto and constructed language communities to describe a language project based on or inspired by Esperanto. ...

Artificial variants

There's one line of verse, taken from the sole surviving example of the original Lingwe uniwersala of 1878, that's used idiomatically, Proto-Esperanto (or pra-Esperanto in the language itself) is the modern term for any of the stages in the evolution of L. L. Zamenhofs language project, prior to the publication of his Unua Libro in 1887. ... 1878 (MDCCCLXXVIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ...

jam temp’ está (it's time).

If this stage of Esperanto had been preserved, it would presumably be used to occasionally give a novel the archaic flavor that Latin provides in the modern European languages.

Various approaches have been taken to represent deviant language in Esperanto literature. One play, for example, originally written in two dialects of Italian, was translated with Esperanto representing one dialect, and Ido representing the other. Other approaches are to attempt to reconstruct proto-Esperanto, and to create de novo variants of the language. Ido (pronounced //), a constructed language, was created to become a universal second language for speakers of different linguistic backgrounds, easier to learn than any ethnic language. ...

Reconstructions

With so little data available, various attempts have been made to reconstruct what proto-Esperanto may have been like. However, these reconstructions rely heavily on material from the intermediate period of Esperanto development, between the original Lingwe Uniwersala of 1878 and the Unua Libro of 1887. (See Proto-Esperanto.) 1878 (MDCCCLXXVIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ... Unua Libro por Rusoj (first edition, 1887, in Russian) Unua Libro por Angloj (first edition in English, 1888) The Unua Libro (First Book) was the first publication to describe the international language, Esperanto (then called Lingvo Internacia, inter-national language). It was first published in Russian on July 26, 1887... 1887 (MDCCCLXXXVII) is a common year starting on Saturday (click on link for calendar) of the Gregorian calendar or a common year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar. ... Proto-Esperanto (or pra-Esperanto in the language itself) is the modern term for any of the stages in the evolution of L. L. Zamenhofs language project, prior to the publication of his Unua Libro in 1887. ...

De novo creations

There are various "dialects" and pseudo-historical forms that have been created for Esperanto. Two of the more notable are the substandard "dialect" Popido, and a fictitious "archaic" version of Esperanto called Arcaicam Esperantom. Neither are used in conversation. (See Esperantido.) Arcaicam Esperantom is a constructed language created to act as a fictional Old Esperanto, in the vein of languages such as Old English. ... Esperantido is the term used within the Esperanto and constructed language communities to describe a language project based on or inspired by Esperanto. ...