Esperanto grammar

Most of its vocabulary is made up of Latin, Greek, English, French, German, and some other Indo-European roots with a few words from Slavic languages. Esperanto has a relatively regular grammar, phonetic alphabet (meaning that all words are pronounced as in written and vice versa), and very logical structure (the same words' ending for the same parts of speech, e.g. -o for nouns, -a for adjectives, etc.). All these features make Esperanto easier to learn than most of the world's languages, even for non-Europeans, though particular features may be more or less advantageous to native speakers of particular languages. The alphabet includes new letters that are not found on any national keyboard, which is overcome by use of the h-system, x-system, or Unicode. (See Esperanto orthography.) Other languages, like Chinese, have similar problems.

Word endings

In Esperanto, the endings -o, -a, and -e indicate noun, adjective, and adverb, respectively. When a -j follows those endings, it makes the word plural. Direct objects must have the -n ending, which goes after the plural ending, if any.

Adjectives must have plural ending if the noun it describes also has the plural ending. The same goes for the accusative ending. Compare "bona tagojn" (incorrect) with "bonajn tagojn" (correct). Zamenhof later regretted making that requirement. Also to Zamenhof's regret, a limited number of adverbs do not end with -e (See special Esperanto adverbs).

Pronouns

mi	I
vi	you
li	he
ŝi	she
ili	they
oni	one
ni	we
it	ĝi

Pronouns may take the accusative -n ending. For example, min means me, lin means him, and ŝin means her. Possessive pronouns are formed with the adjectival -a ending. For example, mia means my, ĝia means its, and nia means our.

Correlatives

Esperantists use correlatives to ask and answer questions about what, how, why, etc.

	Question	Pointer	Indefinite	Universal	Negative
Individual	kiu	tiu	iu	ĉiu	neniu
Thing	kio	tio	io	ĉio	nenio
Kind	kia	tia	ia	ĉia	nenia
Place	kie	tie	ie	ĉie	nenie
Motion	kien	tien	ien	ĉien	nenien
Time	kiam	tiam	iam	ĉiam	neniam
Amount	kiom	tiom	iom	ĉiom	neniom
Manner	kiel	tiel	iel	ĉiel	neniel
Reason	kial	tial	ial	ĉial	nenial
Possession	kies	ties	ies	ĉies	nenies

Often used with the correlatives, the word ajn decreases specificity, and the word ĉi increases proximity.

Enumeration of combinations

• kio means what
• io means something
• io ajn means anything
• tiu means that
• tiu ĉi means this
• ...

Affixes

Esperanto uses affixes to decrease the number of words that must be learned. Prefixes go before a root, affixes go after. When a root recieves more than one suffix, the order of the suffixes does matter, because suffixes closer to the root have more to do with the root.

Sometimes affixes act as roots. For example, mala means opposite, and eta means small. Also, roots sometimes act as suffixes: vidi - "to see", vidpova - "not blind".

Suffixes

Esperanto suffixes are not only used for grammatical inflections, but for expansion of vocabulary from a relatively few basic words:

esperantino Hoper, female Esperantujo "Esperantoland" (wherever Esperanto is being spoken) esperiga Hope-inspiring (giving hope) senespera Hopeless

-adi	to do an action persistently or repeatedly	kuradi: to keep on running; vizitadi: to visit habitually
-ado	frequent or continuous action	kuirado: cooking; parolado: speech
-aĵo	thing, substance	novaĵo: news, novelty; manĝaĵo: food
-ano	member, inhabitant	Usonano: American; Kristano: Christian
-aro	collection, group
-ebla	possible
-eco	abstract quality
-eg-	great size, intense degree, augmentative
place
-ema	propensity, tendency	parolema: talkative; ludema: playful
-estro	leader, chief	lernejestro: school principal; urbestro: mayor
-et-	smallness, small degree, diminutive	varmeta: lukewarm; libreto: booklet
-ido	child, descendent	katido: kitten; reĝo: king, reĝido: prince
-igi	to make, to cause to become	purigi: to clean; mortigi: to kill
-iĝi	to become	naskiĝi: to be born; edziĝi: to marry (become a husband)
-ilo	tool, instrument	tranĉilo: knife; ludilo: a toy
-inda	worthy of	memorinda: memorable; vidinda: worth seeing
-ino	feminine	patrino: mother; bovino: cow
-ismo
-isto	person connected with something (as in English)	instruisto: teacher; komunisto: communist
-obla	multiple
-ona	fraction	duona: half (of); centono: one hundredth
-ujo	container, country	monujo: purse; Anglujo: England (now often "-io" in this sense)
-ulo	person possessing a quality or characteristic	riĉulo: rich man; junulo: young person
-um-	indefinite suffix indicating some relation with the root	kolumo: collar; malvarmumo: a cold; plenumi: to fulfill

Prefixes

Prefixes are similarly used for vocabulary expansion. For example, antonyms are very rarely based on separate roots but are formed by use of the negating prefix "mal-":

dekstren Towards the right maldekstren Towards the left supren Upwards malsupren Downwards

This reduces the number of root forms to be learned. However, the prefix mal- almost always occurs in an unstressed position (such as the words above), which can lead to many similar-sounding words with opposite meanings. Despite this problem, Esperanto is sometimes presented as a solution to the many airplane crashes which arise due to misunderstandings of English.

bo-	relation by marriage, "in-law"	bopatrino: mother-in-law; bofrato: brother-in-law
ĉef-	head, chief	ĉefurbo: capital; ĉefministro: prime minister
dis-	separation, scattering	disĵeti: to throw about; dissendi: to distribute
ek-	sudden or momentary action	ekbrili: to flash; ekkrii: to shout out
ge-	of unspecified gender	gepatro: parent; gesinjoroj: ladies and gentlemen
mal-	opposite	granda: big, malgranda: small; riĉa: rich, malriĉa: poor
re-	over again, back again	resendi: to send back; rekonstrui: to rebuild

Participles

Participles, like tenses use the vowels i, a and o to indicate past, present and future time, respectively. Example: esperinto=former hoper. Passive participles are formed like active participle, except the n is omitted (infixes -it-, -at-, -ot-).

Numbers

Integers

• 1: unu
• 2: du
• 3: tri
• 4: kvar
• 5: kvin
• 6: ses
• 7: sep
• 8: ok
• 9: naŭ
• 10: dek
• 11: dekunu
• 20: dudek
• 100: cent
• 1,000: mil

There exist multiple systems for writing numbers above 1,000 in Esperanto. Using one system:

• 10⁶: iliono
• 10⁹: iliardo
• 10¹²: duiliono
• 10¹⁵: duiliardo
• 10¹⁸: triiliono
• 10²¹: triilardo

Ordinals

Ordinal numbers are formed by adding the adjective -a ending:

• first: unua
• second: dua
• third: tria
• fourth: kvara
• fifth: kvina

Fractions

• ½: duono
• ¼: kvarono
• ¾: tri kvaronj

Multiples

• double: duobla
• tripple: triobla
• quadruple: kvarobla
• quintuple: kvinobla

File

• one at a time: unuope
• by twos: duope

Grammar examples

esperi To hope esperas Hopes, is hoping, does hope esperis Hoped, was hoping, did hope esperos Shall or will hope esperu Hope! (volitive) esperus Were to hope, would hope (conditional)

esperanta(n) Hoping - nominative (accusative) adjective esperantaj(n) Hoping - nominative (accusative) adjective, plural esperanto(n) Hoper - nominative (accusative) noun esperantoj(n) Hopers - nominative (accusative) noun

The -ant- suffix in the above examples indicates present active participle.

Comparisons

pli means more, and plej means most. Derived using the mal- prefix, malpli means less, and malplej means least. Phrases like "The more people, the smaller the portions." and "All the better!" are translated using ju and des in place of the: "Ju pli da homoj, des malpli grandaj la porcioj.", and "Des pli bona!".

See also

• Esperanto orthography
• Esperanto pronunciation

External links

A fairly good overview of Esperanto's grammar and word-building system can be gained by viewing "The Sixteen Rules of Esperanto", "The Esperanto Correlatives" and "Word Building With Esperanto Affixes"

Referenced By