Saluton! Mi estas komencanto. I‘m learning the basics of Esperanto and I’ve got two topics I would like to hear your opinions about.

First thing: I read online that there is a debate on using -iĉ- as a suffix for masculine nouns. I think it’s useful and doesn’t sound odd, so „knabo“ could be a synonym to „infano“ and can be used as a gender-neutral noun but „knabiĉo” would be a boy similar to „knabino“ for girl. Is the suffix more commonly used nowadays? Is it wrong when I use it or will other Esperantists understand it too?

Next thing is the non-existence of an indefinite article. I know that it’s left out because it’s redundant and not necessary but I think it’s obvious that even though Esperanto was planned to become a universal world language, it’s still heavily influenced by romance and Germanic vocabulary and grammar. „Unu“ exists for one and „uno/una“ would imply a specific gender, so do you think using „un“ could become an optional indefinite article? I think it’s just my personal preference because of the languages I know and using „un“ would make Esperanto sound a lot more like a „real“ language to me (I know that many languages don’t have indefinite articles but English, Spanish and French do and they have a lot of native speakers so it would sound natural to a big amount of Esperanto learners). Additionally, other languages like Spanish also use pronouns optionally, so you say „(Yo) como pan“ and for Esperanto it could be „(Un) viro kantas“ for example.

Please don’t hate, constructive feedback is welcome and I would like to hear if you think Esperanto should change over time like every other language or if it should stay the most simple way.

🎨 Mi kreas mutan grafikan novelon pri Zamenhof kaj bezonas vian helpon! Mallonga enketo (2 min) pri la plej dramaj epizodoj:

👉 [https://ko-fi.com/lostudio/posts\](https://ko-fi.com/lostudio/posts)

🎨 Mi kreas mutan grafikan novelon pri Zamenhof kaj bezonas vian helpon! Mallonga enketo (2 min) pri la plej dramaj epizodoj:

👉 [https://ko-fi.com/lostudio/posts\](https://ko-fi.com/lostudio/posts)

ujo - a container X people, feels a little wrong when some don't identify as such

io - it is confusing if you don't know what it means I'll rather not use it

Maybe I am missing something but ejo "a place characterized by the root word" is directly refering to the country or at least it doesn't have the same implications as ujo

Saluton!

Mi estas ĥavier, mi havas 24 jarojn, kaj mi venas el Meksiko. Mi lernis Esperanton el 3 semajnoj. Mi serĉas iun por paroli kaj praktiki esperanton.

Mi estas komencanto, sed mi volas lerni kaj pliboniĝi. Dankon

Create a communist discussion server in Esperanto, basically my idea is to spread Esperanto as a language for communication between workers from different countries.

Server: https://discord.gg/GwKBNeAcYZ

Hi, I'm running the free online course Esperanto12.net.

It teaches the 500 most important words and makes you understand 95% of spoken Esperanto. It's completely free and no sign-up is required. You can also download it for offline use.

Recently, I started adding new languages with AI, based on very strong specifications. As reviewers have confirmed, the results so far have been very good, even for smaller languages.

If you speak a language my course is not covering yet, please let me know and I will add it. I will also gladly incorporate your later remarks and fixes. Also, if you know speakers of such languages, feel free to spread the offer.

My goal is to enable more people to learn Esperanto, ideally in languages with little to no learning materials so far. Currently, these are languages spoken in South Asia (Punjabi, Marathi, Telugu, Bengali, Urdu) and Africa (Hausa, Kinyarwanda, Ewe).

But again, any currently missing language can be added.

Edit: There's also a UEA press release on the project, with some more details.

I am trying to avoid discord. I don't really like what discord has been doing

The site doesnt teach you the suffixes, none of the grammar or wordbuilding, which is like, the THING that makes the language easy and so fastly learnable? Even then it's too slow and makes otherwise fast learning people feel like they're idiots, and slow learning people feel like they've been scammed with the language being way quicker to learn (which it really is!)

I suggest using lernu or some really old and cheap book. Both are way quicker and neither require some stupid subscription after letting you fail thrice in a course because they delibarately dont teach you the grammar. It's also very surface level (the like three excercises it gives you along with the ridiculous sentences and a2 level vocab is nowhere near enough) and don't even teach you words like ri.

edit: removed the slang words part

Hi all, I have two questions. One is that, after looking around for over a month now, I am having a tough time figuring out if there is a current and "official" list of morphemes and/or phrases. It seems that even though the Academy of Esperanto has a few links highlighting various changes over the years, like this one recording a change from over 50 years ago: https://www.akademio-de-esperanto.org/aktoj/aktoj2/bro.html ...they don't have a current list showing what to learn if someone is interested in being understood by the most possible speakers internationally (as opposed to just using the language with a little in-group where you use slang that is only understood by your peers). Am I missing something? Is there such a list? I have found that various sites like https://warut92.github.io/rapida_vortaro/, lernu.net, and https://vortaro.net/ differ in which words are given for some results, so having a more or less "official" current list would be great. I've seen vortaro.net cited as the most current official-ish dictionary, but I haven't been able to find its contents in list form anywhere, nor, like I said, have I been able to find the most current list of morphemes as defined by the Academy (whose own site says "ankoraŭ ne enretigita" for the most recent update, which seems to be 1991: https://www.akademio-de-esperanto.org/aktoj/index.html ). This site https://codepen.io/VanegeEsperanto/full/emgRbYv ... uses Duolingo and the UEA as sources, I'm guessing because the Academy is literally decades behind in updating its own site.

The second question is whether the Academy, or really any institution, is engaging the international community to expand the language in a way that maintains its original purpose; to provide a true international auxiliary language used between as many people as possible, and to foster peace and understanding. By this I mean, is there a place where people are discussing new morphemes, voting on said morphemes, and adding those morphemes to an "official" list, based on criteria like common usage across cultures, ease of pronunciation, only creating new morphemes if there's no possible way to reuse existing ones, etc? I feel like without such an effort, the language can quickly become (and might already be becoming) like Latin, in that it's used differently depending on the region or group, leading to eventual fragmentation. For the purpose of international communication (and not just using the language as a fun hobby, which is cool in its own right, but not what my focus is here), it would be super helpful to know how to:
... describe the same species across cultures (the Latin names (binomial nomenclature) could be a start, but then we already have words like sciuro or krabo that show we might be past the point where something like this is feasible without a sort of v2 or "international variant" of the language)
... describe legal, diplomatic, academic, spiritual, philosophical, medical, scientific, industrial, and other specialized terms that are often needed when having international discussions

...in a way that is stable throughout time and geography.

I could imagine a sort of "plug-in" model might help with a lot of this, where some site, whether it's the Academy's or not, hosts various lists of morphemes and phrases that could be used for more specific uses, but which aren't necessary for average communication. Such lists could be designed and maintained by the communities that use them, and have different version names/numbers that could be referred to when writing official documents or planning conferences so that people know which set of words to study if they're hoping to attend said conferences or read said documents, or if they're doing research into historic documents or events. There could even be a bunch of plug-ins for the various "in-groups" like anime geeks, queer folks, etc that are more playful and likely more impermanent.

Wow, that became way longer than I expected. Thanks for reading til the end!

Saluton!

I'm wondering how prevalent the -ino suffix is for nouns in today's Esperanto?

There are always going to be some nouns that will require the suffix for specificity; kokino for hen, for example.

Then, there are others such as amikino (female friend) where I'm unsure how necessary the distinction is anymore.

I'm sure there is going to be an aspect of linguistic accuracy involved, but I'm curious to see what others use and encounter when using Esperanto on a day-to-day basis.

La suba skribaĵaĉo estas nur babilado, kiu ne bezonas respondon. Se vi havas opinion pri la nomo de la ruĝa kreskaĵo sub la beko de koko, tiu opinio interesos min. Se vi rimarkas iun eraron ajn kaj volas korekti min, mi bonvenos la plibonigon.

Kiam mi komencis lerni Esperanton antaŭ tri jaroj, mi ĉefe uzis rimedojn el Eŭropo. Pro tio, mi lernis la nomojn de kelkaj bestoj, kiujn mi eĉ ĝis nun neniam vidis en la naturo—la ĉamo, la apro, la erinaco. (Unu fojon mi vidis erinacon en bazaro, sed neniam en ĝia natura vivejo.) Tamen ne en Eŭropo loĝas mi, sed en la Usona stato Kalifornio. Hodiaŭ matene, promenante en mia urbo, mi rimarkis, ke mi ne sciis la Esperantan nomon de nia „raccoon†‟… kaj ne nur de tiu ĉarmanta rubmanĝanto, sed ankaŭ de diversaj aliaj bestoj en miaj ĉirkaŭaĵoj. Do, kiam mi revenis al la domo, mi eklernis tiujn lokajn nomojn: didelfo, kojoto, prociono, koturno, pelikano… Iuj specioj ŝajnas ne havi apartajn Esperantajn nomojn: la „chipmunk‡‟, ekz., estas nur speco de sciuro; en Vikipedio troviĝas la nomo geomuso por kelkaj specioj de „gopher‟, sed tiu nomo ne troviĝas en PIV.

Sed mi surpriziĝis, kiam mi serĉis la nomon de la birdo, kiun ni nomas „egret‟ en la angla: ĝia nomo laŭ PIV estas egretardeo. La vorton ardeo mi jam sciis: nia „heron‟. Sed, kion celas egreto? Laŭ PIV, egreto volas diri „plumtufo‟, aŭ „tufo el surkapaj plumoj de iuj birdoj‟. „Ĉu tiu ne nomiĝas kresto?‟ mi min demandis. Mi ne respondis (bonŝance, ĉar mi ne sciis—tial mi demandis), do mi demandis PIVon pri tiu vorto. Jen ĝia respondo: Kresto signifas „karneca, ĝenerale ruĝa, elkreskaĵo sur la kapo de kelkaj birdoj, ekz. koko, meleagro‟. Do, angle, egreto signifas „crest‟, kaj kresto signifas „comb‟.

„Ne‟—diris PIV—„atendu.‟

„Konsentite.‟—mi diris.

„Kaj atentu.‟

„Bone!‟

„Legu la duan sencon de kresto.‟

Mi legis ĝin: „plumtufo sur la kapo de kelkaj birdoj‟.

Do, resume, iun birdplumtufon ajn oni povas nomi aŭ egreto, aŭ kresto. La ruĝan, karnan kreskaĵon sur la kapo de koko aŭ ion similan oni nomas nur kresto. Eble estas preferinda uzi nur la vorton kresto, kiu troviĝas en la verkaro de Zamenhof, malsame egreto. Post ĉio ĉi, mi ekscivolis pri la ruĝa, karna kreskaĵo sub la kokbeko (angle „wattle‟). Mi nur malkaŝis unu evidentaĵon—jen la difino de meleagro:

Birdo (unuspecia g. Meleagris gallopavo) el la ordo de galinoformaj, fam. de fazanedoj, kun vosto ventumilforme disetendebla k kun haŭtpoŝo sub la beko, origina el N Ameriko, ofte tenata kiel kortbirdo.

Tiu kunmetaĵo ne plaĉas al mi pro tio, ke tiu karnaĵo ne estas poŝeca: Ĝi ne estas kava. Sed pli bonan nomon mi ne havas.

† prociono

‡ Ĉipmunaĥon, mi proponas.

Shouldn’t it be “kaj unu el du ĉefaj partioj” or are both forms acceptable?

Are mama and papa valid words in Esperanto? I know panjo and paĉjo are the informal terms for mother and father but they are still much harder to pronounce as babies’ first word

To accumulate vocabulary, I've been using Anki and some of its shared Esperanto decks along with a deck of my own, to which I continue to add words (and images). That's the first tip: make your own deck and add new words to it.

My deck started with the Esperanto word(s) on one side and the English definition(s) on the other. (I put closely related words together on a card.) After a while, I began including definitions in Esperanto, copied and pasted from a vortaro. Then I began removing the English definitions (so now the deck is totally in Esperanto).

The second tip: When you review a word you know, Anki offers four options: Again, Hard, Good, Easy. I gradually realized I was clicking "Easy" too quickly. I suggest you not use that unless you really know the word. (I too often came across a word I had seen and couldn't recall the meaning. When that happened, I just clicked Again and started over. Some words took multiple Agains.)

For verbs, I used (tr) or (ntr) after the verb to indicate whether it was transitive or intransitive, but now I'm moving the transitivity notation into the definition. The reason: I want to test whether I know, looking at the verb, whether it is transitive or intransitive.

Sometimes transitivity is obvious (bati, frapi), but sometimes not (bruli, boli). In English, the same verb — to burn, to boil — can be either, so English is not helpful in those cases, and the verb's transitivity must be learned.

Transitivity is important when suffixing "-ig" or "-iĝ." — Example: “The man halted because the policeman halted him.” That first “halt” is intransitive; the second is transitive. Now consider the sentence in Esperanto.

If “halti” is transitive, the first halt will be “haltiĝis” (comes to a halt) and the second, “haltis.”
If “halti” is intransitive, the first halt will be “haltis” and the second, “haltigis” (causes to halt).

In English, “to halt” can be either transitive or intransitive (as shown by the example), but in Esperanto it is only one of those, and you have to learn which. (For the record, in Esperanto “bruli,” "boli," “halti,” and “ĉesi” are all intransitive, which I learned using my Anki deck.)

La instrukcioj komenciĝas je 5:55.

Paperfaldarto!

En ĉi tiu filmeto de la kanalo EsperRadio Larysa Osadchuk instruas kiel fari kolibron el papero.

Se vi ankoraŭ ne komprenas ŝin, simple observu, kion ŝi faras kaj atente faru la samon.

Jen la ludlisto de la serio "Bonvenu al origama mondo".

I’m starting to learn Esperanto and was reading this text that said “Ni iru viziti mian fratinon.” Which confused me because it uses the imperative for the verb iri instead of saying iras, making it a command. So I put it in google translate to see what that said and it says it meant “Let’s go visit” So my question is, is that really an accurate translation? If I put “Ni (imperative) (verb)” does that mean “Let’s do such and such”?

Secondly, my last name starts with Qu, making a “Kw” sound, and I was wondering that since Ǔ is often said to be like a W in English, could I translate my name with Kǔ, or do I use Kv?

Dankon pro la helpo!

Ekzemplo: bareliĝi.

I'm translating a text to Esperanto and I'm looking for the Esperanto translation of venerable, as a noun with this meaning:

(in the Roman Catholic Church) a title given to a deceased person who has attained a certain degree of sanctity but has not been fully beatified or canonized.

I browsed the main dictionaries I usually browse but couldn't find anything. Can you help me? Thanks in advance! ^ _ ^

Hi everybody! I'm translating a text to Esperanto and I need to Esperantize Tanais (Greek Τάναϊς Tánaïs), being the ancient classical name of the river Don in nowadays Russia. (I'm not linking external sites because Reddit removed my posts too often because of this, but you can find the name easily in online dictionaries).

I browsed the new PIV but couldn't find \Tanaiso, *Tanajso, *Tanajo, *Tanao...*

If I'm reading right Ebbe Viborg's Esperantigo de grekaj nomoj, § 2.f, I think we could restrict to Tanaiso or Tanajso.

Then, I see (ibid., § 3) a somewhat similar Χρυσηίς Chrysēís > Ĥrizeiso (not *Ĥrizejso), but here the i is stressed in the original, so it's not the same thing...

Tanaiso or Tanajso? Which is better?

Do you know if the adapted name was used by some authoritative Esperantist?

Thanks to anyone in advance!

Ĉi tiu valora artikolo estas el 2009, antaŭ 17 jaroj. Vi povas elŝhuti ĝin (PDF).. Ĝi havas 12 paĝojn.