Archive for March, 2009
Don’t Confuse These Infixes! Posted by Transparent Language on Mar 25, 2009
Sometimes you’ll encounter words in Esperanto have have the infixes “-ec-” or “-ecx-.” When written, they look almost the same at a glance. However, there’s a world of difference between the two of them, so be sure not to confuse them! The infix “-ec-” denotes a state of being, much like the English suffix “-ness.”…
Reading Esperanto Poetry Posted by Transparent Language on Mar 23, 2009
Most of Esperanto’s ease of use stems from its intuitive grammar coding rules. You can deduce a word’s part of speech based upon its ending letter. All nouns end in “-o,” all adjectives end in “-a,” and so on. Since poetry in any language often takes liberties with the rules of grammar, it is not…
Non-Intuitive Opposites Posted by Transparent Language on Mar 23, 2009
You can essentially double your Esperanto vocabulary simply by using the prefix “mal-.” Unlike in English “mal-” does not indicate negativity; it simply means that the word containing the prefix must be treated as its opposite. It does not work for nouns, necessarily – “malviro” does not mean “woman,” for example. You would use “malvarma”…
Esperanta Literaturo Posted by Transparent Language on Mar 21, 2009
Believe it or not, Esperanto has a deep literature all its own. While most of the literature one finds in Esperanto consists of translations of works written in other languages, such as the free etexts available on gutenberg.org, a respectable number of authors have taken to writing original Esperanto works. Luckily, their numbers grow all…
La Verda Stelo Posted by Transparent Language on Mar 21, 2009
In your studies of Esperanto, you may have encountered La Verda Stelo, one of two major symbols of the language. It’s a readily recognizable image, easy to draw and easier to print! You might wonder where the symbol came from, or why the Esperanto movement decided on the green star as its emblem, so here…
Esperanto en Usono Posted by Transparent Language on Mar 19, 2009
Since Esperanto has no native land of its own, sometimes it can be malfacila to find others who speak Esperanto. It is not something you would expect to find concentrated in any particular area. In Spain or Mexico, it’s a safe bet to assume that most people you encounter will speak Spanish; in France, it’s…
Brief Notes on L.L. Zamenhof Posted by Transparent Language on Mar 19, 2009
Who is L.L. Zamenhof? To studentoj kaj parolantoj of Esperanto, Zamenhof is a hero of sorts, whose singular contributions to world language have been greater than any individual before or since. He has even been deified in the Shinto religion of Japan, where he is recognized as a “kami.” (studento = student; -j = denotes…