Esperanto has always enjoyed a remarkably intuitive number system. We use root words for the cardinal numbers 0-9, and then there are various prefixes to denote larger and larger multiples. So, where languages like Spanish have words like cuarenta for 40 [N.B. – Thank you for catching me in yet another moment of stupidity, Toraku!], Esperanto uses kvardek. At a glance, you can tell it means “four tens,” or 40. (I don’t mean to disparage the Spanish language by citing it here…I simply want to make a comparison for Esperanto’s benefit, and I remember being bothered by numbers in my pre-university days!)

Since we’ve stumbled into a new year, and a new decade, I figured it would help to provide a list of some Esperanto time denominations. They work much like the Esperanto number system – find the root word you need (probably jaro, meaning “year”), and append the requisite number. At this rate, you can be a historian in no time at all!

Day – tago
Week – semajno
Month – monato
Year – jaro
Decade – jardeko / dekjaro (ten-year)
Century – jarcento / centjaro (hundred-year)
Millennium – jarmilo / miljaro (thousand-year)
Era – erao
Epoch – epoko
Generation – generacio (not really a time denomination, but appropriate for a discussion about years!)