Since I’m a student of English, I typically bemoan the decline of proper grammar due to Internet chatrooms and instant-message programs. However, when brevity is imperative, I can see how a few bits of contractions or abbreviations may be appropriate. There are a few commonplace contractions in Esperanto that you might encounter during casual online interaction, and so I thought it might be useful to discuss some of them here. I’ve only run into a few of them in my experiences, so feel free to comment with any of yours if you think they might be useful!

espo = Esperanto, the language we all know and love
stas/stis/stos/stus/stu/sti = All the various conjugations of “esti”
sxli = “Sxi/Li,” for when “they” is not gender-neutral enough
sal/sa = Abbreviation of “saluton,” for hello
salugxis = A merging of “saluton” and “gxis la revido,” somewhat like the Hawaiian “aloha”