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One-Word Phrasing Posted by on Apr 6, 2009 in Esperanto Language

Much like German, Esperanto lends itself well to condensing phrases into single words. Given its abundance of prefixes, suffixes, and infixes, this shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise!

Take for example the Esperanto word “alialandulo.” If we break it up, we have the adjective “alia,” meaning “other;” “land-,” which means “land” or “country;” and the suffix “-ulo,” which roughly means “one who is of something,” such as a profession or nationality. we could render the phrase in English as “one who comes from another land.” Alternative translations could be given as “stranger” or “outlander.” The lesson here is that Esperanto can offer extremely descriptive single-word titles that convey a lot of information without being too cryptic!

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Comments:

  1. Sprawn:

    alialandulinecaj – The qualities of women from other lands.

    Is that pushing it?

  2. Lex:

    Whoa, nelly! To call that “pushing it” is a tough judgment call to make. I see nothing grammatically incorrect about your word, so if you were to put in a written context, you would likely be fine. If you want to include it in conversation, you should be prepared to explain it – I doubt anyone would be able to pick up its meaning on a single hearing.

    Personally, I say go for it. You might be able to impress your friends with the big foreign words you know! 🙂

  3. Sprawn:

    There is a temptation in Esperanto to link so many prefixes and suffixes onto a word that the root loses all meaning.

    Of or possessing the qualities of something that possesses multiple instances of having the intention of moving toward something that is small… ant-ic-int-ec-in-ast-ac-ej-eks-au-ne-no-ni-nau…

    I am sure that is all wrong by the way… I am just poking fun…