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 uncommon to find words and phrases that violate the rules of Esperanto. You will often see works of poetry in which various words have their ending letter dropped, usually for the purpose of conserving syllables. In such instances, the context of the sentence should help you figure out what the word means.

Consider this brief passage from William Auld’s magnificent poem, “La Infana Raso.”

“Kaj vin, ho posteulo de Ruben, kiu velojn
de karavelo hisis kaj sur la mar’ piratis”

In English, roughly:

“And you, oh descendant of Ruben, whose sails
of caravel you hoisted, and over the sea pirated”

You’ll notice that Auld uses the word “mar'” in place of “maro.” The word still means “sea,” but is shortened to maintain the meter of the poem. Keep this in mind if you read Esperanto poetry, or better yet, decide to write your own poems in Esperanto!