Verda Drako- Esperanto Club Notes and English-Esperanto Course

1). Introduction

Adjectives qualify nouns, adverbs qualify verbs. In Esperanto any root can be turned into an adverb by adding the ending -e.

rapid/-a quick rapid/-e quickly

laût/-a loud laût/-e loudly

Many adverbs in English, but not all, end -ly. Unfortunately there is now need for a 'Society for the Preservation of the Adverb' in Britain because so many people try to replace them with adjectives e.g. He runs very quick (instead of very quickly) or Go slow! (instead of Go slowly!) etc.

In Esperanto, however, you must have higher standards and use the correct ending! Li kuris tre rapide and Iru malrapide!

2). Comparison

Adverbs can be compared in the same way as adjectives in Esperanto e.g.

zorge (carefully) pli zorge (more carefully) plej zorge (most carefully). (G : Sorge)

3). Adverbs replacing phrases

In Esperanto adverbs are very widely used and often replace whole phrases in English e.g.

In the evening vespere (E : vespers) (rather than dum la vespero)

At home hejme (rather than ^ce hejmo)

In French france (rather than en la franca lingvo)

4). Impersonal Verbs

Many sentences in English have a 'it' or 'there' as subject with no real significance e.g. 'It is raining' or 'There was hate in his eyes'. What is the 'it' in 'it is raining'? Such artificial subjects are not used in Esperanto and the verb is said to be impersonal. Thus

When a verb is used impersonally e.g. 'it was beautiful to see' then, since there is no subject for an adjective to agree with predicatively, an adverb is used instead i.e.

estis bele vidi and not estis bela.

More Affixes

5). -uj-

Represents a container e.g.

A special usage is to represent the container of a population i.e. their country. Thus

It should be noticed that in Esperanto only the country itself has a capital letter and not the inhabitant, the language etc.

An interesting special case is Esperantujo (the Esperanto world).

Although the above was the Zamenhof intention it is quite common nowadays to replace the -ujo for countries with -io.

e.g Britio, Anglio, Kimrio ktp (ktp. (kaj tiel plu) = etc.)

The reason for the change is in the modern world (as opposed to in Zamenhof's time) a country such as England no longer is a 'container' (-ujo) for one particular race (the English) but contains a great ethnic mixture.

Another but now outdated usage is to represent a tree e.g. pomujo (apple tree), pirujo (pear tree). Since this is rather ambiguous and could also mean a box of apples or pears it is better to say pomarbo and pirarbo.

6). -an-

A member of :

klub/an/o a club member; Manˆcestr/an/o Mancunian ; famili/an/o a member of the family

An interesing usage is samide/an/o. A member of the group with the same idea i.e. a fellow thinker and it is used as as alternative for Esperantist.

Ano is used as an independent word for a member.

7). -ar-

A group or collection of :

^saf/ar/o a flock of sheep; bovin/ar/o a herd of cows; mont/ar/o mountain range; arb/ar/o a wood (collection of trees); kamp/ar/o countryside (collection of fields); hom/ar/o mankind (collection of humans)

to contain	enhav/-i	have-in	morning	maten/-o	E : matens
to look at	rigard/-i	F : regarder	republic	respublik/-o
to meet	kunven/-i	E : convene	Scotland	Skotlando
to punish	pun/-i		sun	sun/-o
to remember	memor/-i		teacher	instruist/-o	E : instructor
to shine	bril/-i	E : brilliant	wind	vent/-o
to understand	kompren/-i	E : comprehension	clear	klar/-a
butcher	bu^cist/-o	E: clarity	deaf	surd/-a
day	tag/-o	G : Tag	north	nord/-a
noon	tagmez/-o	day-middle	previously	antaû/-e	Adverb from antaû (before)
afternoon	posttagmez/-o		probably	ver^sajne
field	kamp/-o	E : campus	unfortunately	bedaûrinde
goat	kapr/-o		today	hodiaû	L : hodie
Ireland	Irlando		tomorrow	morgaû	G : Morgen
island	insul/-o	E: insular	yesterday	hieraû
king	re^g/-o	E : regal

pluvas	it is raining	F : pleuvoir	ne^gas	it snows	F : neige
estis malamo en liaj okuloj	there was hate in his eyes		ne gravas	it isn't important	E : grave

mono	money	mon/uj/o	purse,wallet
inko	ink	ink/uj/o	inkwell

anglo	Englishman	Angl/uj/o	England
kimro	Welshman	Kimr/uj/o	Wales	Welsh : Cymru
franco	Frenchman	Franc/uj/o	France