An Overview of Esperanto's Word Building System

Felichan zamantagon.

I've already said before on this channel

that I'm quite fond of Espiranto's word

building system as it allows someone to

become highly functional in the language

with only a few hundred rude words. I'd

say between 500 and 900 without

sacrificing the ability to be precise

and use a rich vocabulary the way some

other constructed languages do. As a

bonus, many of the words you can create

with the word building system don't have

clear equivalents in English. And all

you really need to do to learn it is

learn the general meaning of each of the

prefixes and suffixes and pick up the

details of how to use them through

input. That's how I learned it. This

video isn't necessarily meant to teach

you the word building system. In fact,

it might be more confusing than helpful.

We already have enough resources for

learning the language anyways. What we

really need is more actual content in

it. Rather, this video is meant to

showcase the system in more detail for

people who are curious about how it

works, even if they choose not to learn

the language. Let's get started.

There are four part of speech endings in

Espirano. O for nouns, A for adjectives,

E for verbs in dictionary form, and F

for adverbs.

Each individual Espiranto root also has

a basic part of speech, putting it in

what I will call its root class. For

example, the root munch means eat. So

it's in the verb root class. The root

bon means good. So it's in the adjective

root class. And the root means city. So

it's in the noun root class. If a root

is put together with a part of speech

ending that corresponds with its root

class, there's no change in meaning.

It's just a bit of redundancy. Thus,

mangi still means to eat, bona still

means good, and urb still means city.

When the root class matches the part of

speech ending, I will add a slash in

between it and the root. Knowledge of

the root class becomes important when

you want to change the part of speech

ending. When you take a root in the

adjective root class and give it a noun

ending, it can mean either the property

described by the adjective or a thing

that can be described by the adjective.

So starting from the word bona, the word

bono can mean either goodness or a good

thing. If you'd like to disambiguate,

you can use the suffixo for the property

and the suffix a for the object. When

you give it a verb ending, it's

basically just an abbreviation of to be

the adjective. Bony just means to be

good. Do note that using this phrasing

instead of the more typical estona can

sometimes carry a poetic or emphatic

connotation, which enables you to do

different things. For example, rapidi

can mean to be fast, but in a full

sentence, if you specify a direction, it

means to rush. That's not something you

can do with a typical estrapida. When

you take a root in the verb root class

and give it a noun ending, it can mean

either the action itself or an object

related to its concrete manifestation.

That sounds kind of weird, doesn't it?

So, here's some examples. From mangi, we

can create mangjo, which can mean the

action of eating, but more often means a

meal. From consti to build, we create

consto, which can be the action of

building or a building itself. From

kanti to sing, we create canto which

means the action of singing or a song.

As before, you can disambiguate using

the at suffix for the action and ahjo

for the object. Here, the aou suffix

works best if we're talking about

physical objects. When you give it an

adjective ending, you get an adjective

that describes something that is one way

or another characterized by the action.

So, for example, constua could mean

constructive among other things. Perhaps

when you take a root in the noun root

class and give it an adjective ending,

it gives you an adjective that describes

something that is in some way related to

the noun.

>> In Esbranto, if you know how to say

moon, you don't have to learn Luna. You

form it yourself. Luno Luna just as city

urban orb

year annual yo yara.

>> This is the weird one. When you add a

verb ending, the Academy of Espirano

gives three possibilities for what the

result means. Acting like the noun,

acting using the noun, or doing

something that otherwise heavily

involves the noun. There's no strict

rules for what happens when you turn a

word into an adverb. It's pretty much

all entirely vibe based.

In an espiranto word, the morphe become

more important the closer you get to the

end of the word, while the morphemss

closer to the beginning are less

important and serve mainly for

disambiguation. For example, in the word

of aporipo, the morphe o is the most

important since it tells you that this

is a noun. The morphe before it

clarifies which noun, in this case, a

ship. The morphe before that clarifies

the kind of ship, a steam ship. If we

swap the positions of vapor and ship, we

no longer have a steam ship, but rather

a ship's steam since vapor now has the

more important position.

You may at your option keep parts of

speech hanging around if you feel like

it will help with clarity or ease of

pronunciation as it's done in compounds

like multa expensive or partoren to

participate. However, it is most common

to omit these. And when this happens,

the way the less important morphe is

interpreted depends on the root class of

the main morphe. When the root class of

the main morphe is a noun or adjective,

the previous one is typically

interpreted to be a noun regardless of

its root class. That's why it's normal

to say blue okulo to mean blue eye. But

blueo, all one word, sounds kind of

weird. Allowances are made if you want

to put together brief adjectives.

However, bluea is a perfectly normal way

to say blueeyed. When the root class of

the main morphe is a verb, there are

more possibilities. The previous

morphing could be a noun, adjective

indicating a result, or even an adverb,

particularly if it's a preposition or

prefix.

Espiranto has a number of prefixes and

suffixes which can be used to generate

new vocabulary. Despite their name,

these morphes can be used independently

as separate words, and most are part of

a root class. What makes them distinct

is that they may slightly diverge from

the usual rules of compounding. But for

this video, we don't need to worry about

that. I've already talked about these

three suffixes. So for these, I'm just

going to add that a can be added to

roots in the noun root class to get a

word for something that is usually

produced from that thing. This is

largely decided by common usage. For

example, when aou is added to words for

animals, the resulting word typically

refers to their meat. The ad suffix can

be used in words that are marked as

verbs to indicate that the action goes

on for a while. There are many other

affixes, of course, but I won't talk

about all of them, just the most common

and useful ones. We'll start with the

two verbal suffixes, igy and eg, just to

get them out the way because while

they're among the most useful, they're

the most complex in my opinion. The

basic definition unifying all the ways

in which egi is used is to cause and for

egi it's to become. That's all you

really need to know. But let's get into

the details.

When egi is appended to noun or

adjective roots the resulting word means

to cause to be the thing. For example,

bona becomes bonigi to cause to be good.

Simpla simple becomes simple to

simplify. Urb city becomes urbigi to

urbanize. Sometimes these words may be

used figuratively. For example, Claude

Peron translates renabigi as to restore

a boy's soul rather than to literally

turn someone into a boy. When igy is

used for verbs, the result means to

cause the verb to occur. When the

original verb is intransitive, the

object of the new verb is just the

subject of the original verb. For

example, midas means I sit. VCAS

means you make me sit or you cause me to

sit something like that. When the

original verb is transitive, the object

of the new verb can be either the

subject or the object of the original

verb at your option. For example,

and

are both valid ways of saying that

reminds me of my childhood with the

prepositions clarifying which is which.

When there's no prepositions, context is

used to determine what's going on. Words

created with a egi suffix tend to be

more than the sum of their parts. For

example, mjigi is usually interpreted as

to feed, not simply as to cause eating.

If you want to make sure you're

understood literally, consider keeping

egi separate. This is also useful for

avoiding the ambiguity I mentioned

earlier. The eg suffix is very similar

to the egi suffix. For noun and

adjective roots, it's basically the same

thing as egi except with the meaning of

to become rather than to cause. For verb

roots that are transitive, egi has the

effect of rendering them intransitive,

which is similar to a passive. So for

example, gray means to create something.

Grai means to be created. There are also

some words which may take on different

meanings with eg, but I can only think

of these two. Finally, as always, we can

change the part of speech ending in

words created from egi, egi, or any

other suffix to create additional words.

Hopefully, I didn't lose you. The rest

of the prefixes and suffixes are much

more straightforward.

The ano suffix refers to a member of

something. Urb becomes urbano, a

resident of a city. The aro suffix

refers to a collection of something.

Arbo, tree becomes arbaro, forest. Shipo

becomes shiparo a fleet. Sometimes this

collection is inclusive of all instances

of the thing. This too is decided by

common usage. Homo human becomes laaro

humanity and the vorto word becomes

vortar dictionary. The aosuffix is used

to refer to a place that's designed or

known for a particular purpose or

characteristic. MO can mean anything

from a cafeteria to a restaurant and leo

means school.

The erosuffix is used to talk about a

small or smallest part of something.

From nejo snow, you get negero,

snowflake. From pano, bread, you get

panero, breadcrumb. And from vorto, you

get vorto, morpham. The estro suffix is

used to refer to a leader of something.

Sheestro is the captain of a ship.

Orbestro is the mayor of a city. Lestro

is a school's principal.

The eido suffix is used for offspring.

From hundo and kato, dog and cat, we get

hundo and katido, puppy and kitten. From

Latina, the Latin language, we get

latinido, a romance language. The ilo

suffix is used to talk about tools or

other means to do something. Rapido

could mean accelerator and mangilo can

be any eating utensil just aso can mean

any writing utensil. Some words like

schlloilo for key and flugilo for wing

are lexicalized. The ever controversial

eno suffix can be used to create female

counterparts to male words. It is

sometimes used together with the

unofficial suffix each. The use of in is

only mandatory for certain words that

are defined as male in the fundamentally

kinship terms. And for all suffixes for

humans mentioned in this video, it is

optional. The eastto suffix is used to

talk about someone who spends a lot of

time with something especially if they

do so professionally. It can also refer

to adherence of certain ideas. Guratisto

means shut up. Guratisto means doctor

and linguistto means well linguist. The

ismo suffix is used for doctrines as

with English ism. The uyo suffix is used

for containers. Malvaruo means fridge.

Monuo means wallet. It's also used to

form country names from roots that refer

to ethnic groups. From Anglo, an English

person, we get anglio, England.

The olo suffix is a general suffix for

people. Bonulo is a good person, for

example. In biology, it can also be used

for organisms in general. The espiranto

word for mammal is mamulo. As a

standalone word, ulo has the same vibe

as the English word guy or dude. The

emma suffix indicates habits and

tendencies. Mangi becomes manga which

describes someone who eats a lot. Mgemo

is the word for the tendency itself.

From the word can mean creative. The

enda suffix forms adjectives that

describe things that need to have

something done to them. If you need to

learn something for a test, it's or

your dirty laundry is lavenda. So get on

it. The edla suffix forms adjectives

that describe things that can have a

particular action done to them. Anji

becomes mangla edible. It is only used

for possibility. So from memory to

remember. The word memora means

memorable in the sense of literally

being possible to remember. For the

other sense of the word, you want the

inda suffix which forms adjectives that

describe things that are worthy of

receiving a certain action. This lets

you form memorinda memorable in the

usual sense or manginda which might be

used to describe really good food.

There's also the augmentative suffix

egg. the dimminative suffix at, and I

saved the best for last. The a suffix,

which specifies that you think a thing

is crap. The most well-known prefix is

probably mal, which can be used to

generate opposites. Bona, good becomes

mala, bad. Simpla, simple, becomes mala,

complicated. V, warm, becomes malvarma,

cool. There's also a couple more

prefixes, which I'll just flash on

screen.

From the word building system, we get

some nifty patterns. One of them emerges

from the ability to glue a preposition

in a root to create adjectives. The

phrase enla,

one word, means domestic in the sense of

a country. Seno means without joy, but

sena means joyless. You can then add igi

and egi as you please to these

adjectives. Senigi means to take

someone's joy away.

Means deforestation.

Eniji means to get into bed. Enuigi

means to put in a container. Senorajigi

means to discourage. El doigi means to

get something out of a house.

Means to land on the ground. And sigisto

means influencer.

Do note that there is some room for

ambiguity with these in situations where

you have a lot of affixes glued together

or when a preposition is used for

multiple things. There's also ble xiggy

which means to cause something to be

more of something. Bleoni means to

improve something. Bleigi means to make

someone happier. Bleigi on its own means

to increase. These words differ from

just bonigi and felichi in that they

don't necessarily indicate that the

thing is being made good or happy. just

better or happier than before. There's

also some exano which means member of

the same thing. Sam urbanoi are people

who live in the same city. Sam reiganoi

are people who believe in the same

religion. Some kuranoi are classmates

and some idanoi are like-minded people.

Hopefully this video gave you a good

look at how the espirano word building

system [music] works and how powerful it

can be. That's all.

>> [music]

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>> Heat. Heat.

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