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Punctuation, capitalization, etc.

Capitalization is done in a few different styles.  The simplest set of rules (the one I use) is to capitalize proper nouns and the first word (of a sentence, title, headline, what-have-you).  This means no capitalization of personal titles, days of the week, months of the year, holidays, peoples, or adjectives derived from proper nouns:

• sinjoro = Mr.
• lundo = Monday
• februaro = February
• kristnasko = Christmas
• franco = Frenchman
• hispana = Spanish
• ŝekspira = Shakespearian

Some people go a little further, and consider the names of peoples to be proper nouns (Germano, a German) and capitalize them, and also words derived from proper nouns (Kanada, Canadian).  Some capitalize the names of days and months, or the names of holidays.  No one uses the German method of capitalizing all nouns.

Some people capitalize second-person pronouns out of politeness, especially in letters, and sometimes in newsgroup posts and on WWW pages.  Often, pronouns (Mi, Ni, Li, Vi), and any other words (la Eternulo, the Eternal One; la Sinjoro, the LORD; etc.) are capitalized when they refer to God.

A title would be capitalized when it is used in place of a name, so we would write la Papo (the Pope), but papo Johano Paŭlo 2-a (Pope John Paul II).

Abbreviations use hyphens instead of apostrophes or periods, for the most part:

• s−ro = sinjoro, Mr.
• s−ino = sinjorino, Mrs.
• ges−oj = gesinjoroj, Mr. & Mrs.
• f−ino = fraŭlino, Miss
• prof−o = profesoro, Professor
• d−ro = doktoro, Doctor
• E−o = Esperanto, but often just eo, the ISO form

Quotation marks are up to the individual Esperantujan; some use „German“ quotes, some use ‘English’ ones, some use “American”, some use — Spanish —, some use »Swedish», and some use «French» ones.  I am one of those who use French quotes, because I like the way they look.

Sentence punctuation is generally as in English, with a couple of exceptions.

Some people put a space (a typographically small one, if possible) before colons, semicolons, question marks, and exclamation points, because this is the custom in their national languages:

• Ĉu vi parolas esperante ?  En space, probably not displayable
• Ĉu vi parolas esperante ?  Thin space, probably not displayable
• Ĉu vi parolas esperante ?  Non-breaking space, probably too big
• Ĉu vi parolas esperante?  No space, the most common style

Subordinate clauses are always set off with commas, as in German and many eastern European languages.  This means that Esperanto does not have available to it the rule which in English says that you set off relative clauses with commas when they add additional, but not essential, information, but do not set them off when they add additional specifications:

• The boys, who have blue shirts, are from Springfield High.
  • The boys have blue shirts, and are from Springfield High.
• The boys who have blue shirts are from Springfield High.
  • Some boys have blue shirts; those are from Springfield High.

Since Esperanto always uses commas with subordinate clauses, these two meanings would be expressed with a subordinate clause in the first case, and a participle in the second, like this:

• La knaboj, kiuj portas bluajn ĉemizojn, estas de Gimnazio Fontkampa
  • The boys, who are wearing blue shirts, are from Springfield High
• La knaboj portantaj bluajn ĉemizojn estas de Gimnazio Fontkampa
  • The boys wearing blue shirts are from Springfield High

People write dates in the ISO form, YYYYMMDD, or the day-month-year form, but instead of using the number of the month, they abbreviate using the first three letters, or spell it out in full:

• januaro
• februaro
• marto
• aprilo
• majo
• junio
• julio
• aŭgusto
• septembro
• oktobro
• novembro
• decembro

Here are the days of the week, from Sunday to Saturday:

• dimanĉo
• lundo
• mardo
• merkredo
• ĵaŭdo
• vendredo
• sabato

Here are the seasons:

• printempo — spring
• somero — summer
• aŭtuno — autumn
• vintro — winter

Today’s date could be written as

• 20010101
• lundo, la 1-a de januaro 2001
• 1 januaro 2001
• (lun) 1 jan 2001

space	1 234 567,890
apostrophe	1’234’567,890
middle dot	1·234·567,890

Decimal fractions are written with a comma instead of a period, and numbers are separated into groups of three digits with spaces (or sometimes apostrophes or middle dots) instead of commas

One-half kilometer	0,5 km
Quarter dollar (US)	$0,25
Half euro	€0,50

Decimal numbers less than one are always given with a leading zero, followed by the comma and the decimal digits.

Measurements are always given in metric, and temperatures in Celsius. Time is always given in 24-hour mode: 0000 for midnight, 0600 for 6:00 AM, 1200 for noon, 1800 for 6:00 PM.

Esperanto Numbers
Number	Name
0	nul
1	unu
2	du
3	tri
4	kvar
5	kvin
6	ses
7	sep
8	ok
9	naŭ
10	dek
100	cent
1000	mil

Names for numbers zero through nine are given in the table to the right. Multiples of ten and one hundred are given by prefixing a digit-name du through naŭ to dek or cent. So “245” is ducent kvardek kvin. This will name any three-digit whole number.

For multiples of one thousand, spell out the three-digit number of thousands, and then add the word mil. Follow this by spelling out the last three digits of the number, if they are not all zero. This will name any six-digit whole number.

Numbers with seven or more digits are spelled out in groups of six digits, followed by the name of the appropriate power of a million from the −iliono table below. Note that if the number is one, do not spell it out. If the number is more than one, the name of the power is in the plural form. So “1 000 000” is miliono, and “2 000 000” is du milionoj. This will name any whole number up to six million digits long.

Decimal fractions are spelled out one digit at a time with the words nul through naŭ, so “10,215” is dek komo du unu kvin, and “0,203” is nul komo du nul tri.

Examples:

Type a whole number less than one hundred trillion in the box below, and press the  ENTER  key: