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Vocabulary of Esperanto

The words of Esperanto come mainly from Latin and Greek, just as most fancy English words do.  Thus, most of its words will look at least a little bit familiar to you.  It does tend to respell many words, though, using its six modified letters.

Esperanto generally does not have doubled consonants, so the word for “address” is adreso.  Where doubled consonants do appear, it is generally in a compound word, where the second part begins with the same letter that the first part ends with.  When this happens, be sure to pronounce both letters.  The Esperanto name for Poland is Pollando, because it is a compound of pol− (Pole) and lando (country), thus, “the land of the Poles”.  It's pronounced something like “pole-LON-doe”.  Be careful not to pronounce it as “poe-LON-doe”.

Even trickier is pronouncing Finnlando, the land of the Finns, and getting in both Ns.  If you pronounce only one of them, you get Finlando, the land at the end.  The way to do this is to pronounce the second N almost as an extra syllable, as though it were Japanese.

Latin	Example	Esperanto
C	centrum	C (centro)
	cors	K (koro)
QU	quattour	KV (kvar)
X	ex−	KS (eks−)
	exemplum	KZ (ekzemplo)

Latin words are brought into Esperanto with generally only the ending of the word changed, and with a few spelling differences.  Note that a Latin C can become either C or K in Esperanto, depending on how it's pronounced.  Doubled consonents are made single, though, even when other languages keep them doubled for etymological reasons.

Greek	English	Esperanto
Θ	th (thermo−)	t (termo−)
Κ	c (cyclo−)	c (ciklo−)
	k (krypto−)	k (kripto−)
Ξ	x (xylo−)	ks (ksilo−)
Υ	u (Ulysses)	u (Uliso)
	u (leuco−)	ŭ (leŭko−)
	y (hyper−)	i (hiper−)
Φ	ph (phono−)	f (fono−)
Χ	ch (chaos)	ĥ (ĥaoso)
	k (kilo)	k (kilo)
Ψ	ps (psyche)	ps (psiĥo)

This table shows some of the most common transliterations from Greek to both English and Esperanto, with examples.

When Greek words are brought into English, they are rather uniformly transliterated into certain letters (with variations for various pronunciations of the Greek).  The same is true for Esperanto, but the specific transliterations are different.  Sometimes, some distinctions are lost in Esperanto that are preserved in English (such as TAU and THETA both becoming a T), but this is not a problem.

Note also that supposedly difficult combinations of consonants in Greek are preserved in Esperanto, and pronounced as written, even though English usually makes the first letter silent, so gnomono (gnomon), psiĥo (psyche), and pneŭmatiko (pneumatics) can take some practice.

Many words just plain come from English, for no immediately apparent reason, such as birdo (bird).  With this word, the reason is that the obvious Latinate word would be avo, from “avis”, but that word already exists, borrowed from “avus” (grandfather).

One of the most interesting features of Esperanto vocabulary is the ability to collapse it in upon itself, so that fewer words are necessary to name the same items that (for example) English does.  Consider the following table.  Look what the use of affixes can do with just five basic words, bovo (cow or bull), ŝafo (sheep), porko (pig), koko (chicken), and ĉevalo (horse).  Note that the suffixes (beginning and ending with a hyphen) go just before the last −O of the word.

affix	meaning	examples
(none)	(basic word)	bovo ox	ŝafo sheep	porko pig	koko chicken	ĉevalo horse
vir−	male	virbovo bull	virŝafo ram	virporko boar	virkoko rooster	virĉevalo stallion
−in−	female	bovino cow	ŝafino ewe	porkino sow	kokino hen	ĉevalino mare
−id−	offspring	bovido calf	ŝafido lamb	porkido piglet	kokido chick	ĉevalido colt
−ar−	collection	bovaro herd	ŝafaro flock	porkaro herd	kokaro flock	ĉevalaro herd
−ej−	place	bovejo pasture	ŝafejo fold	porkejo sty	kokejo chickenyard	ĉevalejo corral
−aĵ−	substance	bovaĵo beef	ŝafaĵo mutton	porkaĵo pork	kokaĵo chicken (meat)	ĉevalaĵo horse meat
−ist−	occupation	bovisto rancher	ŝafisto shepherd	porkisto swineherd	kokisto chicken rancher	ĉevalisto cowboy

Many words are compounded from other words.  The word jaro (year) can have the words dek (ten), cent (hundred), and mil (thousand) appended as suffixes to form jardeko, jarcento, and jarmilo (decade, century, and millennium, very similar to German “Jahrzehn”, “Jahrhundert”, and “Jahrtausend”).  The same procedure applied to bito (a bit of computer memory) and the number ok (eight) gives bitoko (a byte of memory), making the form used by some, bajto, unnecessary.

Basic Word		Opposite
alta	high	malalta	low
bona	good	malbona	bad, evil
saĝa	wise	malsaĝa	foolish
longa	long	mallonga	short
amiko	friend	malamiko	enemy
fermi	to close	malfermi	to open

While there are a few basic antonyms in Esperanto, most words that are opposites have only one root between them, with one having the prefix mal− (“opposite”).  This cuts down immensely on the number of roots needed in the vocabulary.

Lack of Unnecessary Synonyms

Esperanto	English
la brita parlamento	the British Parliament
la usona parlamento	the United States Congress
la arizona parlamento	the Arizona State Legislature
la japana parlamento	the Imperial Japanese Diet
la islanda parlamento	the Icelandic Alþing

Another way of compacting the vocabulary is to use one word in multiple contexts with the same meaning, rather than a separate word for each context.  For example, the Esperanto word parlamento refers to any legislative body, and can have various translations in English, depending on which one is referred to.

There is an unfortunate tendency among some people to make new Esperanto words by adding new roots (basic words) to the vocabulary, such as komputero or komputoro for “computer”, instead of building the necessary words from preëxisting parts.  For example, from komputi (to compute) we get komputilo (computer) with the suffix −il−, used for naming tools.

Now this does not mean that komputero and komputoro can’t be genuine Esperanto words, derived from komputi; they can be.  But their meanings are something other than “computer”.  The suffix −er− means “a unit, component part”, so komputero would mean “a unit of computation”, that is, a step in the process, or a calculation.  The root −or− is the basic part of the word oro (gold), so komputoro might mean the gold (money) paid to have something computed.

base word	with −in− suffix
edzo husband	edzino wife
filo son	filino daughter
nepo grandson	nepino granddaughter
patro father	patrino mother
avo grandfather	avino grandmother
onklo uncle	onklino aunt
nevo nephew	nevino neice
kuzo [male] cousin	kuzino [female] cousin

Basic words for family relationships are grammatically masculine, and have a derived feminine form.

Additional family relationships are formed with prefixes. These can all take the −in− suffix to form the female equivalent.

base word	with bo−	with vic−	with pra−
patro	bopatro father−in−law	vicpatro stepfather	prapatro forefather
avo	boavo grandfather−in−law	vicavo step−grandfather	praavo great−grandfather
filo	bofilo son−in−law	vicfilo stepson	prafilo descentant
nepo	bonepo grandson−in−law	vicnepo step−grandson	pranepo great−grandson
frato	bofrato brother−in−law	vicfrato stepbrother	—

Masculine

Very few words are inherently masculine. Mainly, they consist of the words for family relationships (as above). Other than this, viro means “man”, and the feminine, virino, means “woman”; knabo means “boy” and knabino means “girl” (but infano means “child, of either sex”); and sinjoro means “lord/Mister”, and sinjorino means “lady/Mrs”.  All of these masculine words can take the prefix ge−, meaning “both sexes togehter”, such as gepatroj, “parents”, geonkloj, “uncle and aunt”, gekuzoj, “cousins (of both sexes)”, gesinjoroj, “Mr & Mrs”, etc.

Sex-neutral

Earlier, some other words like amiko, “friend”, were considered masculine as well, but now most Esperantists use the word to mean “friend, of either sex”.  The word amikino is still used, to mean “female friend”, and viramiko means “(specifically male) friend”.  In the plural, amikoj means “friends (of either sex, or of both sexes)”, and geamikoj means “friends, of specifically both sexes”.

Some words that name animals were originally masculine, such as bovo for “bull” and koko for “cock” or “rooster”, but now these words refer to either sex of animal, and you would use the prefix vir– to name a specifically male animal.

Feminine

ino	a female, woman
damo	lady, dame
matrono	matron, mature woman
primadono	prima donna (principal female singer in an opera)
amazono	amazon (female warrior)
furio	Fury (female avenging deity in Greek mythology)
nimfo	nymph (female water-forest-mountain spirit)
sukubo	succubus (sexual female demon)
sireno	siren (singing female demon)
megero	shrew, ill-tempered woman [cap] Megæra (one of the Furies)
putino	tart, whore
gejŝo	geisha
madono	madonna (Italian lady; Virgin Mary)
femalo	a female person or animal

These are virtually the only Esperanto words that are inherently feminine.  This table gives the literal definitions, but many of them are more often used figuratively or metaphorically, as in English.

The first, ino, “a female”, is derived from the feminizing suffix −in−.

The word damo, “lady, dame”, can also mean a “queen” in a deck of cards or a chess set, or (oddly enough) a “king” in checkers, but it would generally be considered grammatically neuter in these instances, since it refers to a thing rather than a person.

Another word, putino, appears to be the feminine form of puto.  If you try to back-form puto from the main word to get “male prostitute” or something similar, you’re on your own, and you’ll get no sympathy from the rest of Esperantujo, because this word already exists, and means “a well”.

Some words that seem like they should end with −eto end with −edo instead.  This is to keep them from being identical with other words, formed as compounds, so we have planedo (planet) instead of planeto (a little plan), and cigaredo (cigarette) instead of cigareto (a small cigar, though that is the actual etymology).

Some words simply have strange Esperanto etymologies.  Consider fraŭlino (Miss = unmarried woman) from Germain “Fräulein”.  Now drop the apparent feminizing suffix −in−, and you get fraŭlo (bachelor = unmarried man).

Some words are a puzzle.  The current theory on the word edzo is that it comes ultimately from Yiddish “rebbetzin” (wife of a rabbi).  Drop the first syllable and change the spelling a bit, and you get edzino (wife).  Again, omit the apparent feminizing suffix to get edzo (husband).

Questions or suggestions?  Please write, and I’ll get back to you.