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Esperanto Viva!Your third lesson - Via tria leciono |
We've reached lesson three, and we haven't said anything yet about the origins of Esperanto.
Esperanto began as the brainchild of Lazarus Ludovik Zamenhof, who lived in the town of Bialystok in Poland. The town was divided between Poles, Jews, Russians and Germans, who, of course, all spoke their own language. Young Lazarus would see bloody fighting in the streets as he looked out of his window.When he was older he went to a school in Warsaw, and made himself known as Ludovik, to hide his Jewishness for fear of discrimination. He studied languages, as well as sciences, and set to work on his Lingwe Uniwersale. He got a small group of school friends together to converse in the new tongue.
When he went to college, his father felt he was spending too much time on this language project, and burned all his papers. Very little now remains of this Pra-Esperanto, as it is now known. But Ludovik started again, and probably did a much better job second time around.
He published the first book on this new language in 1887 under the pseudonym Dr Esperanto (Esper-ant-o - one who hopes), the name which was very soon to be given to the language itself.
 | Dr L. L. Zamenhof |
There is a fascinating and very readable book on the life of Zamenhof. It is called Zamenhof - Creater of Esperanto, by Marjorie Boulton, republished by Esperanto-Asocio de Britio. There is also a cartoon-strip account in Esperanto, called Zamenhof bildrakonte. You may be able to get them from your national Esperanto society or from Universala Esperanto-Asocio.
So, now it's time to visit your first 'Universala Kongreso de Esperanto'. It's called a Universal congress, because it's open to all nationalities, and it's about all sorts of topics - and the only language used is Esperanto. It's held every year in a different country, usually attracting 2 - 3000 people from 50 - 60 countries.
You arrive per trajno [by train] at the stacidomo [literally: station house], or perhaps per au^tobuso [bus] at the au^tobusstacidomo, or perhaps per flugmas^ino [flug = fly] at the flughaveno [haveno = port]. With a bit of luck you meet a welcoming party, bearing a large verda stelo. Your conversation might go something like this:
| Saluton! - Saluton, sinjor(in)o! - Kie estas la Granda Hotelo? - La Granda Hotelo. Prenu [Take] au^tobuson numero [number] tridek [thirty] kaj petu Esperanto-straton [street, road] . - Dankon. |
Sinjoro is Sir or Mr. For Mr it is normally abbreviated to s-ro. Likewise, sinjorino is Madame, lady, or Mrs. The abbreviation for Mrs is s-rino. Granda simply means big.
Prenu has the -u ending, rather than the -as ending. It's the command form. Whenever you give a command you use the -u ending. You've already met petas [request], as in Mi petas. Well now you have met petu.
If you are young, you might have asked for the amaslog^ejo [literally: mass living-place]. This is cheap accommodation, often in a youth hostel. It's a good way of mixing with other young people.
You find other Esperantists at the log^ejo [accomodation]. Let's follow this conversation between Janko, from Sweden, and Ruixiang from China:
| Pardonu [Excuse me], sinjoro. C^u vi parolas [speak] Esperanton? - Jes, kompreneble [of course, literally: understandably]. Mi havas [have] verdan stelon. - Kie estas la kongresejo? - C^u vi havas mapon [map]? - Jes. - Promenu [walk] lau^ [along] Esperanto-strato, kaj g^i [it] estas tie [there]. - Dankon. - C^u vi iras [go] nun [now]? - Jes. - Do mi venos [will come] kun vi. |
You know that the wh- words in English are ki- words (like kie) in Esperanto. Well, the th- words in English (like there, that, those, then) are ti- words in Esperanto. Kie is where, so tie is there.
You reach the kongresejo, which you recognise by a huge banner saying Universala Kongreso de Esperanto, and a green flag with a verda stelo in one corner. You go in and ask:
| Pardonu, kie estas la akceptejo [reception]?
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Vi iras al [to] la akceptejo kaj ricevas [receive] viajn dokumentojn. Vi iras al la kafejo [kaf + ej + o] por ac^eti kafon kun via amik(in)o [friend]. Vi legas [read] viajn dokumentojn. Inter [among / between] viaj dokumentoj estas la Kongresa Libro [book]. La Kongresa Libro enhavas [en + hav + as] la programon por la semajno [week]. Ankau^ en la Kongresa Libro estas listo de kongresanoj [congress members]. Via amik(in)o demandas [asks] vin:
Via amik(in)o serc^as [
Kio [what] estas via kongres-numero? - Mia kongres-numero estas 1000
(mil)
Janko kaj Ruixiang en la kongresejo.
How are you getting on? Remember, you can always ask your tutor if there's anything you don't understand. I've tried to explain all the new words as we've come across them. If there's something in the grammatical endings that you don't understand, then do ask. But in the mean time, just practise reading out loud, and memorising snippets of conversation. It's really a matter of seeing the pattern, like young children do - they don't know about verbs, nouns and adjectives, but they do learn to talk!
I don't know if you realise it, but you've already met the future tense: I come or I am coming is Mi venas. I shall come is Mi venos. You can do this with any verb: "Mi iros al la kongresejo kaj trinkos tie kafon. Eble [perhaps] mi interparolos kun amiko", and so on.
You've already met the command form, ending in -u: "Venu al la kongresejo kaj trinku kafon kun mi. Parolu pri [about] via lando [country]", and so on.
Now's the time to introduce the past tense. In English this is often difficult. You have to teach young children: "It's not I goed; it's I went". In Esperanto it's easy: just add the ending -is. So it's "Mi iris al la kongresejo kaj trinkis tie kafon, kaj interparolis kun amiko el la sama [same] hotelo."
Did you notice por ac^eti, literally for to buy. In modern English you'd say to buy or in order to buy.
You may by this stage find that you keep having to look back to remember words.
| A good technique is to get a pocket notebook, and write the Esperanto words down the left side of each page, and the English words down the right side. Just writing them down helps you to remember them. Then when you're in the au^tobuso, or waiting for the trajno, or just in the waiting room of the dentisto, you can get your notebook out and remind yourself of the words. I used to do this meticulously, and it worked wonders. |
Let's talk now about expanding your vocabulary. Notice that you can make different words merely by changing the ending. For instance, you have met urbo [town]. Well, change this to an adjective and you have urba [urban]. Two words for the price of one! We have met the adjectives sama [same], verda [green], granda [big], bona [good]. We can turn them into nouns: samo [La samon al vi! - the same to you], verdo [La verdo de la herbo - the green colour of the grass], grando [size], and bono [goodness, benefit]. You say: La sama verdo kiel [as / how] la herbo. We can even turn bona vino to vina bono [vinuncular goodness]! Do you remember sanon [cheers / health]? Well, this comes from sana [healthy].
So try these exercises, and send them in to your tutor: