CORRESPONDENCE NOTES.
The suggestion in No. 8 has already borne good fruit, and a weekly meeting has been arranged every Monday at 6 p.m. at The Club Café, 5, Bishopsgate Street Within, E.C. During tea conversation in Esperanto is compulsory, but after the meal is over discussions on various topics take place in English. All members of the London Esperanto Club and their friends are cordially invited to put in an appearance when possible, and any foreign friends will of course be especially welcome.
Another meeting has also been arranged for the first Thursday in every month. This is exclusively for annual subscribers to The Esperantist. The Editor will be at the before-mentioned Café from 6–7 p.m., after which hour the Remington Typewriter firm hard by has kindly placed a room at his disposal. Will readers please come every first Thursday, with their proposals for the improvement of this Gazette?
As has been announced elsewhere, a short three-day visit to Havre, at the invitation of the Group there, is being arranged by the London Esperanto Club for all members who can join. Will these kindly send their names to C. W. T. Reeve, Esq., 63, Effingham Road, Lee, Kent? There should be as little delay as possible, so that arrangements may be made with the L. & S.W. Railway Co. as to special facilities, etc. It is expected that, encouraged by the most cordial reception accorded by our Boulogne friends at Whitsuntide, a large number of members will make use of this opportunity for improving their conversational powers with foreign friends.
The use of Sia and Lia puzzled one of our Correspondents. "Is it essential or only optional to use Sia when it refers to the subject of the sentence?" he asks. Sia must be used in such a case instead of Lia, unless, as happens once in a lifetime, ambiguity might arise from such a course, in which case lia, ŝia, etc., must be used instead.
The fact that double letters only exist in Esperanto when two roots, the one ending and the other beginning with the same letter, are compounded (such as hommano) is frequently overlooked, and orthographical mistakes result. This rule is not mentioned in the Text-Books at present in use, and hence, no doubt, the frequency of such mistakes.
R.’s Epitome has proved a help to several students, and the author has kindly sent another rhyme, which, we hope, may have a similar result.
EG, when ending any word, shows a high degree.
Final ET, to birdo (bird), means a little B.
EDZ is married, GE means both. BO prefixed, in law.
ESTR master; member AN; IST a professor.
EK just starts; and AD goes on; RE repeats; again
ILO tool, and EJO where; INGO holder; then
ERO, one of; ARO lot; females all have IN;
UJ contains; ID the young; ULO greatest seen.
IĜ becoming; causing IG; DIS just separates;
ECO, abstract; AĴO, work; MAL always negates.
EBLA possibility; INDA worthiness.
EMA shows propensity; adjectives I guess.
(H.W.R., Ipswich).
The order in which the suffixes should be added is logically arranged. Take, for example, the word Infan-in-eto. Infanetino is not correct, because the -et is added to give the diminutive. Infanino, a little girl, Infanineto, a tiny little girl.
Similarly, in other cases, when two affixes are used in one word it is easy to decide which has precedence.
Who was the first Englishman to learn Esperanto? We invite correspondence on this interesting point. At the moment it seems that the distinction belongs to H. L’Estrange Ewen, Esq., whose number is 3010, and who, a short time since, wrote us a letter using the old style of writing, i.e., accents inverted, as in Bohemian, e.g., č, not ĉ.
Pronunciation still presents occasional difficulties to our country readers. The last query to hand deals with the sound of aĵ. This must be pronounced ahzh.
To those Correspondents who have asked: Which is the best way to learn to speak Esperanto, we recommend them to talk at first to the door, or any other inanimate object at hand.
Thus Reading aloud (or, better still, Declaiming) is one of the best exercises, and is a very great help to the rapid mastery of the spoken language. When you have waded through the Fundamenta Krestomatio in this manner, and have spent a few days with Samideanoj who do not understand English, you should speak Esperanto like a native!