International Language, Past, Present & Future / With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar

by Walter John Clark

of a few pages, it can be easily carried in the pocket-book or waistcoat pocket.

Thus, while to the educated person of Aryan speech Esperanto presents the natural appearance of an ordinary inflected language, one who belongs by speech to another lingual family, or any one who has never heard of Esperanto, can regard every inflected word as a compound of invariable elements. By turning over very few pages he can determine the meaning and use of each element, and therefore, by putting them together, he can arrive at the sense of the compound word, e.g. lav'ist'in'o. Look out lav-, and you find "wash"; look out -ist, and you find it expresses the person who does an action; look out -in, and you find it expresses the feminine; look out -o, and you find it denotes a noun. Put the whole together, and you get "female who does washing, laundress."

Suppose you are going on an ocean voyage, and you expect to be shut up for weeks in a ship with persons of many nationalities. You take with you keys to Esperanto, price one halfpenny each, in various languages. You wish to tackle a Russian. Write your Esperanto sentence clearly and put the paper in his hand. At the same time hand him a Russian key to Esperanto, pointing to the following paragraph (in Russian) on the outside:

"Everything written in the international language can be translated by the help of this vocabulary. If several words together express but a single idea, they are written in one word, but separated by apostrophes; e.g. frat'in'o, though a single idea, is yet composed of three words, which must be looked for separately in the vocabulary."

After he has got over his shock of surprise, your Russian, if a man of ordinary education, will make out your sentence in a very short time by using the key.

As an example Dr. Zamenhof gives the following sentence: "Mi ne sci'as kie mi las'is la baston'o'n: Ĉu vi ĝi'n ne vid'is?"
With the vocabulary this sentence will work out as follows:

Mi		mi = I		I
ne		ne = not		not
sci'as		sci = know		do know
		as = sign of present tense
kie		kie = where		where
mi		mi = I		I
las'is		las = leave		have left
		is = sign of past tense
la		la = the		the
baston'o'n		baston = stick		stick
		o = sign of a noun
		n = sign of objective case
ĉu		ĉu = whether, sign of question		whether
vi		vi = you		you
ĝi'n		ĝi = it		it
		n = sign of objective case
ne		ne = not		not
vid'is		vid = leave		have seen
		is = sign of past tense

It is obvious that no natural language can be used in the same way as a code to be deciphered with a small key.

German			French
Ich	I		je	I
weiss	white		ne	not
nicht	not		sais	?
wo	where		pas	step
ich	I		où	where
den	?		j'ai	?
Stock	stick		laissé	?
gelassen	dispassionate		la	the
habe:	property:		canne:	reed:
haben	to have		ne	not
Sie	she, they, you,		l'avez	?
ihn	?		vous	you
nicht	not		pas	step
gesehen	?		vu?	?