Trying to Understand Esperanto Grammar at Conversation Speed
I’ve started taking notes about things that I don’t understand in Esperanto. Last night, I was reading from a book called Fremdvortoj en Esperanto and came across a strange sentence that is a good example of my current hurdle in Esperanto. I’m trying to figure out how I can speed up this aspect of learning the language. Here is the sentence:
Necesas nur montri la danĝeran influon de la neraciaj, anarkie kreiĝintaj malnovaj lingvoj.
In the sentence above, it looks like an adjective (kreiĝintaj) has a tense, and that an adverb (anarkie) modifies the adjective. It is difficult for me to process the sentence structure without thinking about it for a while. I don’t understand the logic enough to create a sentence like that.
Quick Esperanto Background
If you aren’t familiar with Esperanto, you still might be able to understand the sentence with just these few grammar rules:
- all nouns end with -o
- all verb infinitives end with -i
- all adverbs end with -e
- all adjectives end with -a
- to make a plural, add -j to the noun and adjective
- the direct object and its adjectives get an -n suffix
Verb conjugations are very simple:
- past tense: -is
- present tense: -as
- future tense: -os
To express continuous action, you can also use these suffixes with any type of word:
- past tense: -int-
- present tense: -ant-
- future tense: -ont-
So if komenc- is the root for “begin”, then a beginner is komenc-ant-o — someone (-o) who is in the process (-ant-) of beginning (komenc-).
Verbs are either transitive or intransitive and you can switch them around.
- causes action to something else: -ig-
- acts on itself or becomes: -iĝ-
So if the root word for “create” is kre-, and the verb krei is transitive, then:
He created a picture. [“created” is transitive — krei]
Li kreis bildon.
A picture was created. [“created” is intransitive — kreiĝi]
This suffix, -iĝ-, appears in the word, kreiĝintaj.
There are more examples of how in/transitive verbs work in Esperanto here.
Analyzing the Sentence
Here is a breakdown of the sentence that shows where I am confused:
- Necesas nur montri — [it is] necessary only to show
- la danĝeran influon — the dangerous influence
- de la — of the
- neraciaj — irrational (adjective)
- anarkie — anarch-ly? (this is an adverb, but it seems to modify the adjective, kreiĝintaj and not the verb, montri)
- kreiĝintaj — kre-iĝ-int-a-j (“became created”)
- malnovaj lingvoj — old languages
I think that I understand the meaning of the sentence, but I don’t understand the grammar enough to create a sentence with that structure. Why isn’t anarkie written as an adjective? Why is “created” written kreiĝintaj and not kreiĝa or even kreiĝantaj? I understand it a bit, but am missing something when it comes to forming sentences in this style.
For the moment, I will keep immersing myself in written and spoken Esperanto until it sinks in or I figure out a quicker way to understand it. 🙂
I’m spending about two hours per day on Esperanto at the moment: podcasts, reading, and Anki flashcards. I’ll continue to post updates about it here in the blog.