Re: New Proposed Xconq Web Site Online

[Jim Kingdon <kingdon at panix dot com>]

> Esperanto appears to be a declined and conjugated language, like
> Latin.

Only a little bit.  There are only 2 cases (subject and object),
compared with 6 (I think) for Latin, 4 for German.

And there are only 3 tenses (past, present, future), compared with
many more for romance languages.

There is no gramatical gender.

> The "j" endings are interesting; perhaps borrowed from a Slavic
> language?

Not sure where that comes from, but I have a vague recollection of
other languages which form plurals by adding "y" (or "j", but it is
the sound that would be spelled "y" in English).  Italian changes the
last vowel...

> The root "lud" is probably "game" as it is in Latin, though it appears
> to be used as a verb as well,

Yup.  Many roots can be used as multiple parts of speech by just
varying the ending.  Like English but more so.

> "Milit" is probably a root dealing with soldier or military; similar
> to Latin. "la" is probably "the". "kongreso" is a coming together, a
> congress, a gathering, most likely. "Diplomatio" -> "Diplomacy".

Yup.  In this context, "kongreso" means an Esperanto conference.

Here is the list of endings:

-a adjective
-o noun
-e adverb
-i verb (infinitive)
-is verb, past tense
-as verb, present tense
-os verb, future tense
-u verb, imperative
-j plural
-n accusative (object) case; can be combined with -a, -o, -j, etc.

> I guess I am going to have to drop in on some Esperanto 
> conversations; solving linguistic puzzles is fun.

There's always http://www.lernu.net/ (but that's only for people who
read manuals - the Real Hacker(TM) will want to skip right to the
grammar book written in Esperanto - http://purl.oclc.org/NET/pmeg )

> Now we will have to see if any Klingon speakers want 
> representation as well.

Klingon speakers do not *want* representation; Kling speakers *demand*
representation.