Page:Esperanto (The Universal Language).djvu/20

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

16

ĉu ĉu = whether, if, whether
employed in ques-
tions
vi vi = you, thou you
ĝin ĝi = it, this it
n = sign of the objective
case
ne ne = not not
vid'is? vid = see have seen?
is = sign of the past tense

And thus the Englishman will easily understand what it is I desire. If he wishes to reply, I show him an English-International vocabulary, on which are printed these words:—" To express anything by means of this vocabulary, in the international language, look for the words required in the vocabulary itself; and for the terminations necessary to distinguish the grammatical forms look in the grammatical appendix, under the respective headings of the parts of speech which you desire to express." Since the explanation of the whole grammatical structure of the language is comprised in a few lines—as a glance at the grammar will show—the finding of the required terminations occupies no longer time than the turning up a word in the dictionary.

I would now direct the attention of my readers to another matter, at first sight a trifling one, but, in truth, of immense importance. Everyone knows the impossibility of communicating intelligibly with a foreigner by the aid of even the best of dictionaries, if one have no previous acquaintance with the language. In order to find any given word in a dictionary, we must know its derivation, for when words are arranged in sentences, nearly every one of them undergoes some grammatical change. After this alteration, a word often bears not the least