The Fairmont West Virginian. (Fairmont, W. Va.) 1904-1914, 1906-10-06

HIS next concern was the yoes1u:
Eias for Il IS the great number 81
roots tie vast variety ~ words. thas
puzzles most the students ot q for;
eign language. AS d case in point,
take the expressions we have in Eng:
lish to set forth the ideas suggested
| by the one conception Of death; dead,
deadly, to die, mortal, to kill, to muir
der, suicide, to commit homicide, NOR
tally, etc. Zamenhof rid himself Of
this great number Of roots by select.
ing one and by means Of a system
OF prehxes and suf1xes he made the
one root serve for all others. He thus
compiled a dictionary Of two thous..
and roots selected from the widest
known languages and they are SO wise.
~ and judiciously chosen that the
Esperanto vocabulary Is sufficiently
extensive for every purpose and its
appearance seems familiar to peoplA
Of every nationality. The employment
Of the prehxes. which number only
half dozen and the sufixes, Of which
there are thirty.two. in conjunction
with these roots enables the student
to extend his vocabulary to the point
that the most delicate shades Of mean.
ing may be expressed. It follows,
therefore, that Esperanto has the ad'
vantage over any other language in
the facility with which Its construc'
ton admits of the forming Of new
words; and in this lies its greatest
charm. n
Professor j. l.. Borgerhotf. of the
Western Reserve University Cleve.
land, Ohio, in a recent communication
on a recent construction Of Esperanto
to the editor of the Atlanta Constltu.
ton, explains briefly and lucidly the
mechanical working OF the device for
forming words. He says: ITO take
the word "death" for example-the
key word is Mort" remembering
that in Esperanto all nouns end in o,
all adjectives in A, adverbs in E, in
finitives III /; that contraries are form
ed by preHxing mall" that the prefix
"sen" means without; that the sufix
"ant" marks the agent Correspond
ing to the English "ingD, and that
the suffix zig" means to cause, we get
the above root: morto, death; morta,
mortal; morti, to die; morte, mortal;
ly; mortano, the dying man; mortanta,
dying; morti, to cause death or kill;
nortlgo, murder; mortiganto, murder
er; mortigi, death dealing; malmor.
ia, living; senmorta, immortal; sen
morto, Immortality, etc.
The contugation of verbs, which is
the great stumbling block in the study
of all languages presents no difficulty
whatever in Esperanto. In the first
place there are no irregular verbs;
secondly, there is only one ending
for each tense; thirdly, the number
Of lenses is reduced to minimum,
mainly past, present, future, and con-
ditionally.
The infnitive OF all verbs ends in
at" the present always in CAS-" the
past always in u.s." the conditional
ly always in "Us;" these endings are
the same In the singular and the plur.
al.
Professor Borgerhoff pronounces
Esperanto the easiest to learn of all.
languages and says that a student
should be able to speak it fuently af-
ter two months study. The navy de.
partment OF the United States has, but
recently, ordered the study Of Esper.
anto to be placed in the curriculum
of the United States Naval Academy
at Annapolis, thus recognizing its val
ue as an adjunct to thorough naval
education,