from German (nur, “only”), sometimes from English, the words being generally written more or less phonetically (rajt = right). Most of the Germanic words are badly chosen from the international point of view. Thus the German word quoted above would not be intelligible to any one ignorant of German. Indeed, from the international point of view all specially German words ought to be excluded, or else reduced to the common Germanic form; thus trink ought to be made into drink, the t being a specially German modification of the d, preserved not only in English but in all the remaining Germanic languages. This incongruous mixture of languages is not only jarring and repulsive, but adds greatly to the difficulty of mastering the vocabulary for the polyglot as well as the monolingual learner.
The inventor has taken great pains to reduce the number of his roots to a minimum; there are 2642 of them in his dictionary, the Universala Vortaro (from Ger. Wort, “word”), which does not include such international words as poezio, telefono; these the learner is supposed to recognize and form without help. The most eccentric feature of the vocabulary, and the one to which it owes much of its brevity, is the extensive use of the prefix mal- to reverse the meaning of a word, as in malamiko, “enemy,” and even malbona, “bad.”
The phonology of the language is very simple. The vowels are only five in number, a, e, i, o, u, used without any distinction of quantity, as in Russian. There are six diphthongs, expressed by an unnecessarily complicated notation. The consonant-system is simple enough in itself, but is greatly complicated in writing by the excessive and mostly unnecessary use made of diacritical letters not only for simple sounds but also for consonant-groups. c is used for ts, as in Polish.
The grammar is, like that of Volapük, partly borrowed from existing languages, partly a priori and arbitrary. The use of the final vowels belongs to the latter category. The use of -a to indicate adjectives and of -o to indicate nouns as in kara amiko, “dear (male) friend,” is a source of confusion to those familiar with the Romance languages, and has proved a bar to the diffusion of Esperanto among the speakers of these languages. On the other hand, the following paradigm will show how faithfully Esperanto can reproduce the defects of conventional European grammar:—
| Singular. | Plural. | |
| Nominative | la bona patro | la bonaj patroj |
| Accusative | la bonan patron | la bonajn patrojn |
It is difficult to see why the accusative should be kept when all the other cases are replaced by prepositions.
The verb is better than the noun. Its inflections are -as present, -is preterite, -os future, -us conditional, -u imperative and subjunctive, -i infinitive, together with the following participles:—
| Active. | Passive. | |
| Present | -anta | -ata |
| Preterite | -inta | -ita |
| Future | -onta | -ota |
The inventor has followed the good example of his native language in using esti, “to be,” as the auxiliary verb both in the passive, where it is combined with passive participles, and in the secondary tenses of the active (perfect, pluperfect, &c.), where it is of course combined with the active participles. The participles can be made into nouns and adverbs by changing the final -a into -o and -e respectively: thus tenonto, “the future holder,” perdinte, “through having lost.”
The table of the forty-five correlative pronouns, adjectives and adverbs is also elaborate and ingenious.
Much ingenuity is displayed in the syntax, as well as some happy simplifications. But, on the other hand, there is much in it that is fanciful, arbitrary and vague, as in the use of the definite article—where the author has unfortunately followed French rather than English usage—and in the moods of the verb.
The following specimens will show the general character of this easy-flowing but somewhat heavy and monotonous language—“bad Italian,” as it is called by its detractors:—
Patro nia, kiu estas en la ĉielo, sankta estu via nomo ; venu regeco via ; estu volo via, kiel en la ĉielo, tiel ankaŭ sur la tero. Panon nian ĉiutagan donu al ni hodiaŭ ; kaj pardonu al ni ŝuldojn niajn, kiel ni ankaŭ pardonas al niaj ŝuldantoj ; kaj ne konduku nin en tenton, sed liberigu nin de la malbono.
Estimata Sinjoro. Per tiu ĉi libreto mi havas la honoron prezenti al vi la lingvon internacian Esperanto. Esperanto tute ne havas la intencon malfortigi la lingvon naturan de ia popolo. Ĝi devas nur servi por la rilatoj internaciaj kaj por tiuj verkoj aŭ produktoj, kiuj interesas egale la tutan mondon.
In summing up the merits and defects of Esperanto we must begin by admitting that it is the most reasonable and practical artificial language that has yet appeared. Its inventor has had the double advantage of being able to profit by the mistakes of his predecessors, and of being himself, by force of circumstances, a better linguist. It must further be admitted that he has made as good a use of these advantages as was perhaps possible without systematic training in scientific philology in its widest sense. This last defect explains why the enthusiasm which his work has excited in the great world of linguistic dilettantes has not been shared by the philologists: in spite of its superiority to Volapük, they see in it the same radical defects. Whether they are rash or not in predicting for it a similar fate, remains to be seen. The Esperantists, warned by the fate of Volapük, have adopted the wise policy of suppressing all internal disunion by submitting to the dictatorship of the inventor, and so presenting a united front to the enemy. One thing is clear: either Esperanto must be taken as it is without change, or else it must crumble to pieces; its failure to work out consistently the principle of the maximum of internationality for its root-words is alone enough to condemn it as hopelessly antiquated even from the narrow point of view which regards “international” as synonymous with “European”—a view which political development in the Far East has made equally obsolete. (H. Sw.)
ESPINAY, TIMOLÉON D’ (1580–1644), French soldier, was
the eldest of the four sons of François d’Espinay, seigneur de
Saint Luc (1554–1597), and was himself marquis de Saint Luc.
In 1603 he accompanied Sully in his embassy to London. In
1622, in his capacity as vice-admiral of France, he gained some
advantages over the defenders of La Rochelle, obliging the
Huguenot commander, Benjamin de Rohan, seigneur de Soubise,
to evacuate the islands of Ré and Oléron. In 1627 he was named
lieutenant-general of Guienne and marshal of France.
ESPINEL, VICENTE MARTINEZ (1551–1624), Spanish poet
and novelist, was baptized on the 28th of December 1551, and
educated at Salamanca. He was expelled from the university
in 1572, and served as a soldier in Flanders, returning to Spain
in 1584 or thereabouts. He took orders in 1587, and four years
later became chaplain at Ronda, absented himself from his
living, and was deprived of his cure; but his musical skill obtained
for him the post of choirmaster at Plasencia. His Diversas Rimas (1591) are undeniably good examples of technical accomplishment
and caustic wit. Espinel, however, survives as the
author of a clever picaresque novel entitled Relaciones de la
vida del Escudero Marcos de Obregón (1618). It is, in many
passages, an autobiography of Espinel with picturesque embellishments.
Marcos is not a chivalresque “esquire,” but an adventurer
who seeks his fortune by attaching himself to great men;
and the object of the author is to warn young men against
such a life. Apart from the unedifying confessions of the hero,
the book contains curious anecdotes concerning prominent
contemporaries, and the episodical stories are told with great
spirit; the style is extremely correct, though somewhat diffuse.
Le Sage has not scrupled to borrow from Marcos de Obregón
many of the incidents and characters in Gil Blas—a circumstance
which induced Isla to give to his Spanish translation of Le Sage’s
work the jesting title, Gil Blas restored to his Country and his
Native Tongue. In the 1775 edition of the Siècle de Louis XIV.
Voltaire grossly exaggerates in saying that Gil Blas is taken
entirely from Marcos de Obregón. Espinel was a clever musician
and added a fifth string to the guitar. He revived the measure
known as décimas or espinelas, consisting of a stanza of ten
octosyllabic lines. Most of the poems which he left in manuscript
remain unpublished owing to their licentious character.
