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Esperanto · Chapter 25 · Lesson 8 · Grammar primer

Science in Esperanto: the register that almost won

ISAE and the interlingua-of-science ambition, Wuster's road from Esperanto dictionary to terminology science, how kemio and galaksio arrive whole, and what a learner can honestly read today.

The short version

The dictionary-maker who invented a science

Eugen Wuster wrote an Esperanto dictionary as a young engineer, turned the experience into a 1931 thesis, and ended up founding terminology science itself - the ISO committee that standardises technical terms worldwide traces straight back to him. He also coined the words esperantologio and planlingvo. Esperanto did not become the language of science, but it trained the man who organised how science names things.

terminologio - la scienco de fakaj vortoj

terminology - the science of technical words

Science words arrive whole

Kemio, biologio, galaksio, geno - scientific vocabulary enters Esperanto as international roots borrowed entire, not as affix builds. The -ologio and -grafio endings look like suffixes and are not: they are Greek formants that came welded on. The payoff for a learner: if you know the international word, you very likely already know the Esperanto one.

La galaksio enhavas miliardojn da steloj.

The galaxy contains billions of stars.

That's the gist. The full article goes deeper - more examples, the edge cases, the why - and the practice below scores like a vocabulary session and earns the same XP.

Read the full article · 20 min read

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Lesson 8 of 22 in this chapter

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