Esperanto Compound Words: Reading Long Words From the Right

An Esperanto compound puts its roots in one word, and the last root says what the thing is. A vaporŝipo is a ship (ŝipo) driven by steam (vaporo). Only the last root takes the ending.

The last root is the head

Rule 11 of the Fundamento: compounds are made by joining words, and the main word stands at the end. Its example is vaporŝipo.

• vaporosteam
• ŝipoa ship

Swap the roots and you swap the thing:

English works the same way round: a houseboat is a boat, a boathouse is a house.

• La kantobirdo kantas. - The songbird sings.
• Mi aŭdis la birdokanton. - I heard the birdsong.

Read a long word from the right

Faced with a word you have never seen, start at the end and work left. Each piece narrows the one after it:

• Ŝi laboras en malsanulejo. - She works in a hospital.

Do this a dozen times on purpose and it becomes automatic: an unknown twelve-letter word turns into four pieces you already know.

One word, one ending, one stress

The roots on the left never change. The plural -j and the object -n go on the end, as on any noun:

• Mi vidis du grandajn vaporŝipojn. - I saw two big steamships.

A compound is one word, so it has one main stress, on the second-last syllable like every Esperanto word: va-por-ŜI-po, nok-to-ME-zo.

The linking -o-

Between the roots you may put a linking -o-. The test is your mouth: keep it where the join is hard to say, leave it out where it is easy.

Tagm- is easy; noktm- stacks three consonants, so the -o- stays. Learn each established word in its settled form. The link is usually -o-, even after a verb (dormi); a few words keep another ending, such as multekosta (expensive).

The rooms of a house show both systems at once:

1234

1. 1kuirejo
2. 2dormoĉambro
3. 3salono
4. 4banĉambro

Kuirejo, the kitchen (kuiri, to cook, plus the place affix -ej-); dormoĉambro, the bedroom (sleep-room, with the linking -o-); salono, the living room; banĉambro, the bathroom (bath-room, no -o-).

Affix first, compound second

Where an affix carries the meaning, it beats a second root. The compound would be understood, and it would sound like a beginner:

Compound when no affix fits. There is no affix for iron or for steam, so fervojo and vaporŝipo are compounds. The two systems also mix inside one word, as malsanulejo showed.

Name a kind of thing, not a one-off

A compound names a kind of thing that recurs: naskiĝtago (birthday) is a kind of day, ĉefurbo a kind of city. For a relation between two particular things, use a preposition:

• la libro de mia patro - my father's book
• la domo apud la maro - the house by the sea

Patrolibro would name a kind of book (a book for fathers, say), not your father's own copy. Keep compounds to two or three roots; past that, a phrase usually reads better.

Mistakes English speakers make

What to do next

1. Take apart five long words from your next reading, from the right.
2. Name every room of your home in Esperanto.
3. Then read word building for the affixes to reach for first.

See also

• Word building - the affixes to use before you compound.
• Affixes as words - roots that behave like affixes inside compounds.
• Word endings - why only the last root takes -o, -a, -e or -i.