Esperanto Body Parts: La Korpo, Head to Foot

Esperanto's body words are mostly international roots, and one rule matters more than the list: where the owner is obvious, Esperanto says la where English says my or his.

• Mi lavis la manojn. - I washed my hands.
• Li rompis al si la brakon. - He broke his arm.
• La kuracisto ekzamenis miajn manojn. - The doctor examined my hands (mine, not yours).

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1. 1la kapo
2. 2la okuloj
3. 3la buŝo
4. 4la mano
5. 5la brako
6. 6la kruro
7. 7la piedo

La kapo the head, la okuloj the eyes, la buŝo the mouth, la mano the hand, la brako the arm, la kruro the leg, la piedo the foot.

The head and the face

One hair is haro, so the hair on your head is plural:

• Ŝi havas longajn harojn. - She has long hair.

The mouth and the jaw

English tongue is both the muscle and the language. Esperanto keeps them apart:

• La kafo bruligis mian langon. - The coffee burnt my tongue.
• Mia gepatra lingvo estas la angla. - My mother tongue is English.

The neck and the trunk

• La koro batas en la brusto. - The heart beats in the chest.
• Mia dorso doloras. - My back hurts.

The arms and the legs

A toe has no root of its own. It is built, like many body words, from two you already have:

• Mi rompis piedfingron. - I broke a toe.

The rule: la, not mia

English marks the owner of every body part: my hands, his head. Esperanto usually does not. PMEG, the standard reference grammar:

Ofte oni uzas la anstataŭ poseda pronomo, se la kunteksto klare montras, kiu la posedanto estas. Tio aparte ofte okazas, kiam oni parolas pri korpopartoj, vestaĵoj aŭ parencoj.

Often one uses la instead of a possessive pronoun if the context clearly shows who the owner is. That happens especially often with body parts, clothing and relatives.

PMEG's examples cover all three:

• Li levis la kapon. - He raised his head.
• La randon de la ĉapelo li ofte ektuŝas per la mano. - He often touches the brim of his hat with his hand.
• Diru al la patro, ke mi estas diligenta. - Tell Father I am diligent.

La patro there is the speaker's father. PMEG glosses li levis la kapon as = li levis sian kapon: the same meaning.

It is a preference, not a law. Mi lavis miajn manojn. is correct, only heavier than it needs to be.

Al si: making the owner explicit

When the bare la could leave a doubt, put the owner after al. With he, she and they that is the reflexive al si:

• Ŝi lavis al si la piedojn. - She washed her feet. (PMEG's example)
• Li rompis al si la brakon. - He broke his arm.

Al ŝi or al li there would mean another woman's feet, another man's arm. The reflexive explains why.

When the possessive comes back

When whose it is matters, the possessive does real work:

• La kuracisto ekzamenis miajn manojn, ne viajn. - The doctor examined my hands, not yours.
• Ŝi tenis mian manon. - She held my hand. Two people, two sets of hands.

The test: if you could drop the English my and lose nothing, use la. If dropping it raises the question "whose?", keep the possessive.

Saying that something hurts

Three forms are standard. With the verb dolori (to hurt), the body part is the subject:

The Reta Vortaro (ReVo), the main online dictionary, remarks that modern usage seems to prefer lia kapo doloras to the older la kapo doloras lin, which you will meet in early texts.

The body part is the subject, so it takes no -n, and doloris is the same for one bone or many (Esperanto verbs never change for person or number):

• Doloris miaj ostoj post la longa vojaĝo. - My bones ached after the long journey.

The compound noun works for any body part: kapdoloro (headache), dentodoloro (toothache), ventrodoloro (stomach ache). This is ordinary compounding.

Mistakes English speakers make

Inside, and what it is made of

• La sango fluas tra la vejnoj al la koro. - The blood flows through the veins to the heart.

Three fences

Three pairs where English has one word, or Esperanto has two that look alike.

• kruroa leg
• femurothe thigh
• ventrothe belly
• stomakothe stomach, the organ

Kruro and gambo. Both mean leg. ReVo notes that Zamenhof used kruro almost always for the whole limb, and that in anatomy it can also mean only the part from the knee to the foot. Gambo is always the whole limb, and ReVo lists it as a synonym of kruro:

• Miaj kruroj estas lacaj. - My legs are tired.
• Miaj gamboj estas lacaj. - My legs are tired.

Ventro and stomako. ReVo defines ventro as the part of the body between the chest and the pelvis, and stomako as the organ where digestion begins:

• Li batis min en la ventron. - He hit me in the stomach.

Senco and senso. The five senses are sensoj; the meaning of a word is its senco. So sensenca (without meaning) means meaningless:

• Tio estas sensenca. - That is meaningless.

False friends has more pairs like this.

The body in idiom

All of these are in ReVo, and most of them take la rather than a possessive:

Two proverbs:

• Kiom da kapoj, tiom da opinioj. - So many heads, so many opinions.
• For de l' okuloj, for de la koro. - Out of sight, out of mind.

De l' okuloj is de la okuloj with the article shortened, which Rule 16 allows.

What to do next

1. Point at ten parts of your body and name them, with la.
2. Say what hurts three ways: Mia dorso doloras, Doloras al mi la dorso, Mi havas dorsdoloron.
3. Read the reflexive for si and sia, and the article la for its other uses.