Esperanto Countries and Nationalities: -io, -ujo and -ano

Esperanto builds country names two ways. Either the root names the people and the country is built from it (franco, a French person, gives Francio), or the root names the country and the people are built with -an- (Kanado gives kanadano, a Canadian).

Nothing in a name tells you which way it runs, so learn each country with its people, as a pair.

The people come first

The root names a people, and the country is the people's land:

The people word is the base, and it is an ordinary noun in lower case; the country takes a capital:

• La francoj loĝas en Francio. - The French live in France.

A few countries end in -lando (from lando, a country) instead:

• Ŝi naskiĝis en Pollando. - She was born in Poland.

The country comes first

The root names the country, and -an- (a member of) makes its people:

Usono is the United States. Esperanto keeps Ameriko for the continent, so usonano is a citizen of the USA while amerikano can be anyone from the Americas (in everyday use it often means a US citizen too):

• Mia amiko estas usonano. - My friend is an American.

No rule decides which system a country uses. Most European peoples come first; most countries of the Americas, Africa and Oceania come first and build their people with -an-. A modern wordlist gives each country and its people side by side.

-io or -ujo

The people-first countries have two forms. Both are in use, and every Esperantist reads both:

• Mi vizitis Francion. - I visited France.
• Mi vizitis Francujon. - I visited France.
• -ujo is the form in the Fundamento: Zamenhof wrote Francujo and Germanujo.
• -io came in through later usage and is now very widely used, probably the commoner in current print.

The suffix -uj- has other work too: a container (monujo, a purse, from mono) and the Esperanto-speaking world, Esperantujo.

This page writes -io. Expect -ujo in Zamenhof and in plenty of current writing; nobody will misunderstand either.

The -an- suffix

-An- means a member of, and it works on anything that has members, from a continent down to a club:

• urboa town
• vilaĝoa village
• kluboa club

Samideano, same-idea member, is the movement's own word for a fellow Esperantist:

• Bonvenon, karaj samideanoj! - Welcome, dear fellow Esperantists!

Lando, ŝtato, nacio, popolo

English blurs these; Esperanto keeps them apart:

The pair to get right first is lando, the place, and ŝtato, the apparatus:

• Kanado estas granda lando. - Canada is a big country.
• La ŝtato pagas por la lernejoj. - The state pays for the schools.
• La popolo voĉdonis. - The people voted.

Internacia, international, is built on nacio: between nations.

Words that have moved

Some words for peoples are shifting, as their English equivalents have. The older words are still met and understood; many writers now prefer the newer ones:

Esperanto always kept indiano apart from hindo, a person from India, but indiano still comes from the old mistake. The rule underneath needs no vocabulary: name people as they name themselves, and prefer the specific name of a nation to the general indiĝeno. Eskimo also covers peoples who are not Inuit, so inuito is the word for the Inuit only.

Mistakes English speakers make

What to do next

1. Learn the pair for every country you have visited: the people and the place.
2. Say Mi loĝas en ... and Mi estas ... about yourself.
3. Then read language names: la angla, la anglan, angle.

See also

• Language names - la angla, mi lernas la anglan and parolu angle.
• Affixes for size and people - -an- beside -ul-, -ist- and -estr-.
• Word building - the affix system -an- and -uj- belong to.
• Compounding - how samlandano and Pollando are put together.
• Apposition - la urbo Parizo, la lando Kanado.
• Esperanto hodiaŭ - where the speakers are, country by country.
• La kongreso - samideano in its natural habitat.