Esperanto Letter Writing: Register and Politeness

Esperanto has one vi, for a friend, a stranger and a crowd. Politeness moved to three other places: how you open a letter, how you close it, and how you ask.

There is little of a posh second vocabulary to climb into either: Esperanto has komenci where English has start and commence. Register lives mostly in the construction, not the words.

One vi for everyone

French makes you choose tu or vous, German du or Sie. Esperanto has vi, for one person or many, close or distant:

• Vi estas mia plej bona amiko. - You are my best friend.
• Ĉu vi bonvolus respondi, sinjorino? - Would you kindly reply, madam?

1234

1. 1mi
2. 2vi
3. 3vi
4. 4vi

Mi (I), the woman speaking; vi (you) to her friend; vi to the older stranger; vi to the family. One word for all three.

The Fundamento's dictionary also has ci, a familiar singular thou, with cin as the object and cia for thy. Almost nobody uses it: Zamenhof himself wrote vi to everyone, and usage followed him. You will meet ci in some translated novels and in verse. Recognise it, and write vi.

The salutation ladder

The opening places you on a ladder from warm to ceremonial:

Kara (dear) and Estimata (esteemed) are adjectives, so they agree with a plural:

• Karaj amikoj, - Dear friends,
• Estimataj gesinjoroj, - Dear ladies and gentlemen (to a mixed group),

Altestimata (highly esteemed) is for real ceremony; to an ordinary reader it can sound ironic. Between Esperantists you will also meet Kara samideano (dear fellow Esperantist, literally same-idea person), friendly and a little old-fashioned.

The closings

Three of the closings are adverbs: a root plus -e, as in adverbs.

Match the ends. The opening and the closing sit on the same rung:

A letter that opens with Altestimata sinjoro and ends with Ĝis! reads as a joke.

A letter, top to bottom

The same message in two registers, line by line:

A formal letter may carry a date line, place first: Londono, la 5-an de septembro 2026. The day usually takes the time -n, though la 5-a is also seen; see time expressions. Most emails leave it out.

Asking in a letter

The request is where register does most of its work. The forms are in conditional and commands; in a letter they line up like this:

Bonvolu is itself a -u form: bonvoli is to be so kind as to, and an infinitive follows it. If you learn one form from this page, learn that one.

Korespondado: letters kept the language going

For much of its first century, many Esperantists used the language largely by post. Zamenhof's printed Adresaro, whose first series appeared in 1889-1890, listed the names and addresses of people who had learned the language, so that they could find each other and write.

• Mi korespondas kun amiko en Japanio. - I correspond with a friend in Japan.

That is why a language with few native speakers has such a settled letter etiquette. Today the same habits run by email, and the default rung is low: first names at once, Saluton! even from officials. When unsure, be one notch warmer than you would be at home.

Mistakes English speakers make

What to do next

1. Write a five-line email to a club you would like to join: Saluton!, one question with ĉu vi povus, Amike.
2. Rewrite it for a stranger: Estimata, bonvolu, Kun estimo.
3. Then read Esperanto hodiaŭ for where the correspondents are now.

See also

• Conditional and commands - the -u and -us endings behind every request.
• Adverbs - why Amike, Kore and Sincere end in -e.
• Personal pronouns - vi, and the rarely used ci.
• Time expressions - the date line, la 5-an de septembro.
• La Kongreso - gesamideanoj and the etiquette in person.