kreto

Two pages in this chapter have been waiting for this one.Konkreta at rank 2,781 and diskreta at 2,708 both look as though they contain kreto, and both pages told you they do not, citing a chalk page that did not exist yet. It exists now, so here is the third side of the triangle. Konkreta is Latin concrescere, to grow together. Diskreta is Latin discernere, to sift apart. Kreto is Latin creta, the chalk itself. Kon- is not an Esperanto prefix at all, dis- is one but is not doing anything in diskreta, and kreto is not inside either word. Three roots, one accidental resemblance, and the word-building rule doing its job: cut only where the meaning comes out right.

The capital letter matters. Lower case, kreto is chalk. Capitalised, Kreto is the island of Crete. Esperanto capitalises country and place names and does not capitalise the peoples, exactly as the countries article sets out, so kretano is a Cretan and kreta is either the adjective from the island or the adjective from chalk, depending on a capital you cannot hear. In speech, say la insulo Kreto or krete blanka and let the context do the rest. The two words may even be the same word underneath - see the origin note above - which does not make them one word now.

Classroom vocabulary. Kreto is the stick you write with and the mineral it is cut from, the same double duty English gives it. A blackboard is a tabulo, the dust it leaves is polvo - not pulvo, which would be a much livelier lesson - and kretumi is to mark something with chalk. The white cliffs of any coast are kretaj klifoj.