Saturday, March 27, 2010

Word Building With Affixes

Learning Esperanto vocabulary is fairly straightforward. This is because Esperanto makes heavy use of affixes. An affix is either a prefix or a suffix which changes the meaning of the root word. Let's look at an example. We will use the word domo, which means "house". Domo is the root word. The affixes are bold red.

la domo - the house
la domego - the mansion
la dometo - the cottage
la domo - the hovel

These can also be applied to verbs. The prefix mal is especially useful because it denotes an opposite.

fermi - to close
malfermi - to open
fermegi - to slam

Fermegi is an especially interesting example of word building. My dictionary says the word for slam is brufermi. But I didn't know that until just now. However, because of the suffix eg, I can still get my point across even if I don't quite know the correct word to use. More importantly, this construction will be easily understood by other Esperanto speakers. There are many of different affixes available in Esperanto which makes expanding your vocabulary quite simple once you know a root word.

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