40 INTEBNATIONAL LANGUAGE AND SCIENCE 



and y, is disguised by the choice of letters. This produces 

 a very amateurish effect. 



Besides the familiar parts of speech which are indicated 

 by special terminations, Zamenhof invented a new class 

 characterised by the termination -au (kontrau, almenau) ; but 

 the limits of this class, which includes some, but not all, 

 adverbs and prepositions, are not clearly denned. 



Many words taken from existing languages are disguised, 

 almost after the fashion of Volapiik : boji, F. aboyer ; parkere, 

 F. par cceur ; shvit, G. schwitzen, E. sweat; char, F. car; 

 faruno instead of farin ; lerta, F. alerte (with a changed 

 meaning) , etc. In this category is to be classed the astonish- 

 ing nepre (entirely) which is derived from the Kussian 

 nepremenno, just as if one were to take from the German 

 word unbedingt the two first syllables and propose unbe as 

 an international word instead of absolute. The economy in 

 the use of stems was carried much too far in Esperanto, 

 necessitating the employment of all sorts of compound words, 

 the discovery of whose meaning requires much racking of 

 one's brains. The employment of all the derivative syllables 

 also as independent words is very ingenious, but produces a 

 very strange impression on the uninitiated. 



The method of word formation is greatly wanting in 

 precision, the limits of the so-called direct derivation in 

 particular being not sufficiently clearly indicated. One 

 example will suffice. Starting out from kroni = to crown, 

 krono ought properly to mean crowning, instead of which it 

 signifies crown, so that one is forced to use kronado for 

 crowning, whereas, according to the rules of Esperanto, 

 kronado must mean continuous or repeated crowning, as if a 

 king were being constantly or repeatedly crowned. 1 



1 Concerning the criticism of Esperanto, cf. also Zamenhof, Pri Reformoj 

 eti Esperanto, 1894, represita per zorgo de E. Javal, 1907 (containing many 

 important suggestions which the Esperantists have now unfortunately 

 forgotten) ; A. Liptay, Wine Oemeinspraclie der Naturvolker, 1891 ; E. 

 Beermann, Die Internationale Hilfisprache JNovilatin, 1907 ; K. Brugmann 



