[Ipg-smz] [Ipg-l] Edit question: "American"

[Tom Geller]

[Moved from ipg-l.]

Someone mentioned "Usonian" (a Frank Lloyd Wright term), which led me to a musing about Esperanto.

As you might know, Esperanto (which I speak well) is a 130-year-old invented language. One of its biggest ease-of-use features is its consistency: All nouns end in "o", all past-tense verbs end in "is", and so on. But this consistency fails in some places. One is in verb transitivity: Do you boil the water (boli) or *make* the water boil (boligi)?

Another way it falls down is place names. Esperanto's inventor originally proposed that the base form denote a land's native, e.g. "Franco" = a French person. Then, the country would be constructed as "a container holding such people", e.g. "Francujo" = a container that holds the French = France. (Esperanto speakers thought that sounded silly and it eventually changed into the similar sounding "Francio".) 

But here's the funny thing: This country-naming system was only valid in places where natives had the dominant culture. It didn't carry over to New World countries. So the U.S. is "Usono", not "Usonujo" (a container for U.S. people) or Usonio. And a resident of the U.S. is an "Usonano", which is constructed as "a *member* of the U.S.". (Just as you are an "IPG-ano".) Same goes for Brazilo (not Brazilujo), where a resident is a Bralizano.

I find this an interesting commentary on how the 19th-century Europeans who solidified Esperanto saw the world. Ethnicity was a big deal back then!

Which brings us to a related discussion: Is "American" an ethnicity? I leave that as an exercise to the reader.


---
Tom Geller  *  Writer & Video/journalist  *  http://tomgeller.com
       Rotterdam, The Netherlands, +31 (0)6 87071468
            Oberlin, Ohio  *  +1-415-317-1805



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