As this Vocabulary is intended for those who have worked through the
preceding lessons, it is not a full vocabulary, but only supplementary
to those already given, and the words contained in those are, as a rule,
not repeated here.
In order to get in as many root words as possible, derived words and
the second word of a pair (e.g., male or female, opposites, the action
and the tool, the animal and its young, etc.) are generally omitted;
the simple word or one of the pair being found, the other word is to be
formed from it by means of the proper word-ending, prefix or suffix.
In English there are often several words to express the same or nearly
the same meaning. Want of space prevents these being all included; the
most important or most commonly used word has therefore been chosen; for
instance, "mercury", "tranquil", "diaphanous", "suffocate", "salve",
"renown", "fiddle", are not to be found, but "quicksilver", "calm",
"translucent", "smother", "ointment", "fame", "violin", are there.
A most valuable help to the student is a good English dictionary, and
if this gives the derivation of the words, the interest of the study
is greatly increased. The difficulty often is, not to find the right
Esperanto word, but to know exactly what the English word or phrase
means. It is the experience of most Esperantists that in learning
Esperanto their knowledge of their own language has become much more
thorough. [Footnote: A remark made by a student during one lesson was
"Well, if we don't learn Esperanto, we shall learn English."] For this
reason and also that this language cannot be learned simply as a matter
of rote, but demands the exercise of the thinking and reasoning powers,
[Footnote: To convince an opponent or a doubter of this, tell him that
"utila" means "useful," and "mal" denotes the contrary; then ask what
"malutila" means. The answer will almost certainly be "useless." Then
show that the contrary of a good quality is not merely the absence
of that quality, but is a bad quality, and therefore the contrary of
"useful" is "harmful."] Esperanto ought to be taught in all schools.