Metsis:Gvatemalo (country and town)

I listed this as an exception because sometimes you see the form Gvatemalio for the town, but that is not recommended because the -i- is argumented with international use, so having the letter only in the Esperanto name is against that idea.

Easy fix: call the country Iŝimuleŭo and the city Kaminalĥujuo.

nornen:Easy fix: call the country Iŝimuleŭo and the city Kaminalĥujuo.

Convince your country organisation first and make them to suggest those names to Akademio

Metsis:
Zamenhof used the ujo-system but that suits poorly for multiethnic states, like his homecountry Russian Empire, and completely falls apart when there is no ethnic group with the name of country, e.g. there is no ethnic group called Congos in Democratic Republic of the Congo. To make matters worse, countries have different views on what is a nation (there are states with several nations), ethnic group and so on. As a matter of fact, not even the majority of the ujo-named countries fit to the ujo-system nowadays.

Thanks for the response, Metsis.

My question here would be: Why should ethnicity have anything to do with it? I would think it would have to do with citizenry.

Maybe it's because I come from the United States, where we are a multi-ethnic melting pot, but when I heard that there were complaints about -ujo on the grounds of ethnicity I didn't really understanding it. To me, the "container" concept seems to world well enough because what does Russia hold? Russian citizens. What does Japan hold? Japanese citizens. And so on.

The United Sates is the same way: Americans can be of any ethnicity but they're all still Americans.

Metsis:But as is with so many non-Fundamentalaj matters, others have resisted this reform.

To go back to what I said earlier, I think the language should avoid reforms at all costs. If it changes, develops, morphs and mutates over time then it will negate the original goal -- to be an easy-to-learn, regular, consistent communication system. What you'll end up with is the original Esperanto, and Esperanto 2.0, Esperanto 3.0 and so forth. Before you know it, it will be the same kind of mess that all national languages are.

nornen:In my opinion, the idea of using -uj- which means "container" also for countries and fruit trees was maybe not the most beautiful choice of LLZ. Why is a pomujo a tree in my garden and not the fruit bowl in my kitchen which I use only for apples?

However -i- is even worse, because now we have two word i, a fundamental one and a new one. The first one marks infinitives, the latter marks countries. I agree that it is convenient to have a morpheme for deriving country names, but maybe we should have chosen something that didn't already exist.

Nornen, no greeting from you? Alas, I have been forgotten around here already.

As I was just saying to Metsis, I don't see a need to try to "reform" the language. If Zamenhof's idea was inelegant, well, nothing is perfect. Just leave it as it is instead of confusing the situation and making the language more irregular.

What I think the bigger problem is is that not all countries adhere to the established system. Shouldn't Usono be Usonujo?

@PrimeMinisterK

Let me repeat. The origin for the country names in the category 1 is the country names as such, and the citizens of these countries are formed by the suffix -ano, member.

• Aŭstralio → aŭstraliano
  
• Ĉilio → ĉiliano
  
• Usono → usonano

The origin for the country names in the category 2 is the "people".

• Aŭstrujo ← aŭstro
  
• Ĉinujo ← ĉino
  
• Rusujo ← ruso

But as I stated, many associate the suffix -ujo even when speaking about countries, with the general meaning of that suffix, a container, and that causes a disturbing mental image. Therefore the suffix -io (with the argument that letter i is already used in other languages). I am not sure, but I think this -io was invented back in the 1970's.

There are people who are against -io and stick to -ujo, fine, let it be so, but it is not my cup of tea.

If you claim, that "the bigger problem is is that not all countries adhere to the established system" and all countries should follow the model of Usonujo, that is a contradictory, since the two category system originates from Zamenhof self. Changing all countries to the -ujo model would be a huge reform since the majority of the countries belong to the category 1.

***
A linked issue with the -ujo is the ethnicity vs. nationality issue. Is a ruso ethnic Russian or a citizen of Russia? Does this mean that Esperanto repeats the same ambiguity as is in other languages? Can't we do better?

How about countries where there is no such "people"? If you want to be precise, there is no such ethnic group as Chinese, but the world's largest ethnic group is hanoj, Han Chinese.

PrimeMinisterK:Nornen, no greeting from you? Alas, I have been forgotten around here already.

Dear Primer Minister of Potassium,

Prithee, pardon me for my negligent omission of salutation. You have not been forgotten, and it fills my heart with joy to see you once again around here.

As I was just saying to Metsis, I don't see a need to try to "reform" the language. If Zamenhof's idea was inelegant, well, nothing is perfect. Just leave it as it is instead of confusing the situation and making the language more irregular.

Neither do I advocate any reform. The reform has already happened when we replaced -uj- for country names with -i-. Hence, the damage has been done. My point is, that back then, when -i- was introduced, maybe we shouldn't have chosen a morpheme that already existed (for infinitives). Even a slight change could have amended the situation, e.g. using -ij- instead of -i-. This idea is, in my opinion, quite nice, as it is phonetically close to the -i- and at the same time has some international flair when we take a look at how Slavic languages render foreign country names. *Anglijo and *Francijo even look beautiful. However, the dice have been cast long ago and -i- it is...

Metsis:But as I stated, many associate the suffix -ujo even when speaking about countries, with the general meaning of that suffix, a container, and that causes a disturbing mental image.

The Japanese word for old is 古い (furui) but they don't use it for people. If they want to refer to an old person, they say 老人 (roujin). Roujin is not a euphemism for "old." It literally means "old person" so it's not like they are trying to avoid the concept. They really just use a different word for people as opposed to objects.

But when they try to learn English, it's them who have to adjust. They have to avoid thinking of rusting old men (as iron would rust) or expiring men (as food would expire). Because English people don't think of an "old person" that way, even though the same word "old" is used for objects.

But when people learn -ujo, it's Esperanto that they are adjusting (by creating -io), not themselves. When you are learning, you are not supposed to transform the thing to make it familiar, you are supposed to transform yourself to get more familiar with the thing.

vjlomocso:But when people learn -ujo, it's Esperanto that they are adjusting (by creating -io), not themselves. When you are learning, you are not supposed to transform the thing to make it familiar, you are supposed to transform yourself to get more familiar with the thing.

I completely concur.

This phenomenon is sadly too common. People trying to copy 1-to-1 the verb forms (continuous, perfect, etc) from there mother tongue to Esperanto using weird compound verb forms in Eo. Or the lack of acceptance that in Esperanto "divide" and "share" are the same word and that there is no need to use constructs like kunhavi.

Generally those things don't stick, however -i- replacing -uj- in country names did. I don't know why.

nornen:Dear Primer Minister of Potassium

Actually it's Prime Minister of Kaleidoscopes.

nornen:Prithee, pardon me for my negligent omission of salutation. You have not been forgotten, and it fills my heart with joy to see you once again around here.

That's better. I knew you felt that way, even if you failed to express it beforehand. Probably were too overwhelmed by my return.

Neither do I advocate any reform. The reform has already happened when we replaced -uj- for country names with -i-. Hence, the damage has been done. My point is, that back then, when -i- was introduced, maybe we shouldn't have chosen a morpheme that already existed (for infinitives). Even a slight change could have amended the situation, e.g. using -ij- instead of -i-. This idea is, in my opinion, quite nice, as it is phonetically close to the -i- and at the same time has some international flair when we take a look at how Slavic languages render foreign country names. *Anglijo and *Francijo even look beautiful. However, the dice have been cast long ago and -i- it is...

The thing is, for me, I really don't care what the ending it. It doesn't matter to me at all. But it needs to be consistent. And furthermore, once something has been officially set in the language, then that should just be the way that it is. No reforms. No changes.

I think that we really, really should be sure to adhere to the original goal of the language being a regular language that is as easy to learn as possible. Once we start changing things to suit our whims or appease complainers, this cause is lost.

nornen:People trying to copy 1-to-1 the verb forms (continuous, perfect, etc) from there mother tongue to Esperanto using weird compound verb forms in Eo.

What are you referring to exactly? Aren't compound verbs officially part of Esperanto?

I know one of my textbooks teaches the use of compound verbs in one of the later lessons.