Saluton, everyone. Been a little while since I was last around these parts but I hope everyone is well.

After getting burned out on my Esperanto studies, I have returned. Time to get back to it.

I have noticed that there seems to be some disagreement over what format country names should take, the suffix -ujo or -io. I understand that -ujo is the traditional/original way of doing it. Why did -io come about and what's everyone's feeling on this?

It seems to me to be an unnecessary complication to the language and contrary to the original goal of making the language as simple and as regular as possible.

You are right, country names are a mess.

One of the best clarifications (if not the best) is Konciza klarigo pri la landnomoj en Esperanto by Anna Löwenstein.

My take on this matter…

There are several reasons for the current state. Each sovereign state has right to choose its name and in the name of mutual respect other states try to follow that name – given adaption to the languages used in that state. Some of the adapted names preceed the current states. For instance you call the country with the capital called Cairo in English with the name Egypt instead of its own language (Egyptian Arabic) name مصر‎ (Máṣr). Add a big portion of nationalism and other ingredients (like cultural appropriation in case why Macedonia officially must be North-Macedonia), you understand why it is damn hard to create a unified naming system.

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.

Already Zamenhof saw the problem and so he toyed with an idea to call countries by names based on their capitals. I am not sure what the ending would have been, but let us assume that ujo, so Londonujo would have meant the country ruled from London. Quite surprisingly the idea was immediately shot down.

Since the letter "i" in the end of country name is already used in several names (Australio, Ĉilio, Sirio etc.) and is used by many languages (e.g. франция for France in Russian), some began to replace the -ujo with the neologisma suffix -io (Britio, Egiptio, Japanio etc.). But as is with so many non-Fundamentalaj matters, others have resisted this reform.

I am totally for -io up to the point that I find it offending to use -ujo for multiethnic countries, which nowadays means almost all countries (yes, even in Japan where ethnic Japanese form 98,5 % of the population).

Saluton, PrimeMinisterK.

I had the same doubt as you. I asked a few days ago in a Telegram group and they explained to me that -ujo is used for the "old world" and -io for more modern toponyms. For example, I live in Galicia (Spain) and it translates as "Galegujo". However, Galizia (Poland) is translated as "Galecio".

I hope I have helped to solve your question.

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: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?

Doesn't -ujo just roughly mean "where something belongs?". Maybe if we treat it as having one meaning that has no direct English translation, we can fix many problems, rather than thinking it has multiple meanings. For example, if "sukerujo" means "where sugar belongs," I can easily think that it belongs to the container specifically designed for sugar. Regarding pomujo, it makes sense if it means apple tree since apple belongs to the tree first before it went to your container. In this case pomujo can't mean "apple-container," since there are too many sad apples in their trees that you haven't picked up yet. Also there is no such thing as "apple-container" specifically for apples in the same sense as a gitarujo is perfectly shaped for a guitar. As for Germanujo, it's up to you if you still want to think that Germans belong to their container. I say they belong to their home country. The point is that maybe it has a sense that encompasses all its usage and we don't have to force direct translations where they don't exist, such as "container" or "country". I think "where something belongs" is a pretty good estimate. It even includes the sense for Esperantujo, since it is not a country. Esperantujo is where Esperanto belongs. If you have a better estimate of its meaning, let me know.

Metsis:I am totally for -io up to the point that I find it offending to use -ujo for multiethnic countries, which nowadays means almost all countries (yes, even in Japan where ethnic Japanese form 98,5 % of the population).

I don't understand why replacing -ujo with -io solves the problem of multi-ethnicity. It still has the same root word.

If, for example, an etno becomes extinct in an etnujo, it can even become something sentimental when future inhabitants (etnujano) honor the original etno that once lived there.

La Fundamento defines -uj as in the English part:

La universala vortaro:filled with; e. g. ink' ink ― ink'uj' ink-pot; pom' apple ― pom'uj' apple-tree; Turk'uj' Turkey

A more specific definition is given in German (the two languages in La Fundamento I can):

La universala vortaro:Behälter, Träger (d. h. Gegenstand worin... aufbewahrt wird,... Früchte tragende Pflanze, von... bevölkertes Land); z. B. cigar' Cigarre ― cigar'uj' Cigarrenbüchse; pom' Apfel ― pom'uj' Apfelbaum; Turk' Türke ― Turk'uj' Türkei

which clearly indicates Behälter, a container, where something is aufbewahrt, stored. Thus interpreting -ujo as "where something belongs" is thereby per definiem kontraŭfundamenta.

By the way , using -ujo for trees is outdated use. In modern texts you see pomarbo instead of pomujo, which many currently understand as somekind of a basket or a bowl, i.e. a container, for apples.

It is exactly for this general meaning of a container, why some, incl. me, have a disturbing mental image that words like Germanujo and Rusujo mean some kind of camps only for ethnic Germans resp. ethnic Russians.

The -i- in Germanio or Rusio does not get mixed with infinitive, because in the former it is not at the end of word while in the latter it is. But Nornen is right that we have a problem, if you want to see it so. Does an -i- in the country name belong to the root or is part of the suffix -io? This (also) depends on which category the country name belongs to. And by the categories I refer to those given in Konciza klarigo pri la landnomoj en Esperanto.

Some countries of the category 1

• Aŭstralio
  
• Ĉilio
  
• Indonezio
  
• Libio

In these one did not add the letter when forming the country name, i.e. the -i- is already in the root.

Some countries of the category 2

• Aŭstrio
  
• Ĉinio
  
• Etiopio
  
• Turkio

Here you added the letter to the country name. I claim that this is not a problem in practice as fewer country names belong to the category 2 than in the category 1 and quite a many of those names in the category 2 already has an -i or -y in several national languages.

Eble estas pli bone rigardi -i- en dua kategorio ankaŭ kiel parto de radiko. Kategorio 2 dividiĝas je 2a, kie -i- oni aldonas al entonomo kaj 2b, kie -i- oni aldonas al ĉefurbo Meksiko - Meksikio. (Sed eblas Meksikurbo - Meksiko)

metsis:Some countries of the category 1
...
Some countries of the category 2

So we have to parse Aŭstrali'o, but Aŭstr'i'o. Hence the inhabitants of the former are Aŭstrali'an'o'j, while those of the latter are Aŭstr'o'j. The word *Aŭstrali'uj'o does not exist, however Aŭstr'uj'o does. Correct?

This means Gvatemal'o behaves like Aŭstrali'o and its inhabitants are Gvatemal'an'o'j.

It is also a bit strange that Perú is Peru'o, but Panamá is Panam'o and not *Panama'o.

Is it Finn'land'o or Finnland'o? Do you prefer Finnlando or Finnio or Suomio? Finnmarko is a part of Norway or is it the same as Finnlando?

It is exactly for this general meaning of a container, why some, incl. me, have a disturbing mental image that words like Germanujo and Rusujo mean some kind of camps only for ethnic Germans resp. ethnic Russians.

I concur. The word finn'uj'o evokes some mental image of a steambath filled with naked persons smelling of vodka having a conversation using only "no niin / noni / nonii / nonnih".

According to lernu.net...

UJ = "something that is intended to contain something specific". UJ has practically three different meanings: "container", "plant" and "country". That which is in front of UJ always shows what is (or happens) in the subject.

nornen:
So we have to parse Aŭstrali'o, but Aŭstr'i'o. Hence the inhabitants of the former are Aŭstrali'an'o'j, while those of the latter are Aŭstr'o'j. The word *Aŭstrali'uj'o does not exist, however Aŭstr'uj'o does. Correct?

Precize.

nornen:
This means Gvatemal'o behaves like Aŭstrali'o and its inhabitants are Gvatemal'an'o'j.

There are a lot of exceptions and one such group is the country names that have their origin in another geographical name (mountain, river and town being the most common ones). The subgroups of these names are following (note, I am not listing all countries in each subgroup).

just one name

None of these country names end in -io nor in -ujo. All these countries belong to the category 1.

• Kenjo (country and mountain)
  
• Kuvajto (country and town)

separate names

The name with -io denotes a country or part thereof. The name without -io denotes something else. All these countries belong to the category 1.

• Alĝerio (country) / Alĝero (town)
  
• Ĉadio (country) / Ĉado (lake)

Of course there is an exception.

• 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. By this same logic

• Kebeko (province and town)

nornen:
It is also a bit strange that Perú is Peru'o, but Panamá is Panam'o and not *Panama'o.

I do not know. Perhaps the local Esperantists wanted so. At least that is the argument why India is called Barato (Warning! Any Hind… name can cause controversy in present day India, so they are best left to describe times before the independency.)

nornen:
Is it Finn'land'o or Finnland'o? Do you prefer Finnlando or Finnio or Suomio? Finnmarko is a part of Norway or is it the same as Finnlando?

According to a decision by Akademio de Esperanto there are exactly six country names with the ending -lando that belong the category 2. Finnlando is one of those (and yes, it is an exception to the Esperanto rule of "no silent letters" because you pronounce it as if there were just one letter n). I have not met any local Esperantist who would not use the name Finnlando. I have never seen Finnio, but encountered Suomio as well as Suomujo is some old texts. There are two issues with these latter ones. Very few recognise them instantly and since they try to mimic the local language, you should write them with ŏ, Suŏmio and thereby introducing a new diphtong into Esperanto. Pronouncing them with syllables Su-o-mi-o with the Esperanto stress (with its prolonging of the vowel) on the second to last syllable would be, how to put this… completely off from the local pronunciation.

Note, that there are also -lando countries that belong to the category 1. For instance

• Irlando

nornen:
The word finn'uj'o evokes some mental image of a steambath filled with naked persons smelling of vodka having a conversation using only "no niin / noni / nonii / nonnih".

No niin, what else there is to do here among all the polar bears