TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:

The Esperanto alphabet contains 28 characters. These are thecharacters of English, but with "q", "w", "x", and "y" removed, andsix diacritical letters added. The diacritical letters are "c","g", "h", "j" and "s" with circumflexes (or "hats", as Esperantistsfondly call them), and "u" with a breve. Zamenhof himself suggestedthat where the diacritical letters caused difficulty, one couldinstead use "ch", "gh", "hh", "jh", "sh" and "u". A plain ASCIIfile is one such place; there are no ASCII codes for Esperanto'sspecial letters.

However, there are two problems with Zamenhof's "h-method". Thereis no difference between "u" and "u" with a breve, and there is noway to determine (without prior knowledge of the word(s) involved,and sometimes a bit of context) whether an "h" following one ofthose other five letters is really the second half of a diacriticalpair, or just an "h" that happened to find itself next to one ofthem. Consequently other, unambiguous, methods have been used overthe years. One is the "x-method", which uses the digraphs "cx","gx", "hx", "jx", "sx" and "ux" to represent the special letters.There is no ambiguity because the letter "x" is not an Esperantoletter, and each diacritical letter has a unique transliteration.This is the method used in this Project Gutenberg e-text.

This volume has been prepared to meet a twofold need. An adequatepresentation of the International Language has become an imperativenecessity. Such presentation, including full and accurate grammaticalexplanations, suitably graded reading lessons, and similarly gradedmaterial for translation from English, has not heretofore beenaccessible within the compass of a single volume, or in fact within thecompass of any two or three volumes.

The combination of grammar and reader here offered is thereforeunique. It is to furnish not merely an introduction to Esperanto, ora superficial acquaintance with it, but a genuine understanding ofthe language and mastery of its use without recourse to additionaltextbooks, readers, etc. In other words, this one volume affordsas complete a knowledge of Esperanto as several years' study of agrammar and various readers will accomplish for any national language.Inflection, word-formation and syntax are presented clearly andconcisely, yet with a degree of completeness and in a systematic orderthat constitute a new feature. Other points worthy of note are thefollowing:

The reasons for syntactical usages are given, instead of merestatements that such usages exist. For example, clauses of purpose andof result are really explained, instead of being dismissed with theunsatisfactory remark that "the imperative follows por ke," orthe "use of tiel ..