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The following Esperanto roots function as numbers:
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1 = unu 2 = du 3 = tri 4 = kvar 5 = kvin 6 = ses |
7 = sep 8 = ok 9 = naŭ ten = dek hundred = cent thousand = mil |
Each of these may be used directly before a noun as a number:
The elements may be combined to produce remaining numbers between 10 and 999,999 in a way comparable to the way in English we say “two thousand three hundred six.”
*-To distinguish years from other numbers, many Esperanto speakers say la jaro before the year number: Mi naskiĝis en la jaro 1967. = “I was born in 1967.” Occasionally one finds the abbreviation j. written after a year, even though it does not correspond with a spoken form: Mi naskiĝis en 1967 j. = “I was born in 1967.”
In writing, one links together two elements when one is the multiplier of the other. Thus the units that stand separately are usually added to each other to make the whole number:
| mil | naŭcent | naŭdek | ok | = 1998 |
| 1000 | + (9x100) | + (9x10) | + 8 | = 1998 |
Since only two elements may be written together, it sometimes happens with large numbers that a long string of items in fact multiplies the next unit:
| ducent | tridek | kvin | mil | = 235,000 |
| (200 | + 30 | + 5) x | 1000 | = 235,000 |
In both English and Esperanto the number one (unu) occurs in expressions like “one another”:
Some esperantists add a final -n to unu when a noun in that position would require one. Some consider unu to be, like other numbers, fixed and unchanging, even if the -n would reduce ambiguity.
Occasional writers —rarely speakers— use the form unuj to mean “some” or “a few” but kelkaj “a few” is far more common and hence less jarring:
*-“Dozens of people” is literally dekduoj da homoj, but given the arrangement of Esperanto numbers to the base ten, such an expression comes across as weirdly English. It is better to say dekoj da homoj even if the English would be “dozens of people.” (Measuring in dozens, or for that matter tens or scores, is after all a cultural convention, not a mathematical necessity.)
Numbers higher than 999,999 have a slightly different form because the words miliono = “million” and miliardo = “billion” are nouns. One says mil homoj = “a thousand people” but miliono da homoj = “a million people.” (See the article on biliono in Part II.)
Regular numbers, by the addition of -o, can also become nouns in order to say things like “tens of people” = dekoj da homoj or “hundreds of refrigerators” = centoj da glaciŝrankoj.* 1
In Asia and North America we use a period for a decimal point and a comma to set off numbers in groups of three: 12,344.56. In Europe a comma is commonly used to represent a decimal point, and a small space (or occasionally a period) is left where we would put the comma: 12 344,56 or 12.344,56. In Britain a period is used to represent the decimal point, just as we do, but it is often raised slightly in printing and handwriting. Most Europeans are aware of American usage (which is increasingly being adopted internationally), but usage in Esperanto varies. Do as you please —I myself follow American usage in this— but be prepared for anything. In reading out numbers, a comma is komo and a period punkto, wherever they are placed.
The addition of the adjective suffix -a to numbers produces ordinal numbers:
| unu = one | unua = first |
| du = two | dua = second |
| tri = three | tria = third |
| naŭ = nine | naŭa = ninth |
| kvardek du = 42 | kvardek dua = 42nd |
| cent tridek = 130 | cent trideka = 130th |
The usual written abbreviation appends the letter -a (sometimes alone, sometimes with a hyphen, and sometimes raised slightly) to the Arabic numeral: 9a, 9-a, 9a, 130a, 130-a, 130a. The form with the hyphen is commonest.
The following examples provide guidance on common operations in arithmetic:
Fractions are made in Esperanto with the suffix -on-.
Caution: Occasional fractions are ambiguous:
In speaking it is necessary to resolve the ambiguity by intonation and pace of speech. In writing, one can simply hyphenate the elements that go together:
The most common way of telling time in Esperanto is to express the number of minutes or the fraction of an hour that falls before or after an hour; the hours themselves are called the 7th, the 3rd, and so on, sometimes with the word horo = “hour,” sometimes not:
Caution: Many languages have expressions such as our “a quarter of eight.” However, in some languages “a quarter of eight” means 7:45; in others it means 8:15! Esperanto has no such expression, but should you hear a faltering speaker try to make one, try to elicit the information again in standard format. Otherwise, you may miss the appointment!
Because the ordinal (e.g., la sepa) is used to refer to the hour of the day, asking the time requires using kioma, since that is the question-word that demands an ordinal number in response. (See the section on correlatives.)
At the heading of a letter the date may be written out in full as follows: dimanĉon, la 17-an de marto 2023 = “Sunday, March 17, 2023.” The day name and date number are in the accusative to show that the letter is written on that date.
When abbreviations are used, international usage varies. The American custom of shortening dates by writing, for example, 3/17/23 to mean March 17, 2023, is universally regarded as illogical outside of North America, since it puts the smallest unit (days) in the middle (reflecting the way one speaks the date in American English). In the rest of the world one progresses from the largest to the smallest or (less commonly) the smallest to the largest:*
*-A form that places the year first has the advantage that it makes date order correspond with numerical order, largest units first, smaller ones afterward. When used with a fixed number of digits for the day and month (the familiar YYMMDD or YYYYMMDD)this facilitates computerized sorting.
USA: 3/17/23
Western Europe: 17.3.23
China: 230317
Japan, Eastern Europe: 2023.3.17
Eastern Europe: 2023.III.17
Computers: 20230317 or 230317
At the beginning of a century the year numerals can look confusingly like day and month numbers. (What date is 11-6-9?)
Recommendation: The International Organization for Standardization recommends the form 2023-3-17. This (or the similar 2023.3.17) is becoming most common among Esperantists and is to be recommended, but you should be prepared for anything.
*-Then again I suppose you could also write Festo de Sankta Patriko = “St. Patrick’s Day”!
You should avoid the parochially American format 3/17/23. If there is any doubt about whether another person will understand, write out the full date: dimanĉon, la 17-an de marto 2023. Remember that month names, like days of the week, are not capitalized.*
*-The French style is simpler, but present trends clearly favor the long-term triumph of the English style.
Monarchs’ names with numbers (John XXIII, Richard III) are usually read as ordinal numbers, as in English: Johano la dudek tria, Rikardo la tria. Less commonly, however, they may be read as cardinal numbers, as in French (Johano dudek tri, Rikardo tri).*
Esperanto uses the prepositions el, de, and da when speaking of quantities that are not directly counted. (El and de also have other uses.)
El is used when one wishes to differentiate some individuals out of a group:
Da is used between two words when the first is a noun naming the unit of measurement for the second:
or with an adverb indicating the quantity
*-This custom seems (to me) to derive from the feeling that, as soon as the modifier is introduced, one is no longer exclusively concerned with the unit of measurement, and attention is shifted to (or shared by) the thing being measured.
If one specifies which instance of the second thing the first is intended to measure, then the da becomes de. As a practical matter, this means da becomes de before la, before correlatives, and before adjectives:*
The effect of specificity can be created by the difference between da and de themselves, even without a word like la or tiu:
Remember that de can also indicate possession:
Da may be used with plural nouns, as some of the examples here show. Accordingly the distinction is NOT the one we know in English between count and mass nouns. However the association of da with things that cannot easily be counted (like tea and flour) gives it a clear implication of things being taken as a unit, bunch, lump, or glob:
As in English, this may be used to produce picturesque effects:
In informal spoken Esperanto, a forceful turn of phrase sometimes changes the word order:
In ordinary conversation, however, the most common use of da is with the elements kelk- = “some,” mult- = “many, much,” with tro = “too (much)” and pli = “more,” and with the correlatives ending with -iom = “amount”:
In general, kelke and multe are used with da before a singular noun (multe da mono = “lots of money”). The forms kelkaj and multaj are used with plural nouns (multaj studentoj = “lots of students”). There is a good deal of variation both ways, however. Some of the variation is meaningful and really does use da to indicate groups, bunches, lumps, globs, and clots. But some of it arises from the mere habit of saying multe da so often that people forget about multa and multaj (or kelka and kelkaj).