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rendering the spirit and swing of national works of literature in Esperanto, and for facilitating the writing of verse, the accusative is a priceless boon. Is the price too high?

N.B.—Those people who are most apt to omit the -n of the accusative, having no accusative in their own language, generally make their meaning perfectly clear without it, because they are accustomed to indicate the objective case by the order in which they place their words. They make a mistake of Esperanto by omitting the -n, but they are understood, which is the essential.

Adjectives in Esperanto agree with their substantives in number and case. Ex.: bona patro, bonan patron, bonaj patroj, bonajn patrojn.

Suppose one were to suppress agreement of adjectives.

(a) Cost of retention of agreement: Remembering to add -j for the plural and -n for the accusative.

(b) Advantages of retention: Greater clearness; conformity with the usage of the majority of languages; euphony.

Esperanto has wisely adopted full, vocalic, syllabic endings for words. Contrast Esp. bon-o with French bon, Eng. good, Germ. gut. By this means Esperanto is not only rendered slower, more harmonious, and easier of comprehension; it is also able to denote the parts of speech clearly to eye and ear by their form. Thus final -o bespeaks a noun; -a, an adjective; -e, an adverb; -i, an infinitive, etc.

Now, since all adjectives end in syllabic -a, it is much harder to keep them uninflected than if they ended with a consonant like the Eng. "good." To talk about bona patroj would not only seem a hideous barbarism to all Latin peoples, whose languages Esperanto most resembles, but it would also offend the bulk of Northerners. After a very little practice it is really easier to say bonaj patroj than bona patroj. The assimilation of termination tempts the ear and tongue.