Esperanto Grammar - The Article

The Article

Esperanto has a single definite article, la, which is invariable. It is similar to English the.

La is used:

For identifiable, countable objects:

Mi trovis botelon kaj deprenis la fermilon.

"I found a bottle and took off the lid."

For representative individuals:

La gepardo estas la plej rapida de la bestoj.

"The cheetah is the fastest of the animals."

La abeloj havas felon, sed ili ne taŭgas por karesi.

"Bees have fur, but they're no good for petting."

For adjectives used as nouns, such as ethnic adjectives used as the names of languages:

la blua

"the blue one"

la angla

"English" (i.e. "the English language")

For possessive pronouns, when definite:

La mia bluas, la via ruĝas.

"Mine is blue, yours is red".

The article is also used for inalienable possession of body parts and kin terms, where English would use a possessive adjective:

Ili tranĉis la manon.

"They cut their hands."

The article la, like the demonstrative adjective tiu (this, that), nearly always occurs at the beginning of the noun phrase, but this is not required by the grammar, and exceptions occur in poetry.

There is no grammatically required indefinite article: homo means either "human being" or "a human being", depending on the context, and similarly the plural homoj means "human beings" or "some human beings". The words iu and unu (or their plurals iuj and unuj) may be used somewhat like indefinite articles, but they're closer in meaning to "some" and "a certain" than to English "a". This use of unu corresponds to English "a" when the "a" indicates a specific individual. Consider, for example,

Ŝi volas edziniĝi al svedo.

"She wants to marry a Swede" (she wants the man she marries to be Swedish—no specific person in mind)

Ŝi volas edziniĝi al unu svedo.

"She wants to marry a Swede" (the man she wants to marry is Swedish—a specific person)

This use of unu plays the role of "there was" in the introduction of fairy tales (There was an old woman who ...) and in introducing new participants (A man came up to me and said ...).