In our efforts to demonstrate that Esperanto is a living language, suitable for practical use, we must show its suitability and merits on as wide a range of fields as possible. Journalists reporting on the language often choose the more banal of those – is it possible to swear, to jokes, make love, and puns…

In spite of the quote from Samuel Johnson (1709-84), “Puns are the lowest form of wit”, Esperanto provides abundant – even outstanding – opportunities for punning, running against the common perception that a language practically without homonyms is unsuitable for punning. Lack of homonyms is high on the list of required criteria to deem a langauge suitable as an international language, but it does exclude that source of word jokes. However, that omission is more than compensated by the unique and rich possibilities in Esperanto for word building.

After a quick summary of the categories of puns in unphonetic languages, we will explore the main categories for word jokes in Esperanto. There will be no lack of concrete examples, particularly in the two sessions for Akademio Internacia de la Scencoj (AIS), which will also include group exercises in identifying puns from cryptic descritions. The main category for punning arises from compound words, with the ability to redivide the character strings into two or more interpretations. These are as follows:

Prefix + Word1 = Word 2
Word1 + Suffix = Word 2
Word1 + Word 2 = Word3
Word 1 + Word 2 = Word 3 + Word 4

As above but involving affixes or other elements Cases involving more than two words or elements. We will additionally explore anagrams, palindromes and the striking opportunities for creating and solving cryptic crosswords.