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THIS LIST IS A WIP AND SHOULD NOT BE USED IN ITS CURRENT STATE UNTIL THIS MESSAGE IS REMOVED
The thing that makes Esperanto great (fight me) is that in order to make a lot of specific words, you only need to know relatively few compared to natural languages. Unlike Toki Pona, the ability to make more complex concepts out of simple ones is not meant to slow you down so as to prompt introspection and meditation, but rather to make it easier and faster to express specific concepts. As a result, the language still has a much larger collection of root words than Toki Pona.
The problem is that the large vocabulary, which is overwhelmingly Romance to the point that it makes Esperanto look like a Romance language, seemingly causes some people to forget what kind of language they're speaking. Thus we see a large number of unnecessary root words in use in the language, which makes things harder for everyone.
We have words like demokratio, infinitezimo, zoologio, anarĥiismo, and kompliki even though we can create words like popolrego, senfinecono, bestoscienco, senestrismo, and malfaciligi, which sufice and are more helpful to learners without European language backgrounds, and are also just more pleasant in my opinion.
Fortunately for us, the Akademio of Esperanto already has a list of basic root words. These are words which, according to them, every Esperanto speaker should know, but which no Esperanto speaker should necessarily need to depart from for day-to-day purposes. Unfortunately, this list is not great for learners, since it's just a list with no definitions. There are also a number of roots which still seem unnecessary, at least to me, and some, though not many, which feel worthy of inclusion.
That's why I've chosen to make this webpage out of their list of roots. This revised list is intended for new learners who'd like to keep their root count low and make the most out of the word-building power that makes Esperanto still worth learning.
Blue roots are inherently male. If a decently well known gender neutral equivalent exists, it will be in the replacements section. If it is unofficial, it will have an asterisk. Even though I obviously strongly dislike the creation of new roots, I can understand why this might be important for some people, so I won't proscribe the use of new gender neutral roots.
Yellow roots are replaceable with compounds but are still worth using because they're easier to pronounce, shorter, helpful in compounds, and/or extremely common.
Red roots are completely replaceable. They will only show in the replacement section of a given group.
"aŭ" words (15):