About the Esperanto Language

Esperanto: The International Language (La Internacia Lingvo)

The Esperanto Alphabet.

The Esperanto Alphabet is very similar to the English alphabet with a couple of differences. You simply remove four letters (q, w, x, and y), and then add the six letters with the diacritical marks. These six 'special characters' are not easily displayed in 'standard' fonts for electronic information exchanges, such as by email, over the Worldwide Web or in Newsgroups, so they are usually typed as the special letter followed by another 'marking' character. When Esperanto was created, the suggestion was made to use the letter 'H', but many folks also use the letter 'X' or the carat (^) symbol. ( Example: D a c-with-a-hat j o = Dachjo, Dacxjo, or Dac^jo. )

Some Basic Esperanto Grammar

All of the letters have are always pronounced the same, including the vowels. There are no such things as 'hard' and 'soft' vowel sounds. Would you like to see a pronunciation guide?

There is only one Definite Article, "LA".

For words of more than one syllable, the emphasis is always on the next to the last syllable.

The language is built on 'root words'. If a root word ends with the letter 'o', the word is the noun form of the root word. If it ends with the letter 'a', the word is an adjective. The infinitive verb form of a root word ends with the letter 'i'. If a word ends with the letter 'e', it is an adverb. If you learn 100 root words, you would know 100 nouns, 100 verbs, 100 adjectives, 100 adverbs, etc.

The language also uses prefixes and suffixes to build words. By using the Past (-is), Present (-as), and Future-tense (-os) endings, you would expand your vocabulary even more!

Every word is pronounced as it is spelled. Every letter is pronounced, including double vowels.

There is an accusative ending (the letter 'n'), to show the direct object of the phrase. This allows words to be shuffled, according to a speakers native language grammar rules, and the phrase will still be easily understood by other Esperantists. (For example, Germans build sentences differently from Japanese, and from Americans.)

Adopted 'foreign words' (those not in the original dictionary of Esperanto) don't change. Only the orthography and endings change. (Example: telephone = telefono.)

These pages are maintained by David K. . Harris (Zonker@esperanto.org)
Acknowledgements: My pages are created on a DUO 230, using the LCD screen, and occasionally gets checked on a color screen with Adobe PageMill, and illustrations made in CLARIS MacDraw Pro.