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Esperanto phonology
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Esperanto phonology
Esperanto is a constructed, international auxiliary language designed to have a simple phonology. It was created by L. L. Zamenhof, who described Esperanto pronunciation by comparing the sounds of Esperanto with the sounds of several major European languages.
With over a century of use, Esperanto has developed a phonological norm, including accepted details of phonetics, phonotactics, and intonation, so that it is now possible to speak of proper Esperanto pronunciation and of properly formed words independently of the languages originally used to describe it. This norm accepts only minor allophonic variation.
The Esperanto sound inventory and phonotactics are very close to those of Yiddish, Belarusian and Polish, which were personally important to Zamenhof, the creator of Esperanto. The primary difference is the absence of palatalization, although this was present in Proto-Esperanto (nacjes, now nacioj 'nations'; familje, now familio 'family') and arguably survives marginally in the affectionate suffixes -njo and -ĉjo, and in the interjection tju! Apart from this, the consonant inventory is identical to that of Eastern Yiddish. Minor differences from Belarusian are that g is pronounced as a stop, [ɡ], rather than as a fricative, [ɣ] (in Belarusian, the stop pronunciation is found in recent loanwords and is represented by g in the Belarusian Latin alphabet, whereas [ɣ] is represented by h in the Belarusian Latin alphabet), and that Esperanto distinguishes /x/ and /h/, a distinction that Yiddish makes but that Belarusian (and Polish) do not (the Polish orthography distinguishes ch and h, most speakers pronounce both as /x/, but some eastern Polish speakers pronounce h as [ɣ] or [ɦ]). As in Belarusian, Esperanto /v/ is found in syllable onsets and /u̯/ in syllable codas; however, unlike Belarusian, /v/ does not become /u̯/ if forced into coda position through compounding. According to Kalocsay & Waringhien, if Esperanto /v/ does appear before a voiceless consonant, it will devoice to /f/, as in Yiddish, Polish, and Russian. However, Zamenhof avoided such situations by adding an epenthetic vowel: lavobaseno ('washbasin'), not *lavbaseno or *laŭbaseno. The Esperanto vowel inventory is essentially that of Belarusian. Zamenhof's Litvish dialect of Yiddish (that of Białystok) has an additional schwa and diphthong oŭ but no uj.
There are 6 historically stable diphthongs: /ai̯/, /oi̯/, /ui̯/, /ei̯/ and /au̯/, /eu̯/. However, some authors such as John C. Wells regard them as vowel–consonant sequences – /aj/, /oj/, /uj/, /ej/, /aw/, /ew/ – while Wennergren regards /aj/, /oj/, /uj/, /ej/ as vowel–consonant sequences and only /au̯/, /eu̯/ as diphthongs, there otherwise being no /w/ in Esperanto. The diphthong /ou̯/ is found in a very few newer words such as poŭpo 'poop deck', but those generally have alternative forms without it: pobo.
The letter ŭ /u̯/ sometimes contrasts with v /v/ in syllable onsets in onomatopoeia and unassimilated foreign names (see below).
The Esperanto alphabet is nearly phonemic apart from not reflecting voicing assimilation. The letters, along with the IPA and nearest English equivalent of their principal allophones, are:
Esperanto has many minimal pairs between the voiced and voiceless plosives, b d g and p t k; for example, pagi "pay" vs. paki "pack", baro "bar" vs. paro "pair", teko "briefcase" vs. deko "group of ten".
On the other hand, several distinctions between Esperanto consonants carry very light functional loads, though they are not in complementary distribution and therefore not allophones. The practical effect of this is that people who do not control these distinctions are still able to communicate without difficulty. These minor distinctions are ĵ /ʒ/ vs. ĝ /d͡ʒ/, contrasted in aĵo ('concrete thing') vs. aĝo ('age'); k /k/ vs. ĥ /x/ vs. h /h/, contrasted in koro ('heart') vs. ĥoro ('chorus') vs. horo ('hour'), and in the prefix ek- (inchoative) vs. eĥo ('echo'); dz /d͡z/ vs. z /z/, not contrasted in basic vocabulary; and c /t͡s/ vs. ĉ /t͡ʃ/, found in a few minimal pairs such as caro ('tzar'), ĉar ('because'); ci ('thou'), ĉi (proximate particle used with deictics); celo ('goal'), ĉelo ('cell'); -eco ('-ness'), eĉ ('even'); etc.
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Esperanto phonology
Esperanto is a constructed, international auxiliary language designed to have a simple phonology. It was created by L. L. Zamenhof, who described Esperanto pronunciation by comparing the sounds of Esperanto with the sounds of several major European languages.
With over a century of use, Esperanto has developed a phonological norm, including accepted details of phonetics, phonotactics, and intonation, so that it is now possible to speak of proper Esperanto pronunciation and of properly formed words independently of the languages originally used to describe it. This norm accepts only minor allophonic variation.
The Esperanto sound inventory and phonotactics are very close to those of Yiddish, Belarusian and Polish, which were personally important to Zamenhof, the creator of Esperanto. The primary difference is the absence of palatalization, although this was present in Proto-Esperanto (nacjes, now nacioj 'nations'; familje, now familio 'family') and arguably survives marginally in the affectionate suffixes -njo and -ĉjo, and in the interjection tju! Apart from this, the consonant inventory is identical to that of Eastern Yiddish. Minor differences from Belarusian are that g is pronounced as a stop, [ɡ], rather than as a fricative, [ɣ] (in Belarusian, the stop pronunciation is found in recent loanwords and is represented by g in the Belarusian Latin alphabet, whereas [ɣ] is represented by h in the Belarusian Latin alphabet), and that Esperanto distinguishes /x/ and /h/, a distinction that Yiddish makes but that Belarusian (and Polish) do not (the Polish orthography distinguishes ch and h, most speakers pronounce both as /x/, but some eastern Polish speakers pronounce h as [ɣ] or [ɦ]). As in Belarusian, Esperanto /v/ is found in syllable onsets and /u̯/ in syllable codas; however, unlike Belarusian, /v/ does not become /u̯/ if forced into coda position through compounding. According to Kalocsay & Waringhien, if Esperanto /v/ does appear before a voiceless consonant, it will devoice to /f/, as in Yiddish, Polish, and Russian. However, Zamenhof avoided such situations by adding an epenthetic vowel: lavobaseno ('washbasin'), not *lavbaseno or *laŭbaseno. The Esperanto vowel inventory is essentially that of Belarusian. Zamenhof's Litvish dialect of Yiddish (that of Białystok) has an additional schwa and diphthong oŭ but no uj.
There are 6 historically stable diphthongs: /ai̯/, /oi̯/, /ui̯/, /ei̯/ and /au̯/, /eu̯/. However, some authors such as John C. Wells regard them as vowel–consonant sequences – /aj/, /oj/, /uj/, /ej/, /aw/, /ew/ – while Wennergren regards /aj/, /oj/, /uj/, /ej/ as vowel–consonant sequences and only /au̯/, /eu̯/ as diphthongs, there otherwise being no /w/ in Esperanto. The diphthong /ou̯/ is found in a very few newer words such as poŭpo 'poop deck', but those generally have alternative forms without it: pobo.
The letter ŭ /u̯/ sometimes contrasts with v /v/ in syllable onsets in onomatopoeia and unassimilated foreign names (see below).
The Esperanto alphabet is nearly phonemic apart from not reflecting voicing assimilation. The letters, along with the IPA and nearest English equivalent of their principal allophones, are:
Esperanto has many minimal pairs between the voiced and voiceless plosives, b d g and p t k; for example, pagi "pay" vs. paki "pack", baro "bar" vs. paro "pair", teko "briefcase" vs. deko "group of ten".
On the other hand, several distinctions between Esperanto consonants carry very light functional loads, though they are not in complementary distribution and therefore not allophones. The practical effect of this is that people who do not control these distinctions are still able to communicate without difficulty. These minor distinctions are ĵ /ʒ/ vs. ĝ /d͡ʒ/, contrasted in aĵo ('concrete thing') vs. aĝo ('age'); k /k/ vs. ĥ /x/ vs. h /h/, contrasted in koro ('heart') vs. ĥoro ('chorus') vs. horo ('hour'), and in the prefix ek- (inchoative) vs. eĥo ('echo'); dz /d͡z/ vs. z /z/, not contrasted in basic vocabulary; and c /t͡s/ vs. ĉ /t͡ʃ/, found in a few minimal pairs such as caro ('tzar'), ĉar ('because'); ci ('thou'), ĉi (proximate particle used with deictics); celo ('goal'), ĉelo ('cell'); -eco ('-ness'), eĉ ('even'); etc.