Esperanto

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Esperanto
Spoken in: most countries of Earth
Timeline/Universe: international auxiliary language
Total speakers: unknown (estimated ca. 1 million)
Genealogical classification: A posteriori
European based
Basic word order: SVO
Morphological type: agglutinating
Morphosyntactic alignment: accusative
Created by:
L. L. Zamenhof 1887

Esperanto is the world's most popular international auxiliary language, spoken by an unknown number of people (estimates vary a lot, but 1 million is probably in the right ballpark) all over the world. The name derives from the author L. L. Zamenhof's pseudonym Doktoro Esperanto 'Dr. Hopeful'; he himself named it La Internacia Lingvo 'The International Language'.

Phonology

Consonants

The 22 consonants are:

Bilabial Labio-
dental
Alveolar Post-
alveolar
Palatal Velar Glottal
Nasal m   n        
Plosive p b   t d     k ɡ  
Affricate     ts        
Fricative   f v s z ʃ ʒ   x   h  
Trill     r        
Approximant     l   j    

Vowels

Front Back
Close i u
Mid e o
Open a

Stress

Stress in Esperanto words always falls on the penultimate syllable.

Morphology

Esperanto morphology is perfectly regular and agglutinating, but not rich. Nouns end in -o, to this are added the endings -j for plural and -n for accusative:

Noun Subject Object
Singular -o -on
Plural -oj -ojn

Adjectives are inflected the same way, except that they end in -a rather than -o.

The definite article is always la; there is no indefinite article.

The personal pronouns are:

Personal pronouns
singular plural
first person mi (I) ni (we)
second person vi (you)
third
person
masculine li (he) ili (they)
feminine ŝi (she)
epicene ĝi (it, s/he)
indefinite oni (one)*
reflexive si (self)
*In colloquial English, generally translated "they" or "you".

The demonstrative and relative pronouns are called "correlatives" in Esperanto grammar, and align in a famous table:

Question
("What")
Indication
("This/that")
Indefinite
("Some")
Universal
("Each, every")
Negative
("No")
ki– ti– i– ĉi– neni–
Quality –a kia
(what a)
tia
(such a)
ia
(some kind/sort/type of)
ĉia
(every kind/sort/type of)
nenia
(no kind/sort/type of)
Reason –al kial
(why)
tial
(therefore)
ial
(for some reason)
ĉial
(for all reasons)
nenial
(for no reason)
Time –am kiam
(when)
tiam
(then)
iam
(sometime)
ĉiam
(always)
neniam
(never)
Place –e kie
(where)
tie
(there)
ie
(somewhere)
ĉie
(everywhere)
nenie
(nowhere)
Manner –el kiel
(how, as)
tiel
(thus, as)
iel
(somehow)
ĉiel
(in every way)
neniel
(no-how, in no way)
Association –es kies
(whose)
ties
(this/that one's)
ies
(someone's)
ĉies
(everyone's)
nenies
(no one's)
Thing –o kio
(what)
tio
(this/that)
io
(something)
ĉio
(everything)
nenio
(nothing)
Amount –om kiom
(how much)
tiom
(that much)
iom
(some, a bit)
ĉiom
(all of it)
neniom
(none)
Individual –u kiu
(who, which one; which [horse])
tiu
(that one; that [horse])
iu
(someone; some [horse])
ĉiu
(everyone; each [horse], all [horses])
neniu
(no one; no [horse])

The inflection of the verb is summed up in the following chart:

Indicative Active participle Passive participle Infinitive Jussive Conditional
Past -is -inta -ita -i -u -us
Present -as -anta -ata
Future -os -onta -ota

Examples:

esperi (to hope)
esperas (hopes, is hoping)
esperis (hoped, was hoping)
esperos (shall hope, will hope)
esperu (hope!)
esperus (were to hope, would hope)

Syntax

Esperanto's basic word order is SVO, prepositional, with modifiers following the noun, but its noun case marking and adjective agreement makes any word order possible. Generally, Esperanto syntax follows Standard Average European patterns.

Reception among conlangers

The feelings of conlangers toward Esperanto are divided. Some acknowledge it as elegant, but many feel that they could do better and criticize it for its Standard Average European structure.

This article is part of a series on International Auxiliary Languages.

Romance-based Auxlangs: Aercant * Atlango * Interlingua * Latin Nov * Novial * Occidental (Interlingue) * Panroman * Romanal
Germanic-based Auxlangs: Folksprak * Nordien
Slavic Auxlangs: Novoslovnica
Turkic Auxlangs: Jalpi Turkic
African Auxlangs: Afrihili
Mixed-Origin Auxlangs: Esperanto * Adjuvilo * Ido * Ayola * Medial Europan * Bolak * Kotava * North American * Pantos-dimou-glossa * Pasetok * Sasxsek * Universalglot * Volapük
A priori auxlangs: -