Esperanto is written in a Latin-script alphabet of twenty-eight letters, with upper and lower case. This is supplemented by punctuation marks and by various logograms, such as the digits 0–9, currency signs such as $ € ¥ £ ₷, and mathematical symbols. The creator of Esperanto, L. L. Zamenhof, declared a principle of "one letter, one sound", though this is a general rather than strict guideline.Kalocsay & Waringhien, Plena analiza gramatiko, § 17
Twenty-two of the letters are identical in form to letters of the English alphabet (q, w, x, and y being omitted). The remaining six have diacritical marks: ĉ, ĝ, ĥ, ĵ, ŝ, and ŭ – that is, c, g, h, j, and s circumflex, and u breve.
Standard alphabet Standard Esperanto orthography uses the Latin script.
Phonology
The letters have approximately the sound values of the IPA, with the exception of c and the letters with diacritics: ĉ , ĝ , ĥ , ĵ , ŝ , ŭ . J transcribes two sounds, consonantal (the English y sound, as in you) and vocalic .
Majuscule forms A B C Ĉ D E F GĜ H Ĥ I J Ĵ K LM N O P R S Ŝ TU Ŭ V Z Minuscule forms a b c ĉ d e f gĝ h ĥ i j ĵ k lm n o p r s ŝ tu ŭ v z Principal IPA values
There is a nearly one-to-one correspondence of letter to sound. Diphthongs such as aŭ and eŭ require two letters. has dual consonantal and vocalic use, parallel to Esperanto having both consonantal and vocalic . For those who consider to be a phoneme, Esperanto contains one consonantal digraph as well, .Plena analiza gramatiko, § 22 Allophony has been noted in the vowels (for example in open vs closed syllables) and is found in the place assimilation of and , the latter of which for example is frequently pronounced before g and k for speakers of language backgrounds that do the same.
Phonemic change is perhaps limited to voicing assimilation of obstruents, as in the sequence kz of ekzemplo, ('(an) example') which is 'inevitably' pronounced in normal speech, though purists try to pronounce it .Plena Analiza Gramatiko de Esperanto, 4th edition, 1980 In Zamenhof's writing, obstruents with different voicing such as k and z do not meet in compound lexical words, but rather are separated by an epenthetic vowel, such as o, to avoid such assimilation, though placing such letters together is common among speakers whose language background allows it.
Non-Esperantized names are given an Esperanto approximation of their original pronunciation, at least by speakers without command of the original language. Hard is read as k, as kv, as v, as ks, and as j if a consonant, or as i if a vowel. The English digraph is read as t. When there is no close equivalent, the difficult sounds may be given the Esperanto values of the letters in the orthography or roman transcription, accommodating the constraints of Esperanto phonology. So, for example, Winchester (the English city) is pronounced (and may be spelled) Vinĉester , as Esperanto ŭ does not occur at the beginning of ordinary words. Changzhou generally becomes Ĉanĝo , as Esperanto has no ng or ou sound. There are no strict rules, however; speakers may try for greater fidelity, for example by pronouncing the g and u in Changzhou: Ĉangĝoŭ (despite there being no g sound in the Chinese pronunciation). The original stress may be kept, if it is known.
Capitalization Capitalization is used for the first word of a sentence and for proper names when used as nouns. Names of months, days of the week, ethnicities, languages, and the adjectival forms of proper names are not typically capitalized (anglo "an Englishman", angla "English", usona "US American"), though national norms may override such generalizations. Titles are more variable: both the Romance style of capitalizing only the first word of the title and the English style of capitalizing all lexical words are found.
All capitals or small capitals are used for acronyms and initialisms of proper names, like TEJO, but not common expressions like ktp (etc.). Small capitals are also a common convention for family names, to avoid the confusion of varying national naming conventions: Kálmán, Leslie Kwok-wing.
Camel case, with or without a hyphen, may occur when a prefix is added to a proper noun: la geZamenhofoj (the Zamenhofs), pra-Esperanto (Proto-Esperanto). It is also used for Russian-style syllabic acronyms, such as the name ReVo for Reta Vortaro ("Internet Dictionary"), which is homonymous with revo (dream). Occasionally mixed capitalization will be used for orthographic puns, such as espERAnto, which stands for the (Radical Esperanto Association).
Zamenhof contrasted informal ci with formal, and capitalized, Vi as the second-person singular pronouns. However, lower-case vi is now used as the second-person pronoun regardless of number.
Alphabet letter names Standard names For consonants, Zamenhof simply added -o onto the end to create the name of the letter, while the vowels represent themselves: a, bo, co, ĉo, do, e, fo, etc. The diacritics are frequently mentioned overtly. For instance, ĉ may be called ĉo ĉapelita, from ĉapelo (a hat), and ŭ may be called u hoketa, from hoko (a hook) plus the diminutive -et-. This is the only system that is widely accepted and in practical use.
The letters of the ISO basic Latin alphabet not found in the Esperanto alphabet have distinct names, much as letters of the Greek alphabet do. , , are kuo, ikso, ipsilono; has been called duobla vo (double V), vavo (using Waringhien's name of va below), vuo (proposed by Sergio Pokrovskij), germana vo (German V), and ĝermana vo (Germanic V).
However, while this is fine for initialisms such as ktp [kotopo] for etc., it can be problematic when spelling out names. For example, several consonantal distinctions are difficult for many nationalities, who normally rely on the fact that Esperanto seldom uses these sounds to distinguish words (that is, they do not form many minimal pairs). Thus the pairs of letter names ĵo–ĝo, ĥo–ho (or ĥo–ko), co–ĉo (or co–so, co–to), lo–ro, and ŭo–vo (or vo–bo) are problematic. In addition, over a noisy telephone connection, it quickly becomes apparent that voicing distinctions can be difficult to make out: noise confounds the pairs po–bo, to–do, ĉo–ĝo, ko–go, fo–vo, so–zo, ŝo–ĵo, as well as the nasals mo–no.
There have been several proposals to resolve this problem. Gaston Waringhien proposed changing the vowel of voiced obstruents to a, so that at least voicing is not problematic. Also changed to a are h, n, r, distinguishing them from ĥ, m, l. The result is perhaps the most common alternative in use:
a, ba, co, ĉo, da, e, fo, ga, ĝa, ha, ĥo, i, jo, ĵa, ko, lo, mo, na, o, po, ra, so, ŝo, to, u, ŭo, va, za However, this still requires overt mention of the diacritics, and even so does not reliably distinguish ba–va, co–so, ĉo–ŝo, or ĝa–ĵa.
The proposal closest to international norms (and thus the easiest to remember) that clarifies all the above distinctions is a modification of a proposal by Kálmán Kalocsay. As with Zamenhof, vowels stand for themselves, but it follows the international standard of placing vowel e after a consonant by default (be, ce, de, ge), but before sonorants (el, en) and voiceless fricatives (ef, es). The vowel a is used for and the voiceless plosives , , , after the international names ha for and ka for ; the French name ĵi is used for , the Greek name ĥi (chi) for , and the English name ar for . The letter has the i vowel of ĵi, distinguishing it from , but the other voiced fricative, , does not, to avoid the problem of it palatalizing and being confused with ĵi. The diphthong offglide is named eŭ, the only real possibility given Esperanto phonotactics besides aŭ, which, as the word for "or", could cause confusion. The letter is called om to distinguish it from ; the vowel o alliterates well in the alphabetical sequence el, om, en, o, pa. There are other patterns to the vowels in the ABC rhyme: The lines start with a i a i and finish with a a e e. The letters with diacritics are placed at the end of the rhyme, taking the place of w, x, y in other Latin alphabets, so as not to disrupt the pattern of letters many people learned as children. All this makes the system more easily memorized than competing proposals. The modified Kalocsay abecedary is:
a, be, ce, de, e, ef, ge, ha, i, je, ka, el, om, en, o, pa, ar, es, ta, u, vi, ĉa, ĝe, ĥi kaj ĵi, eŝ, eŭ kaj ze, plus ku', ikso, ipsilono, jen la abece-kolono.
(kaj means "and". The last line reads: here is the ABC column)
Where letters are still confused, such as es vs eŝ or a vs ha, mention can be made of the diacritic (eŝ ĉapela), or to the manner of articulation of the sound (ha brueta "breathy aitch"). Quite commonly, however, people will use the aitch as in house strategy used in English.
Spelling alphabets Another strategy is to use a spelling alphabet (literuma alfabeto), which substitutes ordinary words for letters. The following words are sometimes seen:
From a German–Esperanto dictionary by :http://bertilow.com/pmeg/gramatiko/oa-vortecaj_vortetoj/liternomoj.htmlAlthough this source claims these words are "used by" the World Esperanto Association, it was in fact simply reprinted in the 1995 edition of the Jarlibro (p. 93).
Asfalto, Barbaro, Centimetro, Ĉefo, Doktoro, Elemento, Fabriko, Gumo, Ĝirafo, Hotelo, Ĥaoso, Insekto, Jubileo, Ĵurnalo, Kilogramo, Legendo, Maŝino, Naturo, Oktobro, Papero, Kuo, Rekordo, Salato, Ŝilingo, Triumfo, Universo, Universo-hoketo, Vulkano, Ĝermana vo, Ikso, Ipsilono, Zinko
A proposal by in Monato:Monato, internacia magazino sendependa, numero 1996/01, paĝo 22: 'Bonvolu l-i-t-e-r-umi!' akvo, baldaŭ, cedro, ĉirkaŭ, dolĉa, eĥo, fajfi, golfo, ĝis, hejme, ĥoro, iĝi, jaĥto, ĵuri, korpo, lingvo, morgaŭ, nokto, ofte, pelvo, kuo, riĉa, sankta, ŝaŭmi, tempo, uzi, ŭa-ŭa, vespo, vavo, ikso, ipsilono, zorgi
A proposal by , in which most words are tetrasyllabic so that the syllable beginning with the letter in question receives secondary stress (though only in Varsovio do both stressed syllables begin with the letter):G F Makkink: Nia Fundamento sub lupeo Akademio, bondeziro, centjariĝo, Ĉe-metodo, delegito, Esperanto, Fundamento, gramatiko, ĝisrevido, harmonio, ĥorkantado, internacia, jubileo, ĵurnalisto, kalendaro, Ludoviko, modernigo, necesejo, okupita, propagando, kuo, redaktoro, sekretario, ŝatokupo, telefono, universala, u-supersigno, Varsovio, vuo, ikso, ipsilono, Zamenhofo
The International League of Esperantist Radio Amateurs (ILERA) uses the following adaptation of the International Radiotelephony Spelling Alphabet (ICAO and NATO "phonetic" alphabet): alfa, bravo, carli, delta, eko, fokstrot, golf, hotel, india, juliet, kilo, lima, majk, november, oskar, papa, kebek, romeo, siera, tango, uniform, viktor, ŭiski ~ viski, eksrej, janki, zulu
ILERA also modifies the numerals ses '6' and sep '7' to sis and sepen to make them more distinct, and uses the nominal form nulo for zero.
Origin
The script resembles Western Slavic Latin alphabets but uses circumflexes instead of carons for the letters ĉ, ĝ, ĥ, ĵ, and ŝ. Also, the non-Slavic bases of the letters ĝ and ĵ, rather than Slavic dž and ž, help preserve the printed appearance of Latinate and Germanic vocabulary such as ĝenerala "general" (adjective) and ĵurnalo "journal". The letter v stands for either v or w of other languages. The letter ŭ of the diphthongs aŭ and eŭ resemble the Belarusian Łacinka alphabet.