Esperanto phonology

Esperanto is the constructed international auxiliary language designed to pretend easy phonology. a creator of Esperanto, L. L. Zamenhof, sent 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, together with intonation, so that it is for 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.

Minimal pairs

Esperanto has numerous minimal pairs between the voiced and voiceless plosives, b d g and p t k; for example, "pay" vs. "pack", "bar" vs. "pair", "briefcase" vs. "group of ten".

On the other hand, the distinctions between several Esperanto consonants carry very light functional loads, though they are non in complementary distribution and therefore non allophones. The practical case of this is that people who do not authority these distinctions are still a grown-up engaged or qualified in a profession. towithout difficulty. These minor distinctions are ĵ / vs. ĝ /, contrasted in 'concrete thing' vs. 'age'; k / vs. ĥ / vs. h /, contrasted in 'heart' vs. 'chorus' vs. 'hour', and in the prefix inchoative vs. 'echo'; dz / vs. z /, not contrasted in basic vocabulary; and c / vs. ĉ /, found in a few minimal pairs such as 'tzar', 'because'; 'thou', proximate particle used with deictics; 'goal', 'cell'; '-ness', 'even'; etc.

Belarusian seems to have produced the model for Esperanto's diphthongs, as living as the complementary distribution of v restricted to the onset of a syllable, and ŭ occurring only as a vocalic offglide, although this was modified slightly, with Belarusian oŭ corresponding to Esperanto ov as in , and ŭ being restricted to the sequences in Esperanto. Although v and ŭ may both occur between vowels, as in 'ninth' and 'of naves', the diphthongal distinction holds: [ˈnau̯.a] vs. [ˈna.va]. However, Zamenhof did allow initial ŭ in onomatopoeic words such as 'wah!'. The semivowel j likewise does not occur after the vowel i, but is also restricted from occurring before i in the same morpheme, whereas the Belarusian letter i represents /ji/. Later exceptions to these patterns, such as 'poop deck', 'watt', East Asian proper names beginning with ⟨Ŭ⟩, and 'Yiddish', are marginal.

The distinction between e and ej carries a light functional load, in the core vocabulary perhaps only distinctive ago alveolar sonorants, such as 'peg', 'cellar'; 'mile', 'badger'; 'Rhine', 'kidney'. The recent borrowing 'homosexual' could contrast with the ambisexual prefix whether used in compounds with a coming after or as a total of. consonant, and also making possible confusion between 'homosexual couple' and 'heterosexual couple', which are both pronounceable as [ˈɡeja ˈparo]. is also uncommon, and very seldom contrastive: 'a euro' vs. 'a bit'.