Esperanto

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	1889

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		tʃ	dʒ
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.