Ludwik Lejzer Zamenhof, the initiator of the Esperanto, wanted that the words espérantos are drawn from the natural languages ( the vortradikoj devas esti prenataj el the naturaj lingvoj ); this choice classifies Esperanto in the built languages a posteriori .
To constitute the lexical bases of Esperanto, Zamenhof however did not use, with some exceptions, that the Indo-European Langues: 70% of the espérantos roots result from the Latin and the Romance Langues; 20% are of Germanic origin , such as the German and the English. The other words come from the old Greek , of the Slavic Langues (the Russian was the native tongue of Zamenhof); Zamenhof, which was of Jewish confession, used the Hebrew very little, and almost was unaware of the Asian or African languages.
When that was possible, Zamenhof took again the common words or very close relations in all the European languages, such as garaĝo (garage), ĝardeno (garden), inĝenioro (engineer), poŝto (station), telefoni (to telephone); very often, the languages had diverged too much and it had to make, root after root, of the inevitably arbitrary etymological choices; but it took care that the loans are varied: thus, the days of the week come from French: lundo, mardo, merkredo, jaŭdo, vendredo, dimanĉo , (but Saturday says sabato ), months of the year of German: Januaro, Februaro, Marto, Aprilo, Majo, Junio, Julio, Aŭgusto, Septembro, Oktobro, Novembro, Decembro ; the units of time come from the two languages: sekundo , minuto , tago (Tag: the day), semajno , monato (Monat: the month), jaro (Jahr: the year), hieraŭ (yesterday), but hodiaŭ (of Latin hodie ) for today , and morgaŭ (of German Morgen ) for tomorrow .
When it had the choice between very close words in two languages, it generally made a translation Esperanto “median”: thus, to slip , which says gleiten in German gives the word Esperanto gliti ; in the same way, forgesi (to forget) starts like English to forget , and finishes like German vergessen .
He also wanted to avoid the Homonymie S: one of the means which it used for that is to vary the etymological loans: thus, the glass results in vitro , of Latin origin, when it is about the matter, and by glaso , of Anglo-Saxon origin, when it is about the container in which one drinks; the language results by lingvo when it is about the communicative language, and in lango when it is about the organic language. It also used other processes: thus to dream results in revi if the dream is waked up, and by sonĝi if it is about a dream during the sleep; these two words are inspired by French.
The affixes, very much used in Esperanto, result also from the European languages: one can quote the example of the prefix badly of French origin, which indicates the opposite (bleated = beautiful, malbela = ugly). Also of French origin the suffixes are - aĵ- (which indicates a concrete derivative: example: lano-lanaĵo (wool-woolen article) lakto-lakaĵo (milk-dairy produce), and the suffix - AD (which indicates the repetition: promeni-promenado example (to walk, the walk), legi-legado (to read, reading), paroli-parolado (to speak, the speech): the suffix - ej- , which indicates the place (pano = bread, panejo = bakery) comes from German; the suffix - EC. , which indicates the abstracted idea, comes from Italian - ezza (bellezza-beleco), etc .
Grammar is inspired by certain elements by the European languages: the accusative in - N (n-komplento) is resulting from German). However, the construction of the word in Esperanto is original (the words in Esperanto are formed by a root which gives the direction, and a termination which indicates the grammatical kind; - O for the substantives, - has for the adjectives, - E for the derived adverbs, - J for plural), the table of the correlatives is a creation of Zamenhof (although it is found in a partial way into Bulgarian, in Russian and Greek); finally, the grammar of Esperanto does not know exceptions, which is non-existent in the Indo-European languages. It is thus the grammar which makes all the originality of Esperanto and one can, with Claude Piron, to discuss if Esperanto is or not a “Western” language.
Zamenhof has however never héziter to transform the words which it borrowed, for various reasons:
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for the euphony (belsoneco) of the language to which he works, he often modifies the pronunciation of the root: when it takes a French term comprising CH , it generally transforms it by using the letter ĉ (to pronounce tch ) ( to buy becomes aĉeti , chief becomes ĉefo ), but without making a systematic process of it: chance says ŝanco , to change says ŝanĝi ; In the same way, the French words comprising the syllable Ge are transformed into ĝe (to pronounce djé ) to groan becomes ĝemi , engineer becomes inĝenioro , etc These sounds phonetically bring closer Esperanto to a language like Italian.
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For grammatical reasons, in particular to respect the affixes of Esperanto: thus to collect and to look at result in rikolti and rigardi , because the prefix “Re” means as in French repetition of the action ; to borrow results in prunti because - EM is a suffix which wants to say inclined to ; sorrow by ĉagren- , morning by maten- , to prevent that these roots end in the suffix - in , which in Esperanto is feminizing (patro = father, patrino = mother); one can make the same remark for the diminutive - and : a cigarette is not exactly a small cigar, a cap a small helmet, and it should not be forgotten that Zamenhof used to translate these words of the termination - ED : cigaredo, kaskedo; of the same a cassette results in kasedo . It is not however there about an absolute rule: Zamenhof thus preserved the words such as najbaro (close) whereas - rear is the suffix of regrouping (arbo = the tree, arbaro = forest); it also kept esper- , whereas - er indicates an element (salo = salt, salero = grain of salt).
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It curtails sometimes the roots, which prevents that compound words, very frequent in Esperanto, are too long: thus, to sneeze says tarnished .
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to avoid the homonymies there too: thus to wash says lavi , the lava of the volcano says lafo .
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One can notice that Zamenhof respects sometimes the orthography of the word of origin and modifies the pronunciation; sometimes it modifies the orthography to take again the pronunciation: for example " soifi" , comes from French thirst , but decides so-i-fi , whereas " exploiter" and " trottoir" say eksploati and trotoaro ; " ĵurnalo" decides like " journal" , but has a different orthography; " teamo" comes from English " team" but decides differently, (it is true that " timo" was already taken by a word of Latin origin (timo= fear)) the first syllable of “genuo” (the knee) is written as in French, but decides “ford”, the second syllable decides as in French, but is written differently.
The European origin of the vocabulary incontestably facilitates the training of Esperanto for the speakers of a European source language in general and the French-speaking people in particular, but does not represent an insurmountable obstacle with the world diffusion of Esperanto, as the example of China shows it where Esperanto was quickly diffused at the beginning of the 20th century.
Lexical loans
Some examples:- Loans with the Romance languages: 70% of the vocabulary, in particular much of loans to French
- French : See the paragraph detailed below
- Latin: abio (fir tree), sed (but), tamen (however), okulo (eye), hepato (liver), akvo (water), IOM (a little) sed (but), vulpo (vulpes = fox)
- Italian: ĉielo (sky), fari (to make), voĉo (voice)
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Romance Languages in general: amiko (amico, friend), facila (easy), fero (iron), will tra (through), verda (green)
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Loans with the Germanic languages: 20% of the German vocabulary
- : anstataŭ (anstatt = instead of), from where the verb anstataŭi (to replace), baldaŭ (bald = soon), bedaŭri (bedauern = to regret), danki (danken = to thank), halti (halten = to stop), jaro (Jahr = year), kino (Kinn = cinema), knabo (der Knabe = the boy), nur (nur = only), hundo (Hund = dog), fraŭlino (Fraulein = Miss), - N of the accusative, Ge (rassemblemant of the two sexes, - in (mark of the female sex)
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English : birdo (bird = bird), helpi (to help = to help), splashes (in splashes off = in spite of), suno (sun = sun), teamo (TEAM = team), jes (yes = yes) lasta (last = last), najlo (nail = nail), ŝarko (shark = shark) kato (cat = cat), ŝuo (shoe = shoe) ŝi (she = it), ŝipo (ship = boat), profesoro (professor = professor)
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Germanic Languages in general: bildo (Bild = image), fiŝo (fisch = fish = fish), fremda (fremd = foreign), grundo (Grund = reason), halti (halten = to stop), hasti (to hurry), " lerni" (German " lernen" , English " to learn" = to learn) ofta (oft = often = often), somero (summer = To summon = be), vintro (Winter = winter = winter), " forgesi" (English " to forget" = German " vergessen" = to forget)
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Loans with the Slavic languages:
- Polish : celo (goal), ĉu (?), krado (grid), luti (to weld), moŝto (seigniory)
- Russian: barakti (барахтаться = to struggle), serpo (серп = bill hook), vosto (вост = tail of animal) (не = negation) - rear (ар = mark of the group)
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Slavic Languages in general: klopodi (to test), krom
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Loans with other Indo-European languages
- Greek old: kaj (and), biologio (biology), politiko (political), - J (termination of plural) and much of scientific terms
- Lithuanian: of (two), tuj (immediately)
- Sanskrit: Budho (Buddha), nirvano (Nirvana)
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Loans with other nonIndo-European languages
- Lappish: boaco (reindeer)
- Japanese : animeo (アニメ), aikido (合気道), cunamo (津波), ĉanojo (茶の湯 → 茶道), ĉirimeno (縮緬), eno (円), goo (碁), hajko (俳句), harakiro (腹切り → 切腹), haŝioj (箸), hibakŝo (被爆者), ĵudo (柔道), kamikazo (神風), kapao (河童), karaokeo (カラオケ), karateo (空手), katano (刀 → 日本刀), kimono (着物), mangao (漫画), noo (能), origamio (折り紙), sakeo (酒 → 日本酒), samurajo (侍), ŝintoo (神道), ŝogio (将棋), ŝoguno (将軍), suŝio (寿司), tankao (短歌), tofuo (豆腐), udonoj (うどん), utao (歌 → 和歌), zorioj (草履), bonsajo (盆栽)
Lexical loans with French
The roots (one uses the term of lexemes ) Esperanto close relations or of origin Frenchwomen (will generally express we them in the infinitive verbal form) can be divided in the following way:- lexemes having the same direction, being written and deciding as in French:
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lexemes having the same direction and the same pronunciation as in French, but from which the orthography is a little different, in particular to respect the phonetic writing. It is thus often necessary to replace the letters C , S , S by respectively K , S and Z , to prune the redoubled letters, to use a letter of substitution for the letters not existing in Esperanto ( Q in particular):
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lexemes having the same direction and the same orthography as in French, but from which the pronunciation is a little different
The nasonnés sounds French amndts-EM-im-om-um and year-in-in-one-a do not exist in Esperanto and decide like heart-éme-ime-ome-oume and ass-éne-innate-one-oune Examples: grimpi (to climb), invested to invest, montri (to show), pensi (to think), inventi (to invent), renversi (to reverse)
The letter E decides like " é" in French) Examples: veni (to come)
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the lexemes from which the pronunciation and the orthography are a little different from French, but whose direction is easily perceptible for a French-speaking person:
Lexemes resembling French, but from which the direction is different, i.e. false-friends.
Bibliography: Gaston Waringhien, lingvo kaj vivo .
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