Esperanto etymology
Encyclopedia
Esperanto vocabulary
and grammatical forms derive primarily from the Romance languages
, with lesser contributions from Germanic
. The language occupies a middle ground between "naturalistic" constructed language
s such as Interlingua
, which borrow words en masse from their source languages with little internal derivation, and a priori conlangs such as Solresol
, in which the words have no historical connection to other languages. In Esperanto, root words are borrowed and retain much of the form of their source language, whether the phonetic form (eks- from international ex-, vualo from French voile) or orthographic form (teamo and boato from English team and boat, soifo from French soif). However, each root can then form dozens of derivations which may bear little resemblance to equivalent words in the source languages, such as registaro (government), which is derived from the Latinate root reg (to rule) but has a morphology closer to German or Russian.
and Germanic
families, principally Italian, French, German, Yiddish, and English. A large number are what might be called common European international vocabulary, or generic Romance
: Roots common to several languages, such as vir- "man", found in English words such as virile, and okul- "eye", found in oculist. Some appear to be compromises between the primary languages, such as tondri (to thunder), per French tonner, Italian tuonare, German Donner, and English thunder.
French
, English
,
and German
, the modern languages most widely learned in schools around the world at the time Esperanto was devised, though much of the supposedly German vocabulary is actually closer to Yiddish. Many of the Latinate roots were given an Italianesque
appearance, corresponding to the use of Italian as a model for Esperanto pronunciation. The result was that about two thirds of this original vocabulary is Romance, and about one third Germanic, including a pair of roots from Swedish:
A couple of words, strato (street) and gisto (yeast), are closer to Dutch (straat, gist) than German (Straße [ŝtras], Gest), but this may be a compromise between German and English the way ŝtono (stone) is a compromise between German Stein [ŝtajn] and English. Fajro (fire) matches the pronunciation of English fire, but is also spelled and pronounced as Yiddish fajr. A couple of apparently Spanish or Portuguese roots, ronki (to snore) and iri (to go), may have come directly from Latin. Since then, a large amount of Latinate vocabulary has been added to the language. In 1987, Mattos calculated that 84% of basic vocabulary was Latinate, 14% Germanic, and 2% Slavic and Greek.
As in the examples of ardeo 'heron' and abio 'fir', the names of most plants and animals are based on their binomial nomenclature
, and so many are Latin or Greek as well.
However, although few roots come directly from these languages, Russian exerted a considerable substratum
influence on the semantics
of Esperanto. An oft-cited example is plena "full, complete", which is Latinate in form (French plein(e), Latin plen- "full"), but has the semantic range of Russian полный polnyi "full, complete", as can be seen in the phrase plena vortaro "a complete dictionary", a usage not possible with the French or Latin words.
) from Japanese
and boaco (reindeer
) from Saami.
Ĝi may possibly derive from the Lithuanian ji (she, it) and jis (he, it), and -ujo from the French étui (case).
Like another indirect German borrowing, fraŭlo (bachelor), which derives from fraŭlino (Miss
, from "fräulein") less the feminine suffix -in-, edzo appears to be a back-formation
of edzino (wife). Zamenhof said the latter derives from kronprincedzino (crown princess), borrowed from the German Kronprinzessin, and then internally analyzed as kron- (crown) princ- (prince) edzino (wife).http://www.esperanto.org/Ondo/L-lr.htm#06etimologio However, Vilborg's Etimologia Vortaro argues that edzino is more likely to have come from Yiddish rebbetzin
(rabbi's wife, Mrs.), reanalysed as rebb-etzin, and that Zamenhof made up the German etymology after the fact to avoid anti-Semitic prejudice against Esperanto. That would mean that edz- ultimately derives from the Slavic feminine suffix -its(a). Regardless, few words have histories this convoluted.
The correlatives, although clearly cognate with European languages (for example, kiel, tiel with French quel (which), tel (such); ĉiu with Italian ciascun (each), and -es with the German genitive -es, etc.), have been analogically leveled to the point that they are often given as examples of Esperanto innovations. This is especially true for the indefinite forms like io (something), which were devised by iconically
removing the consonant of the ki- and ti- forms. Likewise, the restriction of the Italian and Greek masculine noun and adjective ending -o to nouns, and the feminine noun and adjective ending -a to adjectives and the article la, is an Esperanto innovation using existing forms.
Some smaller words have been modified to the extent that they're difficult to recognize. For example, Italian a, ad (to) became al (to) under the influence of the contraction al (to the), to better fit the phonotactics of the language, and in a parallel change, Latin ex (out of) and Slavic od (by, than) may have became el (out of) and ol (than).
nouns such as the word for "muse
": musa, plural musai, accusative musan, which in Esperanto is muzo, muzoj, muzon. Greek o-declension words such as logos, logoi, logon (word) are similar, as are adjectival declensions such as aksia, aksiai, aksian (worthy). Greek was perhaps also the model of stressed i in Esperanto words like familío (family), which follows the common Greek pattern of aksía (worthy) and ojkíaj (houses).
Esperanto also has an a–i–o ablaut for present/past/future tense, which has partial parallels in Latin present amat, perfect amavit, and the corresponding infinitives amare, amavisse. Otto Jespersen
said of the ablaut,
There may also have been a Volapük influence: there the vowels were present a-, future o-, past perfect i-, as well as imperfect ä- [ɛ]; Esperanto retained an imperfect in -es until 1887, the year the modern form of the language was published.
The infinitive suffix -i may derive from Latin deponent verb
s, such as loqui (to speak). With elements like these that are only one or two letters long, it is difficult to know whether resemblances are due to the forms being related, or just coincidence. For example, it is speculated that the jussive -u is from the Hebrew imperative -û, but it could also be from the Greek [u] imperative of deponent verbs such as dekhou (receive!); or perhaps it was inspired by [u] being found in both Hebrew and Greek. Similarly, adverbial -e is found in Latin and Italian (bene) as well as in Russian (after a palatalized
consonant); the participle bases -t- and -nt- are found in Latin, Italian, Greek, and German; and the pronominal base -i is found in Italian and English.
With the exception of perhaps a hundred common or generic plant and animal names, Esperanto adopts the international binomial nomenclature
of living organisms, using suitable orthography, and changing the nominal and adjectival grammatical endings to -o and -a. For example, the binomial for the guineafowl
is Numida meleagris. In Esperanto, therefore, a numido would be any bird of the genus Numida, and a meleagra numido the helmeted guineafowl specifically. Likewise, a numidedo is any bird in the guineafowl family Numididæ
.
to use when assimilating Latin and Greek words. Zamenhof generally preferred the oblique stem over the nominative singular form, as in reĝo (king), which follows the Latin oblique forms with reg– (compare English regicide), or floro (flower) as in floral, rather than nominative singular rex and flos. However, European national standards differ in this regard, resulting in debate over the form of later "international" borrowings, such as whether the asteroid
Pallas
should be Palaso in Esperanto, parallel to French and English names Pallas, or Palado, as in Italian Pallade, Russian Паллада (Palláda), and the English adjective Palladian. In some cases there are three possibilities, as can be seen in the English noun helix (x = [ks]), its plural helices (c = [s]), and its adjective helical (c = [k]). Although the resulting potential for conflict is frequently criticized, it does present an opportunity to disambiguate what would otherwise be homonym
s based on culturally specific and often fossilized metaphor
s. For example, all three of the forms of Latin helix are found as Esperanto roots, one with the original meaning, and the other two representing old metaphors: helico (a spiral), heliko (a snail), helikso (the incurved rim of the ear).
Normally the Latin or Greek inflectional ending is replaced with the Esperanto inflectional ending −o. However, the original inflection will occasionally be retained, as if it were part of the root, in order to disambiguate from a more common word. For example, a virus (from Latin vir-us) is redundant virus-o instead of the expected *vir-o in order to avoid confusion with vir-o (a man), and the Latin root corp-us is the source of both korp-o (a living body) and korpus-o (a military corps). Similarly, when the sound ĥ is replaced with k, as it commonly is (see Esperanto phonology
), the word ĥoro (a chorus) is replaced with the inflectionally redundant form koruso to avoid creating a homonym with koro (a heart). The redundant inflection may have been inspired by Lithuanian, which otherwise contributed relatively little to Esperanto: compare fokuso (focus), kokoso (coconut), lotuso (lotus), patoso (pathos), radiuso (radius), sinuso (sine), and viruso (virus), with Lithuanian fokusas, kokosas, lotosas, patosas, radiusas, sinusas, and virusas (virus) vs. vyras (man).
Note: This dictionary should be used with caution. For example, amelo (starch) is given as a rare example of a Greek word that does not occur in Latin. However, it is not only a Latin derivation (from amyl-um), but more directly derives from German amel-.
Vocabulary
A person's vocabulary is the set of words within a language that are familiar to that person. A vocabulary usually develops with age, and serves as a useful and fundamental tool for communication and acquiring knowledge...
and grammatical forms derive primarily from the Romance languages
Romance languages
The Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family, more precisely of the Italic languages subfamily, comprising all the languages that descend from Vulgar Latin, the language of ancient Rome...
, with lesser contributions from Germanic
Germanic languages
The Germanic languages constitute a sub-branch of the Indo-European language family. The common ancestor of all of the languages in this branch is called Proto-Germanic , which was spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age northern Europe...
. The language occupies a middle ground between "naturalistic" constructed language
Constructed language
A planned or constructed language—known colloquially as a conlang—is a language whose phonology, grammar, and/or vocabulary has been consciously devised by an individual or group, instead of having evolved naturally...
s such as Interlingua
Interlingua
Interlingua is an international auxiliary language , developed between 1937 and 1951 by the International Auxiliary Language Association...
, which borrow words en masse from their source languages with little internal derivation, and a priori conlangs such as Solresol
Solresol
Solresol is an artificial language devised by François Sudre, beginning in 1827. He published his major book on it, Langue musicale universelle, in 1866, though he had already been publicizing it for some years...
, in which the words have no historical connection to other languages. In Esperanto, root words are borrowed and retain much of the form of their source language, whether the phonetic form (eks- from international ex-, vualo from French voile) or orthographic form (teamo and boato from English team and boat, soifo from French soif). However, each root can then form dozens of derivations which may bear little resemblance to equivalent words in the source languages, such as registaro (government), which is derived from the Latinate root reg (to rule) but has a morphology closer to German or Russian.
Source languages
Zamenhof took most of his Esperanto root words from languages of the ItalicItalic languages
The Italic subfamily is a member of the Indo-European language family. It includes the Romance languages derived from Latin , and a number of extinct languages of the Italian Peninsula, including Umbrian, Oscan, Faliscan, and Latin.In the past various definitions of "Italic" have prevailed...
and Germanic
Germanic languages
The Germanic languages constitute a sub-branch of the Indo-European language family. The common ancestor of all of the languages in this branch is called Proto-Germanic , which was spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age northern Europe...
families, principally Italian, French, German, Yiddish, and English. A large number are what might be called common European international vocabulary, or generic Romance
Romance languages
The Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family, more precisely of the Italic languages subfamily, comprising all the languages that descend from Vulgar Latin, the language of ancient Rome...
: Roots common to several languages, such as vir- "man", found in English words such as virile, and okul- "eye", found in oculist. Some appear to be compromises between the primary languages, such as tondri (to thunder), per French tonner, Italian tuonare, German Donner, and English thunder.
Romance and Germanic
The main languages contributing to Zamenhof's original vocabulary wereFrench
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
,
and German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, the modern languages most widely learned in schools around the world at the time Esperanto was devised, though much of the supposedly German vocabulary is actually closer to Yiddish. Many of the Latinate roots were given an Italianesque
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
appearance, corresponding to the use of Italian as a model for Esperanto pronunciation. The result was that about two thirds of this original vocabulary is Romance, and about one third Germanic, including a pair of roots from Swedish:
- SwedishSwedish languageSwedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...
: Comparative the (as in "the more the merrier") ju ... des.
A couple of words, strato (street) and gisto (yeast), are closer to Dutch (straat, gist) than German (Straße [ŝtras], Gest), but this may be a compromise between German and English the way ŝtono (stone) is a compromise between German Stein [ŝtajn] and English. Fajro (fire) matches the pronunciation of English fire, but is also spelled and pronounced as Yiddish fajr. A couple of apparently Spanish or Portuguese roots, ronki (to snore) and iri (to go), may have come directly from Latin. Since then, a large amount of Latinate vocabulary has been added to the language. In 1987, Mattos calculated that 84% of basic vocabulary was Latinate, 14% Germanic, and 2% Slavic and Greek.
Latin and Greek
Only a few roots were taken directly from the classical languages:- LatinLatinLatin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
: sed (but), tamen (however), post (after), kvankam (although), kvazaŭ (as though), dum (during), nek (nor), aŭ (or), hodiaŭ (today), abio (fir), ardeo (heron), iri (to go—though this form survives in the French future), ronki (to snore), prujno (frost), the adverbAdverbAn adverb is a part of speech that modifies verbs or any part of speech other than a noun . Adverbs can modify verbs, adjectives , clauses, sentences, and other adverbs....
ial suffix -e, and perhaps the infinitiveInfinitiveIn grammar, infinitive is the name for certain verb forms that exist in many languages. In the usual description of English, the infinitive of a verb is its basic form with or without the particle to: therefore, do and to do, be and to be, and so on are infinitives...
suffix -i. Many lexical affixes are common to several languages and thus may not have clear sources, but some such as -inda (worthy of), -ul (a person), -um (undefined), and -op- (a number together) may be Latin.
- Classical GreekGreek languageGreek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
: kaj (and, from και kai), pri (about, from περι- peri-), the pluralPluralIn linguistics, plurality or [a] plural is a concept of quantity representing a value of more-than-one. Typically applied to nouns, a plural word or marker is used to distinguish a value other than the default quantity of a noun, which is typically one...
suffix -j, the accusative caseAccusative caseThe accusative case of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. The same case is used in many languages for the objects of prepositions...
suffix -n, the inceptive prefix ek-, the suffix -ido (offspring), and perhaps the jussive mood suffix -u (if not HebrewHebrew languageHebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
).
As in the examples of ardeo 'heron' and abio 'fir', the names of most plants and animals are based on their binomial nomenclature
Binomial nomenclature
Binomial nomenclature is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, both of which use Latin grammatical forms, although they can be based on words from other languages...
, and so many are Latin or Greek as well.
Slavic and Lithuanian
Surprisingly few roots appear to have come from other modern European languages, even those Zamenhof was most familiar with. What follows is a fairly comprehensive list of such roots that do not also occur in principal languages:- RussianRussian languageRussian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
: barakti (to flounder, from барахтаться barahtat'sja), gladi (to iron, from гладить gladit') kartavi (to pronounce a guttural RGuttural RIn linguistics, guttural R refers to pronunciation of a rhotic consonant as a guttural consonant. These consonants are usually uvular, but can also be realized as a velar, pharyngeal, or glottal rhotic...
, from кapтaвить kartavit'), deĵori (to be on duty, from дежурить dezhyrit'), kolbaso (a sausage, from колбаса kolbasa), krom (except, from кроме krome), kruta (steep, from крутой krutoj), nepre (without fail, from непременно nepremenno), vosto (a tail, from хвост hvost), the pet-nameNicknameA nickname is "a usually familiar or humorous but sometimes pointed or cruel name given to a person or place, as a supposedly appropriate replacement for or addition to the proper name.", or a name similar in origin and pronunciation from the original name....
suffixes -ĉjo and -njo (from -чка -čka and -нька -n'ka), the augmentative suffix -eg- (from -яга -jaga), and perhaps the collective suffix -aro, if this is not from Latin.
- PolishPolish languagePolish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
: barĉo (borschtBorschtBorscht is a soup of Ukrainian origin that is popular in many Eastern and Central European countries. In most of these countries, it is made with beetroot as the main ingredient, giving it a deep reddish-purple color...
, from barszcz), celo (an aim, goal, from cel), ĉu (whether, from czy, perhaps also Yiddish tsu), eĉ (even, from jeszcze), krado (a grating, from krata), luti (to solder, from lutować), [via] moŝto ([your] highness, from mość), ol (than, possibly from od), pilko (a ball, from piłka), ŝelko (suspenders, from szelki)
- Russian or Polish: bulko (a bread roll, from bułka / булка bulka), kaĉo (porridge, from kasza / каша kaša), klopodi (to undertake, from kłopot / хлопотать khlopotat'), po (per, from po / по po), pra- (proto-, from pra- / пра- pra-), prava (right [in opinion], from prawy / правый pravyj), svati (to matchmake, from swat / сват svat)
- LithuanianLithuanian languageLithuanian is the official state language of Lithuania and is recognized as one of the official languages of the European Union. There are about 2.96 million native Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania and about 170,000 abroad. Lithuanian is a Baltic language, closely related to Latvian, although they...
: tuj (immediately, from tuoj); possibly also the suffix -ope (a number together), du (two, from du, if not from Latin duo), and ĝi (it, from ji, jis)
However, although few roots come directly from these languages, Russian exerted a considerable substratum
Substratum
In linguistics, a stratum or strate is a language that influences, or is influenced by another through contact. A substratum is a language which has lower power or prestige than another, while a superstratum is the language that has higher power or prestige. Both substratum and superstratum...
influence on the semantics
Semantics
Semantics is the study of meaning. It focuses on the relation between signifiers, such as words, phrases, signs and symbols, and what they stand for, their denotata....
of Esperanto. An oft-cited example is plena "full, complete", which is Latinate in form (French plein(e), Latin plen- "full"), but has the semantic range of Russian полный polnyi "full, complete", as can be seen in the phrase plena vortaro "a complete dictionary", a usage not possible with the French or Latin words.
Other languages
Other languages were only represented in the original vocabulary in so far as they were cognate with, or as their words had become widespread in, Esperanto's source languages. However, since that time many languages have contributed words for specialized or regional concepts, such as haŝio (chopsticksChopsticks
Chopsticks are small, often tapered, sticks used in pairs of equal length as the traditional eating utensils of China and its diaspora, Japan, Korea, Vietnam and Northern provinces of Laos, Thailand and Burma. Generally believed to have originated in ancient China, they can also be found in some...
) from Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
and boaco (reindeer
Reindeer
The reindeer , also known as the caribou in North America, is a deer from the Arctic and Subarctic, including both resident and migratory populations. While overall widespread and numerous, some of its subspecies are rare and one has already gone extinct.Reindeer vary considerably in color and size...
) from Saami.
Obscure roots
A few roots are obscure:- ĝi (it, s/he), -ujo (suffix for containers), edzo (husband)
Ĝi may possibly derive from the Lithuanian ji (she, it) and jis (he, it), and -ujo from the French étui (case).
Like another indirect German borrowing, fraŭlo (bachelor), which derives from fraŭlino (Miss
Miss
Miss is an English language honorific traditionally used only for an unmarried woman . Originating in the 17th century, it is a contraction of mistress, which was used for all women. A period is not used to signify the contraction...
, from "fräulein") less the feminine suffix -in-, edzo appears to be a back-formation
Back-formation
In etymology, back-formation is the process of creating a new lexeme, usually by removing actual or supposed affixes. The resulting neologism is called a back-formation, a term coined by James Murray in 1889...
of edzino (wife). Zamenhof said the latter derives from kronprincedzino (crown princess), borrowed from the German Kronprinzessin, and then internally analyzed as kron- (crown) princ- (prince) edzino (wife).http://www.esperanto.org/Ondo/L-lr.htm#06etimologio However, Vilborg's Etimologia Vortaro argues that edzino is more likely to have come from Yiddish rebbetzin
Rebbetzin
Rebbitzin or Rabbanit is the title used for the wife of a rabbi, typically from the Orthodox, or Haredi, and Hasidic Jewish groups...
(rabbi's wife, Mrs.), reanalysed as rebb-etzin, and that Zamenhof made up the German etymology after the fact to avoid anti-Semitic prejudice against Esperanto. That would mean that edz- ultimately derives from the Slavic feminine suffix -its(a). Regardless, few words have histories this convoluted.
The correlatives, although clearly cognate with European languages (for example, kiel, tiel with French quel (which), tel (such); ĉiu with Italian ciascun (each), and -es with the German genitive -es, etc.), have been analogically leveled to the point that they are often given as examples of Esperanto innovations. This is especially true for the indefinite forms like io (something), which were devised by iconically
Iconicity
In functional-cognitive linguistics, as well as in semiotics, iconicity is the conceived similarity or analogy between the form of a sign and its meaning, as opposed to arbitrariness.Iconic principles:...
removing the consonant of the ki- and ti- forms. Likewise, the restriction of the Italian and Greek masculine noun and adjective ending -o to nouns, and the feminine noun and adjective ending -a to adjectives and the article la, is an Esperanto innovation using existing forms.
Some smaller words have been modified to the extent that they're difficult to recognize. For example, Italian a, ad (to) became al (to) under the influence of the contraction al (to the), to better fit the phonotactics of the language, and in a parallel change, Latin ex (out of) and Slavic od (by, than) may have became el (out of) and ol (than).
Inflections
The Greek origin of the nominal inflections can be seen in the Greek a-declensionDeclension
In linguistics, declension is the inflection of nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and articles to indicate number , case , and gender...
nouns such as the word for "muse
Muse
The Muses in Greek mythology, poetry, and literature, are the goddesses who inspire the creation of literature and the arts. They were considered the source of the knowledge, related orally for centuries in the ancient culture, that was contained in poetic lyrics and myths...
": musa, plural musai, accusative musan, which in Esperanto is muzo, muzoj, muzon. Greek o-declension words such as logos, logoi, logon (word) are similar, as are adjectival declensions such as aksia, aksiai, aksian (worthy). Greek was perhaps also the model of stressed i in Esperanto words like familío (family), which follows the common Greek pattern of aksía (worthy) and ojkíaj (houses).
Esperanto also has an a–i–o ablaut for present/past/future tense, which has partial parallels in Latin present amat, perfect amavit, and the corresponding infinitives amare, amavisse. Otto Jespersen
Otto Jespersen
Jens Otto Harry Jespersen or Otto Jespersen was a Danish linguist who specialized in the grammar of the English language.He was born in Randers in northern Jutland and attended Copenhagen University, earning degrees in English, French, and Latin...
said of the ablaut,
- This play of vowels is not an original idea of Zamenhof's: -as, -is, -os are found for the three tenses of the infinitive in Faiguet's system of 1765; -a, -i, -o without a consonant are used like Z's -as, -is, -os by Rudelle (1858); Courtonne in 1885 had -am, -im, -om in the same values, and the similarity with Esperanto is here even more perfect than in the other projects, as -um corresponds to Z's -us. — An International Language (1928)
There may also have been a Volapük influence: there the vowels were present a-, future o-, past perfect i-, as well as imperfect ä- [ɛ]; Esperanto retained an imperfect in -es until 1887, the year the modern form of the language was published.
The infinitive suffix -i may derive from Latin deponent verb
Deponent verb
In linguistics, a deponent verb is a verb that is active in meaning but takes its form from a different voice, most commonly the middle or passive. A deponent verb doesn't have active forms; it can be said to have deposited them .-Greek:...
s, such as loqui (to speak). With elements like these that are only one or two letters long, it is difficult to know whether resemblances are due to the forms being related, or just coincidence. For example, it is speculated that the jussive -u is from the Hebrew imperative -û, but it could also be from the Greek [u] imperative of deponent verbs such as dekhou (receive!); or perhaps it was inspired by [u] being found in both Hebrew and Greek. Similarly, adverbial -e is found in Latin and Italian (bene) as well as in Russian (after a palatalized
Palatalization
In linguistics, palatalization , also palatization, may refer to two different processes by which a sound, usually a consonant, comes to be produced with the tongue in a position in the mouth near the palate....
consonant); the participle bases -t- and -nt- are found in Latin, Italian, Greek, and German; and the pronominal base -i is found in Italian and English.
Technical vocabulary
Modern international vocabulary, much of it Latin or Greek in origin, is of course used as well, but frequently for a family of related words only the root will be borrowed directly, and the rest will be derived from it using Esperanto means of word formation. For example, the computer term 'bit' was borrowed directly as bito, but 'byte' was then derived by compounding bito with the numeral ok (eight), for the uniquely Esperanto word bitoko ('an octet of bits'). Although not a familiar form to speakers of European languages, the transparency of its formation is helpful to those who do not have this advantage.With the exception of perhaps a hundred common or generic plant and animal names, Esperanto adopts the international binomial nomenclature
Binomial nomenclature
Binomial nomenclature is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, both of which use Latin grammatical forms, although they can be based on words from other languages...
of living organisms, using suitable orthography, and changing the nominal and adjectival grammatical endings to -o and -a. For example, the binomial for the guineafowl
Helmeted Guineafowl
The Helmeted Guineafowl is the best known of the guineafowl bird family, Numididae, and the only member of the genus Numida...
is Numida meleagris. In Esperanto, therefore, a numido would be any bird of the genus Numida, and a meleagra numido the helmeted guineafowl specifically. Likewise, a numidedo is any bird in the guineafowl family Numididæ
Guineafowl
The guineafowl are a family of birds in the Galliformes order, although some authorities include the guineafowl as a subfamily, Numidinae, of the family Phasianidae...
.
Competing root forms
There is some question over which inflectionInflection
In grammar, inflection or inflexion is the modification of a word to express different grammatical categories such as tense, grammatical mood, grammatical voice, aspect, person, number, gender and case...
to use when assimilating Latin and Greek words. Zamenhof generally preferred the oblique stem over the nominative singular form, as in reĝo (king), which follows the Latin oblique forms with reg– (compare English regicide), or floro (flower) as in floral, rather than nominative singular rex and flos. However, European national standards differ in this regard, resulting in debate over the form of later "international" borrowings, such as whether the asteroid
Asteroid
Asteroids are a class of small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun. They have also been called planetoids, especially the larger ones...
Pallas
2 Pallas
Pallas, formally designated 2 Pallas, is the second asteroid to have been discovered , and one of the largest. It is estimated to constitute 7% of the mass of the asteroid belt, and its diameter of 530–565 km is comparable to, or slightly larger than, that of 4 Vesta. It is however 20%...
should be Palaso in Esperanto, parallel to French and English names Pallas, or Palado, as in Italian Pallade, Russian Паллада (Palláda), and the English adjective Palladian. In some cases there are three possibilities, as can be seen in the English noun helix (x = [ks]), its plural helices (c = [s]), and its adjective helical (c = [k]). Although the resulting potential for conflict is frequently criticized, it does present an opportunity to disambiguate what would otherwise be homonym
Homonym
In linguistics, a homonym is, in the strict sense, one of a group of words that often but not necessarily share the same spelling and the same pronunciation but have different meanings...
s based on culturally specific and often fossilized metaphor
Metaphor
A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...
s. For example, all three of the forms of Latin helix are found as Esperanto roots, one with the original meaning, and the other two representing old metaphors: helico (a spiral), heliko (a snail), helikso (the incurved rim of the ear).
Normally the Latin or Greek inflectional ending is replaced with the Esperanto inflectional ending −o. However, the original inflection will occasionally be retained, as if it were part of the root, in order to disambiguate from a more common word. For example, a virus (from Latin vir-us) is redundant virus-o instead of the expected *vir-o in order to avoid confusion with vir-o (a man), and the Latin root corp-us is the source of both korp-o (a living body) and korpus-o (a military corps). Similarly, when the sound ĥ is replaced with k, as it commonly is (see Esperanto phonology
Esperanto phonology
The creator of Esperanto, L. L. Zamenhof, illustrated Esperanto pronunciation by comparing its letters with their equivalents in several major European languages and declaring a principle of "one letter, one sound"...
), the word ĥoro (a chorus) is replaced with the inflectionally redundant form koruso to avoid creating a homonym with koro (a heart). The redundant inflection may have been inspired by Lithuanian, which otherwise contributed relatively little to Esperanto: compare fokuso (focus), kokoso (coconut), lotuso (lotus), patoso (pathos), radiuso (radius), sinuso (sine), and viruso (virus), with Lithuanian fokusas, kokosas, lotosas, patosas, radiusas, sinusas, and virusas (virus) vs. vyras (man).
External links
- Etymological Dictionary of the Esperanto Language by Andras Rajki
Note: This dictionary should be used with caution. For example, amelo (starch) is given as a rare example of a Greek word that does not occur in Latin. However, it is not only a Latin derivation (from amyl-um), but more directly derives from German amel-.