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Esperanto viva!A compendium of Esperanto soundsCompiled by Don Harlow, and adapted for the 'Esperanto Viva!' course. |
Note that of the 28 letters in the Esperanto alphabet, six have supersigns. Five of these have a circumflex above them; these are shown here by Cx, Gx, Hx, Jx and Sx. One has a brev above it; this is shown here by Ux. These are shown in the Latin-3 version of this page, if you can display Latin-3 characters. If not, an option is given in the contents of the 'Esperanto Viva!' course.
The following are examples of the sounds in Esperanto. These are .AU files sampled at 8 kHz sampling rate -- hence the relatively poor quality, particularly in sibilant sounds (frequencies above 4 kHz will be garbled).
- A: pala pale
- A: sana healthy
- B: bano bath
- B: rabo robbery
- C: laca tired
- C: caro tsar
- Cx: acxa rotten, despicable
- Cx: cxamo chamois
- D: dato date
- D: ada ongoing
- E: de of, from
- E: pale palely
- F: pafi to shoot
- F: felo fur
- G: agi to act
- G: gemo a gem
- Gx: agxo age (of a person)
- Gx: gxemi to groan
- H: halo hall (large room)
- H: homo person, human being
- Hx: hxoro chorus, choir
- Hx: ehxo echo
- I: fina final
- I: ido offspring
- J: jono ion
- J: ejo place (for something)
- Jx: jxus just (in the immediate past)
- Jx: ajxo thing, object
- K: kelo cellar
- K: ekbrili to begin to shine
- L: lumo light
- L: rolo role
- M: muso mouse
- M: ema having a tendency toward
- N: nazo nose
- N: dankon thanks
- O: oro gold
- O: povas can (am, is, are able)
- P: porko pig
- P: kapo head
- R: ruza cunning
- R: moro (a) moral
- S: sidi to sit
- S: aso (an) ace (in a deck of cards)
- Sx: sxultro shoulder
- Sx: masxo noose
- T: temi to have as a subject, topic
- T: kato cat
- U: utero womb
- U: multaj many
- Ux: hodiaux today
- Ux: Euxropo Europe
- V: vazo vase
- V: lavi to wash
- Z: zomi to zoom (in)
- Z: frazo sentence
There are six diphthongs in Esperanto. These are formed by a vowel followed by a semivowel ('j' or 'ux'), not by two vowels together, which are to be clearly pronounced as two separate vowels. Americans should have little trouble with these, since what we call 'long vowels' in this country are often diphthongs similar to some of those in Esperanto. Here are examples of the six diphthongs:
- Aj: bonaj good (plural) (like the long 'i' in 'bite')
- Ej: vejno vein (like the long 'a' in 'mate')
- Oj: bojkoti to boycott (like the 'oy' in 'royal')
- Uj: prujno rime ice
- Aux: morgaux tomorrow
- Eux: neuxtrala neutral
Remember that the accent in every Esperanto word (of more than one vowel) falls on the next-to-last vowel.
Adapted from the original compilation.
| Published by Viva Languages in association with Esperanto Teachers' Association (UK). | (c) IDF 1996, 1997, 1998. |