Esperanto uses Latin alphabet with 28
letters:
A B C Ĉ D E F G Ĝ H Ĥ I J Ĵ K L M N O P R S Ŝ T U Ŭ V Z
a b c ĉ d e f g ĝ h ĥ i j ĵ k l m n o p r s ŝ t u ŭ v z
The
pronunciation of letters without diacritics is nearly the same as the same
letters in IPA (except
c). Letter
c is pronounced as
ts in
hats,
ĉ as
ch in
church,
ĝ as
g in
geography,
ĵ as
s in
vision,
ŝ as
sh in
ship and
ŭ is used in diphthongs
(
aŭ –
ow in
how).
Six letters –
ĉ, ĝ,
ĥ, ĵ, ŝ and
ŭ
– are unique to Esperanto. The diacritical mark over the first five
letters is called
cirkumflekso (circumflex);
the diacritical mark over u is called
hoketo
(hacek). There are two main alternatives to these diacritical marks:
1) To
use letter
h instead of the circumflex and drop
the hacek:
ch,
gh,
hh,
jh,
sh,
u.
This is the official alternative, which
was proposed by the creator of the language. The advantage of it is that the
transcribed words look more internationally:
shi –
she,
shipo –
ship,
chambro –
room (in French
chambre),
automobilo –
car,
Europo –
Europe. The small
disadvantage consist in the problematical conversion from this transcription
back to the alphabet with diacritical signs – there are few roots like
ekshibici,
ghett, etc. where
sh and
gh does
not stand for
ŝ and
ĝ. In addition, of course, there is no
difference between
u and
ŭ.
[3]2) To
use letter
x instead of the circumflex and the
hacek:
cx, gx,
hx, jx,
sx,
ux.
This alternative is not official, but is
widely used on WWW and electronic texts. The advantage is that there is a direct
mapping between this transcription and the alphabet with diacritical marks
– letter
x is not used in Esperanto. The
disadvantage is that words look rather strange and are not so similar to the
western languages.
The pronuntiation of
ĥ is hard for people of some
nationalities. The letter
ĥ is also very
rare. There is a tendency to replace this letter
(
ĥemio =
kemio – chemistry,
teĥniko =
tekniko – technique). There is
even a rule that any
ĥ after
r can be replaced by
k in both the spelling and
pronunciation
(e.g.
arĥitekto =
arkitekto – architect,
arĥeologo =
arkeologo –
archeologist)
.[3] In my opinion, this ambiguity
is highly insignificant. There are only few roots where the pair
ch, gh, etc.
does not stand for a ligature. More ambiguities can be created by word building,
when the second morpheme starts with letter
h
(still there is no such affix). However ambiguity produced by wordbuilding is so
common in Esperanto, that this does not increase it by a significant amount.
