Esperanto vocabulary and grammatical forms derive primarily from the Romance languages, with substantial contributions from Germanic languages. The language occupies a middle ground between "naturalistic" a posteriori constructed languages 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 ( from international ex-, from German , from French ) or orthographic form ( and from English team and boat, from French ). However, each root can then form dozens of derivations which may bear little resemblance to equivalent words in the source languages, such as (government), which is derived from the Latinate root (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 Italic 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 "man", found in English words such as virile, and "eye", found in oculist. Some appear to be compromises between the primary languages, such as (to thunder), per French , Italian , German and English thunder.
Romance and Germanic The main languages contributing to Zamenhof's original vocabulary were French, English, and German/Yiddish, the modern languages most widely learned in schools around the world at the time Esperanto was devised. 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: Comparative the (as in "the more the merrier"), from Swedish . (Cf. German .) A couple of words, (street) and (yeast), are closer to Dutch (, ) than German ( , ), but this may be a compromise between German and English the way (stone) is a compromise between German and English stone. (There's also (to snore), Dutch .) (fire) matches the pronunciation of English fire, but is also spelled and pronounced as Yiddish . Indeed, much of the supposedly German vocabulary actually appears to be Yiddish, specifically Zamenhof's native Bialystok (Northeastern) dialect, which had formed the basis of his abortive attempt to standardize that language. Words with the digraph in German may in Esperanto have either (seemingly corresponding to the spelling) or (seemingly corresponding to the pronunciation). This pattern is not random, but reflects and in Old High German, a distinction preserved in Yiddish: (home: German but Yiddish ), (whistle: both German and Yiddish ). Zamenhof never admitted to a Yiddish influence in Esperanto, presumably to avoid arousing antisemitic prejudice.
Many of the Latinate roots were given an Italianesque appearance, corresponding to the use of Italian as a model for Esperanto pronunciation, but in form are closer to French, such as (shirt: French , Italian ) and (horse: French , Italian ), though some forms are of Italian origin or are compromises between Italian and French, English, or both.
Since Zamenhof's day, 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 or Greek.Mattos, Geraldo, "La deveno de Esperanto", Fonto 1987.
Latin and Greek Only a few roots were taken directly from the classical languages:
Latin: (but), (however), (after), (although), (as though), (during), (nor), (or), (today), (fir), (heron), (to go—though this form survives in the future tense in French ), (frost), the adverbial suffix , and perhaps the inherent vowels of the past and present tenses, and . Many lexical affixes are common to several languages and thus may not have a clear source, but some such as (worthy of), (a person), (undefined), and (a number together) may be Latin (e.g. the Latin gerundive , the neuter inflection ).
Classical Greek: (and, from ), (about, from ), the plural suffix , the accusative case suffix , the inceptive prefix (from ), and perhaps the jussive mood suffix (if that is not Hebrew).
Latin and Greek: the suffix (offspring; from Latin and Greek ).
As in the examples of 'heron' and 'fir' above, the names of most plants and animals are based on their binomial nomenclature, 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:
Russian: (to flounder, from ), (to iron, from ), (to pronounce a guttural R, from ), (to be on duty, from ), (a sausage, from ), (except, from ), (steep, from ), (without fail, from ), (a tail, from ), the pet-name suffixes and (from and ), the augmentative suffix (from ), and perhaps the collective suffix , if this is not from Latin.
Polish: (borscht, from ), (whether, from , perhaps also Yiddish ), (even, from ), (a grating, from ), (to solder, from ), ([your] highness, from ), (than, possibly from by analogy with ), (a ball, from ), (suspenders, from ).
Russian or Polish: (a bread roll, from / ), (an aim, goal, from / , cognates of German ), (porridge, from / ), (to undertake, from / ), (per, from / ), (proto-, from / ), (right [in opinion], from / ), (to matchmake, from / ).
Lithuanian: (immediately, from ); possibly also (two, from , if not from Latin ), the suffix (a number together, cf. ), and (it, from , ).
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 "full, complete", which is Latinate in form (French , Latin "full"), but has the semantic range of Russian "full, complete", as can be seen in the phrase "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 (chopsticks) from Japanese and (reindeer) from Saami.
Obscure roots A few roots are obscure:
(it, s/he), (suffix for containers), (husband)
may possibly derive from the Lithuanian (she, it) and (he, it),Vilborg and from the French (case).Floriano Pessoa, 2005,
Like another indirect German borrowing – (bachelor), which derives from (Miss, from German ) less the feminine suffix – the Esperanto word (husband) appears to be a back-formation of (wife). Zamenhof claimed the latter derives from (crown princess), borrowed from the German , and then internally analyzed as (crown) (prince) (wife). However, Vilborg's argues that is more likely to have come from Yiddish (rabbi's wife; Mrs.), reanalysed as , and that Zamenhof made up the German etymology after the fact to avoid anti-Semitic prejudice against Esperanto. That would mean that ultimately derives from the Slavic feminine suffix . Regardless, few words have histories this convoluted.
The correlatives, although clearly cognate with European languages (for example, , with French (which), (such); with Italian (each), and with the German genitive , 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 (something), which were devised by iconically removing the consonant of the and forms. Likewise, the restriction of the Italian and Greek masculine noun and adjective ending to nouns, and the feminine noun and adjective ending to adjectives and the article , is an Esperanto innovation using existing forms.For speakers of Italian, Spanish or Portuguese, it may at first be jarring that Esperanto has the endings and of those languages, but assigns them to differentiate nouns from adjectives rather than masculine from feminine. However, there are parallels within Romance. In Provençal, for example, feminine nouns end in but take the article : Provençal (the window), Esperanto ; Provençal (life), Esperanto ; Provençal (the rose), Esperanto ; Provençal (the road), Esperanto ; etc. Even in Spanish and Italian, there are words with this pattern: (the hand), (the photo), (the radio), (the generator), etc., are common to Esperanto, Spanish, and Italian.
Some smaller words have been modified to the extent that they're difficult to recognize. For example, Italian , (to) became (to) under the influence of the Italian contraction (to the), to better fit the phonotactics of Esperanto, and in a parallel change, Latin (out of) and Slavic (by, than) may have become (out of) and (than), though the latter also has the German parallel .
Inflections The Greek origin of the nominal inflections can be seen in the Greek a-declension 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 oikíai (houses).
Esperanto has 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,
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 have been a Volapük influence as well, or the two languages may have shared a common influence from earlier languages. In Volapük, the vowels are present a-, future o-, past perfect i-, as well as imperfect ä- ; Esperanto retained a distinction between preterite -is and imperfect -es until 1887, the year the modern form of the language was published.Christer Kiselman, 2010. 'Variantoj de esperanto iniciatitaj de Zamenhof'. In Esperanto: komenco, aktualo kaj estonteco , UEA.
Jespersen didn't parse all of the morphology.The infinitive -s in Faiguet drops in the indicative, leaving a simple vowel, and the -m in Courtonne is the first-person-singular suffix. The ablaut for the five languages is as follows:
{|class=wikitable ! !Faiguet (1765) !Rudelle (1858) !Volapük (1880) !Courtonne (1884) !Esperanto (1887) |- !present | -a | -a | -a- Appears in the passive inflections; there is no Volapük present-tense suffix in the active voice. | -a- ! -a- |- !future | -y Spelled "u" but pronounced , as a French u. Faiguet used -o for the past perfect. | -o | o- | -o- ! -o- |- !past/preterite | -i | -i | i- | (i)There is no simple past tense, but -i- is used for the past subjunctive ! -i- |- !imperfect | -e | -e | spelled "ä" | -e- ! old -e- |- !conditional | | -ju spelled "iy"; replacement for French "u" | | -u- ! -u- |- !subjunctive | | -u spelled "y" (present subjunctive) | | -ə- ! -u