Происхождение слов в эсперанто

Origin of words in Esperanto

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" 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 (eks from international ex , ŝvebi from German schweben, 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.

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 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 donnern and English thunder.

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 ju des (as in "the more the merrier"), from Swedish ju desto (Cf. German je desto )
A couple of words, strato (street) and gisto (yeast), are closer to Dutch (straat, gist) than German (Straße , Gest), but this may be a compromise between German and English the way ŝtono (stone) is a compromise between German Stein and English stone. (There's also ronki (to snore), Dutch ronken.) Fajro (fire) matches the pronunciation of English fire, but is also spelled and pronounced as Yiddish פֿײַר 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 ei in German may in Esperanto have either ej (seemingly corresponding to the spelling) or aj (seemingly corresponding to the pronunciation). This pattern is not random, but reflects ei and ī in Old High German, a distinction preserved in Yiddish: hejmo (home: German Heim but Yiddish הײם ), fajfi (whistle: both German pfeifen and Yiddish פֿײַפֿן ). 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 ĉemizo (shirt: French chemise , Italian camicia ) and ĉevalo (horse: French cheval , Italian cavallo ). 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.

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: barakti (to flounder, from барахтаться ), gladi (to iron, from гладить ), kartavi (to pronounce a guttural R, from кapтaвить ), deĵori (to be on duty, from дежурить ), kolbaso (a sausage, from колбаса ), krom (except, from кроме ), kruta (steep, from крутой ), nepre (without fail, from непременно ), vosto (a tail, from хвост ), the pet name suffixes ĉjo and njo (from чка and нька ), the augmentative suffix eg (from яга ), and perhaps the collective suffix aro, if this is not from Latin. Polish: barĉo (borscht, from barszcz), 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 by analogy with al), pilko (a ball, from piłka), ŝelko (suspenders, from szelki). Russian or Polish: bulko (a bread roll, from bułka / булка ), celo (an aim, goal, from cel / цѣль , cognates of German Ziel), kaĉo (porridge, from kasza / каша ), klopodi (to undertake, from kłopot / хлопотать ), po (per, from po / по ), pra (proto , from pra / пра ), prava (right [in opinion], from prawy / правый ), svati (to matchmake, from swat / сват ). Lithuanian: tuj (immediately, from tuoj); possibly also du (two, from dù, if not from Latin duo), the suffix ope (a number together, cf. dvejopas), and ĝi (it, from ji, jis). 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 "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 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 haŝioj (chopsticks) from Japanese and boaco (reindeer) from Saami.

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. Moreover, even bito has the synonym duumo, based on du (two) and um (the affix with undefined meaning). 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.

There is some question over which inflection 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 homonyms based on culturally specific and often fossilized metaphors. For example, Venuso (the planet Venus) may be distinguished from Venero (the goddess Venus), 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 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 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).

Proto Esperanto had voicing ablaut, traces of which remain in a few pairs of words such as pezi 'to weigh' (to have weight) and pesi 'to weigh' (to measure the weight). Because little of Proto Esperanto has survived, it is not clear which other aspects of Esperanto etymology might date to this period.