User:DonaldKronos/Esper (language)

For other uses, see Esper.

Esper is a politically neutral and easy to learn language with no grammatical exceptions, a simple orthography supported by most modern computing devices and writing devices, and a phonetic system consisting of exactly one simple vowel or consonant sound per letter, with the flexibility to fully accommodate a wide range of accents. It is not meant to replace traditional Esperanto but to give people an International Universal Auxiliary Language choice which does not require the accommodation of letters not present on most keyboards, the learning of multiple work-around orthographies to understand text written without such accommodation having been made, or the learning of any grammatical exceptions to communicate fluently with other Esper speakers.

Like many languages, the Esper language is in a sense really just a modern dialect of an older language. Specifically, the Esper language is a dialect derived of the Esperanto language, directly supporting all of the grammar and spoken vocabulary of the Esperanto language, while eliminating all irregularities, embracing more modern additions, and using a simplified system of orthography and phonetics which eliminates the need for diacritic marks and replaces consonant blend letters with pairs of consonants. Specifically, the letters "ĉ", "ĝ", "ĥ", "ĵ", "ŝ", and "ŭ" have been eliminated, and the letters "q", "w", "x", and "y" which are not present in traditional Esperanto orthography have been added.

The Esper language is heavily based on the Esperanto language, and in fact supports the entire Esperanto vocabulary, but uses a simplified alphabet of 26 letters (a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, o, p, q, r, s, t, u, v, w, x, y, z) as well as fully regularized grammar and word building.

The aspirated consonant sound of the Traditional Esperanto letter "ĥ" is represented in Esper orthography by the letter "q".

The semivowel consonant sound of the Traditional Esperanto letter "j" is represented in Esper orthography by the letter "y".

The voiced consonant sound of the Traditional Esperanto letter "ĵ" is represented in Esper orthography by the letter "j".

The unvoiced consonant sound of the Traditional Esperanto letter "ŝ" is represented in Esper orthography by the letter "c".

The semivowel consonant sound of the Traditional Esperanto letter "ŭ" is represented in Esper orthography by the letter "w".

The consonant blend sound of the Traditional Esperanto letter "c" is represented in Esper orthography by the letters "ts".

The consonant blend sound of the Traditional Esperanto letter "ĉ" is represented in Esper orthography by the letters "tc".

The consonant blend sound of the Traditional Esperanto letter "ĝ" is represented in Esper orthography by the letters "dj".

Unlike Traditional Esperanto, in Esper there is no need for "letters with hats" or their various workarounds, the most common of which involves the placement of the letter "x" in Traditional Esperanto in front of a letter as a substitute for the diacritic mark it would otherwise have placed above it. As such, the letter "x" serves another purposes in the Esper dialect, allowing an additional sound which is used in such things as distinguishing between the the simple present tense verb ending "ax", and the general present tense verb ending "as" which can stand in for "ax" representing the specific present or "ant" which represents the present participle, or ongoing present. For example, while as in traditional Esperanto "vi kuris" can be translated equally into English as "you ran" or as "you were running", Esper additionally supports "vi kurint" to mean "you were running" and also "vi kurix" to specifically mean "you ran". Likewise, in Esper, "vi kurox" means "you will run" while "vi kuros" is more ambiguous just like it is in Traditional Esperanto and can as easily mean "you will be running" as it can simply mean "you will run".

The Esper letter "x" represents a sound which does not exist in Traditional Esperanto, matching that of the hard "th" sound in the English language.

All other Esper sounds and letters may be freely The names of the 26 Esper letters end in the sound of the vowel at the start of their section of the alphabet, can be written phonetically, and are spelled as follows: a, ba, ca, da, e, fe, ge, he, i, ji, ki, li, mi, ni, o, po, qo, ro, so, to, u, vu, wu, tu, yu, zu.

While a functional language in its own right, the core dialect of the Esper language can perhaps best be understood as a simplified and fully regularized variation of the Esperanto language. For example, in the Esperanto language the plural of the pronoun "li" is "ili" but this plural formation is not generally extended to other pronouns as it is in Esper. In the Esper language the prepending of the prefix "i" to any number ambiguous pronoun is the standard way of forming the plural, while the explicit singular is formed by prepending the prefix "on" to the same number ambiguous pronoun. Likewise prepending the prefix "i" to any number ambiguous noun is considered an alternative way of forming the plural, while the standard plural formation for a noun is to add append the letter "y" after the noun ending "o". For example, the standard plural of the noun "persono" is the regular plural noun "personoy" (meaning "people") while the alternative plural "ipersono" (meaning persons) can also be used to convey a sense of plurality. Likewise, there is a standard form for explicit singularity of nouns such the standard explicit singular of "persono" is "personow", and an alternative explicit singular which matches the singular form for pronouns, such that the alternative explicit singular of "persono" is "onpersono" literally meaning "one person" specifically.

Although the Esper dialect supports all gramatical rules of traditional Esperanto, the first rule of Esper is that there are no grammatical exceptions. It has no gender bias built into it, supporting the "itc" suffix to specify grammatically masculine words in addition to the "in" suffix for specifying grammatically feminine words. Esper also supports the prefix "fem" to specifically indicate the female gender of something, along with the prefix "vir" to specify the male gender. Notice that this allows separate labeling of sexual gender and grammatical gender, although grammatical gender is never required in Esper but is fully supported. However, as in traditional Esperanto, verb conjugations are not effected by grammatical gender. The pronoun "li" which serves in traditional Esperanto as both masculine and epicene, is not masculine in Esper but rather gender ambiguous or epicene, with the pronoun "hi" taking on the masculine role, wile the Esper pronoun "ci" represents the feminine gender as it does in traditional Esperanto where the same spoken word is traditionally spelled "ŝi". The Esper pronoun "jdi" represents the neuter gender as it does in traditional Esperanto where the same spoken word is traditionally spelled "ĝi".

For more information on the Esper language, visit the Esper page on WikiBooks. WikiBooks.org/wiki/Esper