Esperanto/Appendix/Alphabet and pronunciation

Alphabet

The Esperanto alphabet has 28 letters.

Uppercase

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

Lowercase

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

Names

a, bo, co, ĉo, do, e, fo, go, ĝo, ho, ĥo, i, jo, ĵo, ko, lo, mo, no, o, po, ro, so, ŝo, to, u, ŭo, vo, zo

Four letters from the English alphabet have been dropped – Q, W, X and Y – and there are six new accented letters: Ĉ, Ĝ, Ĥ, Ĵ, Ŝ and Ŭ. The first five have an angle-shape accent called a circumflex (^) over them, whilst the last has an accent rather like the bottom part of a circle, which is called a breve (˘).

All of the accented letters are unique to Esperanto except for ŭo (Ŭ), which also exists in Belarusian, and ĝo (Ĝ), which also exists in Aleut. Some of the accented letters may be used in transcription systems for languages that use non-Latin alphabets. (For example, ŝo (Ŝ) is used as the ISO 9:1995 transliteration of the Russian Cyrillic letter shcha (Щ).)

Vowels

As in English, five letters are vowels (A, E, I, O, U), and the rest are consonants. The letter ŭo (Ŭ) is a consonant, not a vowel.

Collation

Collation in Esperanto is the same as for English, except that the accented characters are counted as separate characters and collated after their non-accented versions. Collation is as shown in the table above.

Pronunciation

Each letter in Esperanto has only one pronunciation (allowing for cultural variation), and no letters are silent. There are six dipthongs (see the next section), but their pronunciation follows logically from their constituent letters, except for being shortened into a single syllable. This means that Esperanto is pronounced just as it is spelled.

Also, each sound has only one way of being written, so it is very easy to spell Esperanto words you hear.

The technical description for these traits is that Esperanto is phonetic and orthographic.

Letter	IPA	Sound	Example			Notes
			Esperanto	Phonetic	English
Vowels
A	a, ɑ	ah, as in father	amiko	ah-MI-koh	friend	Prounounced like in Spanish
E	ɛ, e	eh, as in bet	egala	eh-GAH-lah	equal
I	i	ee, as in me	ideo	ee-DEH-oh	idea
O	o, ɔ	oh, as in robot	ofta	OH'F-tah	common
U	u	oo, as in boot	utila	oo-TEE-lah	useful
Consonants
B	b	b	bela	BEH-lah	beautiful
C	t͡s	ts	celo	TSEH-loh	goal
Ĉ	t͡ʃ	ch	ĉielo	chee-EH-loh	sky
D	d	d	diri	DEE-ree	to say
F	f	f	facila	fah-TSEE-lah	easy
G	g	g	gaja	GAH-yah	cheerful
Ĝ	d͡ʒ	j	ĝusta	JOOS-tah	correct
H	h	h	hela	HEH-lah	bright
Ĥ	x	ch as in Scottish loch	eĥo	E(HKX)-oh	echo	Depending on the context, it is sometimes replaced with h or k. This letter is not frequent in Esperanto.
J	j	y	juna	YOO-nah	young	j may be pronounced as a semivowel i̯ after a, e, o, or u and before another vowel.
Ĵ	ʒ	zh	ĵus	ZHOOS	just, just now
K	k	k	kara	KAH-rah	dear
L	l	l	longa	LOHN-gah	long
M	m	m	mano	MAH-noh	hand
N	n	n	nova	NOH-vah	new
P	p	p	peni	PEH-nee	to try
R	r	r	ruĝa	ROO-jah	red	Roll your tongue, as in Spanish.
S	s	s	suno	SOO-noh	sun
Ŝ	ʃ	sh	ŝipo	SHEE-poh	ship
T	t	t	tempo	TEHM-poh	time
Ŭ	w	w	ŭai	WAH-ee	to cry “wah!”	This letter only occurs right before a vowel in mimetic words, onomatopoeia, and the name of the letter "ŭo"; other than that, it only appears in diphthongs as the semivowel u̯. In the past, it has been used to pronounce "w" in foreign words (e.g. ŭato for “watt”), but this has fallen out of favour (in this case, replaced with vato).
V	v	v	veni	VEH-nee	to come
Z	z	z	zorgi	ZOHR-gee	to care
Diphthongs
AJ	ai̯	"aye"	kaj	KYE	and
AŬ	au̯	"ow"	ĉirkaŭ	CHEER-cow	around, approximately
EJ	ei̯	"ey"	plej	PLAY	most
EŬ	eu̯	"euw"	Eŭropo	euw-ROH-poh	Europe	This is pronounced much like how Elmer Fudd pronounces the "ew" in "vewwy (very)".
OJ	oi̯	"oy"	lingvoj	LING-voy	languages
UJ	ui̯	"oo-ee" as one syllable	ĉiuj	CHEE-(oo'ee)	all

Stress

The stress on every word is put on the penultimate (second-to-last) syllable.