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 letters are pronounced in the following way:
c is pronounced [ʦ], roughly as ts in hats,
ĉ [ʧ] ch in church,
ĝ [ʤ], g in geography,
ĥ [x], ch in Scottish English loch, ch in German Bach, j in Spanish Juan
ĵ [ʒ], s in vision,
ŝ [ʃ], sh in ship,
ŭ is used in diphthongs, e.g.,
aŭ is pronounced [aʊ], as ow in how.
The pronunciation of the other letters is the same as the pronunciation of the same letters
in IPA. Note that j is pronounced as y in yes.
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:
To use the letter h instead of the circumflex and omitting
the hacek: ch,
This is the official alternative, which
was proposed by Zamenhoff. The advantage is that the
transcribed words are closer in spelling to their etymological sources (and are thus
easier to learn by speakers of those languages):
shi – she,
shipo – ship,
chambro – room (chambre in French),
automobilo – car,
Europo – Europe. A
disadvantage is that the conversion from this transcription
to the alphabet with diacritical signs is not trivial and cannot be done on the level of letters.
There are few roots like
sh and gh does
not stand for ŝ and
ĝ. In addition, of course, there is no
difference between u and
To use the letter x instead of the circumflex and the
hacek: cx, gx,
This alternative is not official, but is
widely used on the web and in electronic texts. The advantage is that there is a direct
mapping between this transcription and the alphabet with diacritical marks
– the letter x is not used in Esperanto. The
disadvantage is that the spelling looses some of its similarity with the corresponding
words in the Western languages.
The pronuntiation of
ĥ is hard for speakers of many languages. It is also very
rare. There is a tendency to replace it
(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
arĥitekto = arkitekto – architect,
arĥeologo = arkeologo – archeologist).
 In my opinion, this ambiguity
is not very problematic. There are not many roots where the pair
ch, gh, etc.
does not stand for a single sound. More ambiguities can be created by word building,
when an h-initial morpheme is attached to added to a morpheme
ending in c, g, etc.
(there is no such an affix). However ambiguity produced by wordbuilding is so
common in Esperanto, that this does not increase it by any significant amount.