[–]Nameless[S]0 points
2 points
2 points
(+2|-0)
ago
I would agree;
[Esperanto] phonology, grammar, vocabulary, and semantics are based on the Indo-European languages spoken in Europe. The sound inventory is essentially Slavic, as is much of the semantics, whereas the vocabulary derives primarily from the Romance languages, with a lesser contribution from Germanic languages and minor contributions from Slavic languages and Greek.
While the wikipedia article on Indo-European languages states that;
Indo-European languages are spoken by almost 3 billion native speakers, the largest number by far for any recognised language family. Of the 20 languages with the largest numbers of native speakers according to Ethnologue, 11 are Indo-European: Spanish, English, Hindi, Portuguese, Bengali, Russian, Punjabi, German, French, Marathi, and Urdu, accounting for over 1.7 billion native speakers.
And we're not even getting into the fact that Zamenhof developed Esperanto by borrowing / importing words from "real" languages and incorporated them into the Esperanto lexicography. The man obviously knew what he was up to.
[–] [deleted] 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
[–] Nameless [S] 0 points 2 points 2 points (+2|-0) ago
I would agree;
While the wikipedia article on Indo-European languages states that;
And we're not even getting into the fact that Zamenhof developed Esperanto by borrowing / importing words from "real" languages and incorporated them into the Esperanto lexicography. The man obviously knew what he was up to.