Metsis:

MiMalamasLaAnglan:
Swahili is even more confusing that Esperanto about opening and closing. Kufunga means "to open" and kufungua means to close. Isn't there already a word aperti for "to open"? Maybe it's intransitive and that's why aperta means "open" as an adjective.

Quite possibly you're right about Swahili. I don't know it. One of the arguments against Esperanto is, that its vocabulary is almost exclusively from languages of the European branch of the Indoeuropean languages, and then claim it's international (yes, I'm in that group). However Esperanto changes and one way is by adopting new roots, so there are people, who say that new roots should foremost come from other languages than Euro-IEs. There are plenty to choose from: diverse Chinese, Swahili (the international language of East Africa), diverse Arabic, Japanese, Malay… Each with at least 100 million L2 speakers.

MiMalamasLaAnglan:Doesn't okcidento mean "west"?

Yes, it does. I was saying, that it's hard for me even to remember the "easier" word of the pair, oriento. To remember the opposite direction would be hell of lot easier, if it were ŭesto.

Mi rete vidis la vortojn "eosto" (east) kaj "uesto" (west, sed ne sama kiel ŭesto). Ĉu tio estas efektivaj vortoj?

A fundamental rule (pun intended) in Esperanto is, that each syllable has only one vowel. The rule has its clear advantages, but it also seriously limits available sound combinations. To provide more sound combinations Z added two letters, which he named as duonvokaloj, half-vowels: "j" and "ŭ".

There are two j's in Esperanto. The first one stands before any vowel and is pronounced as ordinary "j" (ofc, not in the English way, but in the Esperanto way). The second one is the one, which stands after any vowel and forms a diphthong with it. Essentially it is pronounced the same way as "i". Because Esperanto uses length of a vowel to denote stress (yes, there are other ways in other languages), there is no such combination as "ij", which would be a long vowel, which would be mixed with a stressed "i".

When it comes to the second half-vowel, "ŭ", some regard it as denoting the same sound as the letter "w" in some languages. However the breve (˘) is merely a diphthong marker in Esperanto. Let's take an example. In the Old Testament there is a name "Saul", which according to the rules of Esperanto should be pronounced as "sa-ul", i.e. "a" and "u" belong to different syllables. On the other hand the steam room is called "saŭno", pronounced "sau-no", where "a" and "u" belong to the same syllable. In both words the "u" and "ŭ" are pronounced the same way. Analogously to "j" there is no such combination as "uŭ".

Thus the half-vowels can only be the second part of a diphthong and there are no double or long vowels in Esperanto. This gives only a limited number of possible two vowel combinations in Esperanto

• aj, ej, oj, uj
  
• aŭ, eŭ, iŭ, oŭ

of which "iŭ" isn't even used.

Foreign words are loaned into Esperanto preferably in a form, that resembles the original pronunciation. There are three possible ways to loan the English word "west" into Esperanto: "vesto", "uesto" and "ŭesto". The first one gets ruled out, because it gets mixed with the word for garment (Esperanto avoids homonyms into a point of being ridiculous). The second one causes a pronunciation problem. It is pronounced "u-es-to", which doesn't resemble the pronunciation of "west" despite trying to be such (w → u). The third one bends the rules of diphthongs by allowing the half-vowel "ŭ" form the first letter in a diphthong, "ŭes-to".

I haven't seen the form "eosto" before, but I see a couple of problems in it. The English word "east" is pronounced like "iist" using an Esperanto-ish transcript. But as I explained above, there cannot be two "i" like vowels in the same syllable, so the transcript-based Esperanto word gets pronounced as "i-is-to". But the stress rule causes, that this should actually be pronounced as "i-iis-to". Pronouncing one + two same vowels in two consequent syllables is quite possibly out of the capabilities of many speakers. By using the same bending as with "ŭ" you could write "iĭsto" (with "i" with breve) to denote pronunciation "iis-to", but I haven't seen such anywhere – so essentially I just invented it

PS. I have seen "ŏ" to form diphthong with an ending "o", but those haven't been serious attempts to introduce that letter into Esperanto.

Metsis:A fundamental rule (pun intended) in Esperanto is, that each syllable has only one vowel. The rule has its clear advantages, but it also seriously limits available sound combinations. To provide more sound combinations Z added two letters, which he named as duonvokaloj, half-vowels: "j" and "ŭ".

There are two j's in Esperanto. The first one stands before any vowel and is pronounced as ordinary "j" (ofc, not in the English way, but in the Esperanto way). The second one is the one, which stands after any vowel and forms a diphthong with it. Essentially it is pronounced the same way as "i". Because Esperanto uses length of a vowel to denote stress (yes, there are other ways in other languages), there is no such combination as "ij", which would be a long vowel, which would be mixed with a stressed "i".

When it comes to the second half-vowel, "ŭ", some regard it as denoting the same sound as the letter "w" in some languages. However the breve (˘) is merely a diphthong marker in Esperanto. Let's take an example. In the Old Testament there is a name "Saul", which according to the rules of Esperanto should be pronounced as "sa-ul", i.e. "a" and "u" belong to different syllables. On the other hand the steam room is called "saŭno", pronounced "sau-no", where "a" and "u" belong to the same syllable. In both words the "u" and "ŭ" are pronounced the same way. Analogously to "j" there is no such combination as "uŭ".

Thus the half-vowels can only be the second part of a diphthong and there are no double or long vowels in Esperanto. This gives only a limited number of possible two vowel combinations in Esperanto

• aj, ej, oj, uj
  
• aŭ, eŭ, iŭ, oŭ

of which "iŭ" isn't even used.

Foreign words are loaned into Esperanto preferably in a form, that resembles the original pronunciation. There are three possible ways to loan the English word "west" into Esperanto: "vesto", "uesto" and "ŭesto". The first one gets ruled out, because it gets mixed with the word for garment (Esperanto avoids homonyms into a point of being ridiculous). The second one causes a pronunciation problem. It is pronounced "u-es-to", which doesn't resemble the pronunciation of "west" despite trying to be such (w → u). The third one bends the rules of diphthongs by allowing the half-vowel "ŭ" form the first letter in a diphthong, "ŭes-to".

I haven't seen the form "eosto" before, but I see a couple of problems in it. The English word "east" is pronounced like "iist" using an Esperanto-ish transcript. But as I explained above, there cannot be two "i" like vowels in the same syllable, so the transcript-based Esperanto word gets pronounced as "i-is-to". But the stress rule causes, that this should actually be pronounced as "i-iis-to". Pronouncing one + two same vowels in two consequent syllables is quite possibly out of the capabilities of many speakers. By using the same bending as with "ŭ" you could write "iĭsto" (with "i" with breve) to denote pronunciation "iis-to", but I haven't seen such anywhere – so essentially I just invented it

PS. I have seen "ŏ" to form diphthong with an ending "o", but those haven't been serious attempts to introduce that letter into Esperanto.

Isn't the equivalent of ŭ for i "j"? There would be no need for ĭ.

En la franca la diftongo /ij/ estas ofta:
ekz: fille (/fij/, knabino), bille (/bij/, ludkugleto)

Atentu, la sama literaro prononciĝas malsame en iuj vortoj: ville (/vil/, urbo), Lille (/lil/, Lilo, UK-a urbo)

MiMalamasLaAnglan:
Isn't the equivalent of ŭ for i "j"? There would be no need for ĭ.

Jep, but then we would be back at "ijsto" with "ij", which already was ruled out, i.e. we would be back at square one. So I'm not in favour for any variant based on the English word "east", oriento is ok, but I can see a need for ŭesto. I myself prefer to call western movies as ŭesteskaj filmoj instead of something with okcidenta (such a name would not catch the original touch).

Altebrilas:En la franca la diftongo /ij/ estas ofta:
ekz: fille (/fij/, knabino), bille (/bij/, ludkugleto)

Atentu, la sama literaro prononciĝas malsame en iuj vortoj: ville (/vil/, urbo), Lille (/lil/, Lilo, UK-a urbo)

Ĉu fakte fille enhavas diftongon?
Ĉu oni pronuncas
A) kapo (onset) /f/, kerno (nucleus) /ij/ kaj malplena vosto (coda)?
B) kapo /f/, kerno /i/ kaj konsonanta vosto /ʝ/?
C) dusilabe: kapo /f/ kerno /i/, silablimo, kapo /ʝ/, kerno /ə/?

Mi kontrolis sur forvo.com, kaj ŝajnas al mi, ke la oni prononcas kun klara konsonanto /ʝ/, kun klare aŭdebla aeroturbulo.

Ĉu la derivita vorto fillette ankaŭ enhavas diftongon, ĉu ĝi prononcatas kiel /fij.'ɛt/, /fi.'ʝɛt/ aŭ /fi.'ʝɛ.tə/?

Kion vi opinias?

Metsis:

MiMalamasLaAnglan:
Isn't the equivalent of ŭ for i "j"? There would be no need for ĭ.

Jep, but then we would be back at "ijsto" with "ij", which already was ruled out, i.e. we would be back at square one. So I'm not in favour for any variant based on the English word "east", oriento is ok, but I can see a need for ŭesto. I myself prefer to call western movies as ŭesteskaj filmoj instead of something with okcidenta (such a name would not catch the original touch).

Why is "ij" ruled out? If there was another spelling for the same sound, that would be against the Fundamento and therefore no longer Esperanto.

Maybe lansa from Finnish länsi, or something from a different language could work. I do not think that loan words should ever be taken from English.

It isn't ruled out. Zamenhof himself used it to transliterate salvic names, e.g. Pjotr Ivanoviĉ Dobĉinskij. And this 100% according to the rules of the Fundamento, as the Russian Grammar states, that the letter J in Esperanto is equivalent to the letter Й (и краткое) in Russian. Hence Dobĉinskij is a perfect transliteration of Добчинский.

Nothing wrong about IJ in Esperanto.

- - -
Maybe related:
A Lingva Respondo by Zamenhof about the pronunciation of J:

Zamenhof:Kiel en ĉiuj lingvoj, tiel ankaŭ en Esperanto la sono “j” ordinare moligas la konsonanton, kiu staras antaŭ ĝi; oni sekve ne devas miri, ke ekzemple en la vorto “panjo” la plimulto de la Esperantistoj elparolas la “nj” kiel unu molan sonon (simile al la franca “gn”) : Tiel same oni ne miru, ke en praktiko oni ordinare antaŭ “g” aŭ “k” elparolas la sonon “n” naze, aŭ ke antaŭ vokalo oni elparolas la “i” ordinare kiel “ij”. Batali kontraŭ tia natura emo en la elparolado ŝajnas al mi afero tute sencela kaj senbezona, ĉar tia elparolado (kiu estas iom pli eleganta, ol la elparolado pure teoria) donas nenian malkompreniĝon aŭ praktikan maloportunaĵon; sed rekomendi tian elparoladon (aŭ nomi ĝin “la sole ĝusta”) ni ankaŭ ne devas, ĉar laŭ la teoria viidpunkto (kiu en Esperanto ofte povas esti ne severe observata, sed neniam povas esti rigardata kiel “erara”) ni devas elparoli ĉiun sonon severe aparte; sekve se ni deziras paroli severe regule, ni devas elparoli “pan-jo”, “san-go”, “mi-a”.

This directly contradicts PMEG, which states that one must not pronounce I as /ij/ before a vowel. The times are a-changing... Apparently Esperantist have become more purists over the years, more purists even than the more pragmatical Zamenhof.

Zamenhof even judges the /ij/ pronunciation as more elegant than the purely theoretical pronunciation.

(When Zamenhof speaks about "soft" consonants I suppose he refers to palatalized consonants, because he was a Russian speaker and in Russian consonantal softness refers to palatalization. E.g. the letter Ь which causes palatalization of the preceding consonant, is called мягкий знак = soft sign. Russian нь = Spanish ñ = Italian gn = IPA n̠ʲ = ɲ)

I stand corrected. I searched in Tekstaro and found no words with the combination "ij" other than Slavic names as Nornen points out. So it's actually quite a moot point to discuss, whether "ij" is useable or not, since there are no non-name words using it.

It's an obvious fact, that Esperanto changes. There are just some hard-core speakers, that insist – at least in their speech – that the language hasn't changed and so on.

To bring this discussion back to its original tracks I reiterate, that I see a need for some of those words classified as superfluaj, especially I'm in favour for liva and ŭesto. For the former because it's short, same number of syllables as in dekstra, and clearly distinguishable of its counterpart even in a noisy environment. When it comes to the later, ŭesto, I find it personally easier to grasp than okcidento, which I must decipher via exclusion (okcidento? Hm, isn't it a compass direction? It's neither nordo nor sudo, and east is oriento, ah, so it must be west.)

While neither ŭest nor ovr is found in Tekstaro, my gut feeling is ŭesto is already out of the bag ,so to speak, that we could push another word. For another word for malfermi the situation might be different.

Metsis:I stand corrected. I searched in Tekstaro and found no words with the combination "ij" other than Slavic names as Nornen points out. So it's actually quite a moot point to discuss, whether "ij" is useable or not, since there are no non-name words using it.

It's an obvious fact, that Esperanto changes. There are just some hard-core speakers, that insist – at least in their speech – that the language hasn't changed and so on.

To bring this discussion back to its original tracks I reiterate, that I see a need for some of those words classified as superfluaj, especially I'm in favour for liva and ŭesto. For the former because it's short, same number of syllables as in dekstra, and clearly distinguishable of its counterpart even in a noisy environment. When it comes to the later, ŭesto, I find it personally easier to grasp than okcidento, which I must decipher via exclusion (okcidento? Hm, isn't it a compass direction? It's neither nordo nor sudo, and east is oriento, ah, so it must be west.)

While neither ŭest nor ovr is found in Tekstaro, my gut feeling is ŭesto is already out of the bag ,so to speak, that we could push another word. For another word for malfermi the situation might be different.

I have heard that the word "ŭato" is prohibited because ŭ can't go before a vowel, and it should therefore be "vato", which is another word. Why would that be? Isn't any arrangement of the letters in the Esperanto alphabet an acceptable word, as long as it's not impossible to pronounce?

I have noticed some users of this forum saying words like "anstatava" instead of "anstataŭa".