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the same letter. The principle "one letter, one sound"[1] is adhered to absolutely. Thus, having learned one simple rule for accent (always on the last syllable but one), and the uniform sound corresponding to each letter, no mistake is possible. Contrast this with English. Miss Soames gives twenty-one ways of writing the same sound. Here they are:
| ate | great | feign |
| bass | eh! | weigh |
| pain | gaol | aye |
| pay | gauge | obeyed |
| dahlia | champagne | weighed |
| vein | campaign | trait |
| they | straight | halfpenny[2] |
(Compare eye, lie, high, etc.)
In Esperanto this sound is expressed only and always by "e." In fact, the language is absolutely and entirely phonetic, as all real language was once.
As regards difficulties of vocabulary, the same may be said as in the case of the sounds. Esperanto only adopts the minimum of roots essential, and these are simple, non-ambiguous, and as international as possible. Owing to the device of word-building by means of a few suffixes and prefixes with fixed meaning, the number of roots necessary is very greatly less than in any natural language.[3]
As for difficulties of structure, some of the chief ones are as follows:
Multiplicity and complexity of inflections. This does not exist in Esperanto.
- ↑ The converse—"one sound, one letter"—is also true, except that the same sound is expressed by c and ts. (See Appendix C.)
- ↑ Prof Skeat adds a twenty-second: Lord Reay!
- ↑ Most of these roots are already known to educated people. For the young the learning of a certain number of words presents practically no difficulty; it is in the practical application of words learnt that they break down, and this failure is almost entirely due to "unnecessary" difficulties.