Esperanto << `ehs` puh RAHN toh >> is the most widely used international language. L. L. Zamenhof, a Polish physician, devised Esperanto. He published a book about the language, Lingvo Internacia (1887), under the pen name Dr. Esperanto. The word esperanto means one who hopes in that language.
Esperanto uses a roman alphabet, in which each letter represents a single sound. The language also has a simple, uniform structure. For example, the accent of a word always falls on the next-to-last syllable. Adjectives end in a, adverbs end in e, and nouns end in o. But when a noun is used as an object, an n is added at the end of the word. Plurals end in j. The basic vocabulary of Esperanto consists mainly of root words common to the Indo-European languages. The following sentence is written in Esperanto: La astronaŭto, per speciala instrumento, fotografas la lunon. The translation: The astronaut, with a special instrument, photographs the moon.
