Editing Esperanto grammar (section)

==Claimed non-European aspects==
Esperanto's vocabulary, [[syntax]], and [[semantics]] derive predominantly from [[Standard Average European]] languages. Roots are typically [[Romance languages|Latinate]] or [[Germanic languages|Germanic]] in origin. The semantics show a significant [[Slavic languages|Slavic]] influence. However, those aspects do not derive directly from Esperanto's source languages, and are generally extensions of them. It is often claimed that there are elements of the grammar which are not found in these language families.

Frequently mentioned is Esperanto's [[Agglutination|agglutinative morphology]] based on invariant [[morpheme]]s, and the subsequent lack of [[ablaut]] (internal inflection of its [[root word|roots]]), which Zamenhof thought would prove alien to non-European language speakers. Ablaut is an element of all the source languages; an English example is <''song, sing, sang, sung''>''.'' However, the majority of words in all European languages inflect without ablaut, as ''<cat, cats''> and ''<walk, walked''> do in English. (This is the so-called [[strong inflection|strong]]–[[weak inflection|weak]] dichotomy.) Historically, many European languages have expanded the range of their 'weak' inflections, and Esperanto has merely taken this development closer to its logical conclusion, with the only remaining ablaut being frozen in a few sets of semantically related roots such as ''pli'', ''plej'', ''plu'' (more, most, further), ''tre'', ''tro'' (very, too much), and in the verbal morphemes ''‑as'', ''‑anta'', ''‑ata''; ''‑is'', ''‑inta'', ''‑ita''; ''‑os'', ''‑onta'', ''‑ota''; and ''‑us''.

Other features often cited as being alien for a European language, such as the dedicated suffixes for different parts of speech, or the ''-o'' suffix for nouns combined with ''-a'' for adjectives and ''la'' for 'the', actually do occur.<ref>For example, the article ''la'' with a noun ending in ''-o'' in Provençal ''la fenestro'' (the window), which is identical to Esperanto ''la fenestro'', or Spanish ''la mano derecha'' (the right hand), nearly identical to Esperanto ''la mano dekstra''.</ref> More pertinent is the accusative plural in ''-jn'', which is derived through [[Morphological leveling|leveling]] of the Greek nominal–adjectival paradigm: Esperanto nominative singular ''muz'''o''''' ([[muse]]) vs. Greek ''mous'''a''''', nominative plural ''muzo'''j''''' vs. Greek ''mousa'''i''','' and accusative singular ''muzo'''n''''' vs. Greek ''mousa'''n'''.'' ([[Latin declension|Latin]] and [[Lithuanian declension|Lithuanian]] had very similar setups, with {{IPA|[j]}} in the plural and a nasal in the accusative.) Esperanto is thus ''formally'' similar to the non‑Indo‑European languages [[Hungarian language|Hungarian]] and [[Turkish language|Turkish]]—that is, it is similar in its mechanics, but not in use. None of these proposed "non-European" elements of the original Esperanto proposal were actually taken from non-European or non-Indo-European languages, and any similarities with those languages are coincidental.{{citation needed|date=April 2013}}

[[East Asian languages]] may have had some influence on the development of Esperanto grammar after its creation. The principally cited candidate is the replacement of [[predicate adjective]]s with verbs, such as ''la ĉielo bluas'' (the sky is blue) for ''la ĉielo estas blua'' and ''mia filino belu!'' (may my daughter be beautiful!) for the ''mia filino estu bela!'' mentioned above.{{citation needed|date=September 2019}} However, this [[regularization (linguistics)|regularization]] of existing grammatical forms was always found in poetry; if there has been an influence of an East Asian language, it has only been in the spread of such forms, not in their origin. Such usage is not entirely unknown in Europe: Latin has an analogous ''folium [[wikt:viret|viret]]'' for ''folium viride est'' (the leaf is green) and ''avis [[wikt:rubet|rubet]]'' for ''avis rubra est'' (the bird is red).

Perhaps the best candidate for a "non-European" feature is the blurred distinction between root and [[affix]]. Esperanto derivational affixes may be used as independent roots and inflect for part of speech like other roots. This occurs only sporadically in other languages of the world. For example, ''ismo'' has an English equivalent in "[[:wiktionary:ism|an ism]]", but English has no adjectival form equivalent to Esperanto ''isma.'' For most such affixes, natural languages familiar to Europeans must use a separate lexical root.