Abstract:
This chapter investigates how fluent Esperanto speakers pronounce acronyms, replicating and extending Torres-Tamarit and Martínez-Paricio’s (2024) study of Spanish acronyms. Although Esperanto was designed to be maximally regular, no prescriptive rule was ever laid down for the pronunciation of letter sequences, making acronyms a revealing test case for emergent phonological constraints. We gathered data from 48 experienced speakers on their preferred pronunciations of acronyms varying in length and phonological structure. The results show a highly systematic pattern: longer acronyms that can form multi-syllabic words are almost always pronounced as whole words with regular penultimate stress, while two-letter acronyms are predominantly spelled out. Three-letter acronyms occupy a transitional zone, with monosyllabic options showing substantial variation. These patterns closely parallel the Spanish findings, suggesting that the same universal phonological constraints (including a prosodic minimality requirement and a preference for trochaic feet) govern acronym pronunciation regardless of whether the language is ‘natural’ or ‘constructed’. The findings demonstrate that Esperanto speakers have developed unwritten conventions that mirror those of natural languages, underscoring the role of universal grammar in shaping even a planned language’s phonology.
The paper (to be published in a handbook on Esperanto studies) is on LingBuzz