Who Decides Correct Esperanto? Fundamento and Akademio

Esperanto answers "who decides?" with a document. The Fundamento de Esperanto of 1905 can never be changed; the Akademio de Esperanto adds words and gives advice it cannot enforce; and usage makes almost everything else.

• La Fundamento ne ŝanĝiĝas. - The Fundamento does not change.
• La Akademio rekomendas, sed ne devigas. - The Akademio recommends, but does not compel.
• La uzo decidas. - Usage decides.

The Fundamento de Esperanto

Zamenhof signed the preface in Warsaw in July 1905. The book has four parts:

The rules and the roots are glossed in French, English, German, Russian and Polish, side by side, so no one national language owns the reading.

The Ekzercaro does more work than its name suggests. Sixteen rules cannot describe a whole language, so its sentences fix a great deal of everyday usage by example. A real one, from §12:

• Georgo Vaŝington estis naskita la dudek duan de Februaro de la jaro mil sepcent tridek dua. - George Washington was born on the twenty-second of February, 1732.

9 August 1905. The first Universala Kongreso, at Boulogne-sur-Mer, adopted the Declaration of Boulogne (Deklaracio pri la esenco de la Esperantismo). Its fourth point names the Fundamento as the language's only basis binding on all Esperantists, one en kiu neniu havas la rajton fari ŝanĝon - in which nobody has the right to make a change.

Netuŝebleco: untouchable, errors and all

The principle is called netuŝebleco, untouchability, and the word builds itself:

• La Fundamento estas netuŝebla. - The Fundamento is untouchable.

Zamenhof's preface states it twice, the second time adding "errors and all":

Neniu persono kaj neniu societo devas havi la rajton arbitre fari en nia Fundamento iun eĉ plej malgrandan ŝanĝon!

No person and no society should have the right arbitrarily to make even the smallest change in our Fundamento!

• Zamenhof, the Antaŭparolo, 1905

La fundamento devas resti severe netuŝebla eĉ kune kun siaj eraroj.

The foundation must remain strictly untouchable, even together with its errors.

• Zamenhof, the Antaŭparolo, 1905

It freezes the foundation, not the language. The same preface says how new words arrive:

Nur iam poste, kiam la plej granda parto de la novaj vortoj estos jam tute matura, ia aŭtoritata institucio enkondukos ilin en la vortaron oficialan, kiel « Aldonon al la Fundamento ».

Only later, when most of the new words are fully mature, will some authoritative institution bring them into the official dictionary, as an "Addition to the Fundamento".

• Zamenhof, the Antaŭparolo, 1905

Why untouchable: the Ido split

Two years later the question stopped being theoretical. In October 1907 the Delegation for the Adoption of an International Auxiliary Language met as a committee in Paris, with Louis Couturat and Léopold Leau as its secretaries. Esperanto's representative was Louis de Beaufront.

The committee chose a reformed Esperanto, submitted anonymously as Ido, which Couturat later acknowledged to be de Beaufront's own work. The usual estimate is that about a fifth of Esperanto's leading promoters went over to Ido, but only three or four per cent of ordinary Esperantists.

Ido kept reforming itself. Esperanto had nothing to negotiate: the text was already untouchable, so a reform proposal had nowhere to attach. That is the usual reading of why the rule exists, and why it is better seen as a guard against splits than as a straitjacket.

The Akademio de Esperanto

The "authoritative institution" of the preface became the Akademio. Boulogne set up a Lingva Komitato, a language committee, in 1905; the name Akademio first belonged to a smaller body inside it. In 1948 the two merged into today's Akademio de Esperanto.

• La Akademio havas kvardek kvin membrojn. - The Akademio has forty-five members.

• La Akademio ne povas ŝanĝi la Fundamenton. - The Akademio cannot change the Fundamento.

Official words: the Oficialaj Aldonoj

New official words arrive through the Oficialaj Aldonoj, the Official Additions. There have been ten. The eighth came in 1974 and the ninth in 2007. The tenth, approved on 24 September 2023 (41 of the 45 members voted, 32 in favour), added 420 roots and 832 words and terms, mostly names: countries, cities, seas, rivers, mountains, peoples and languages.

Most words are not official, and that is normal. Official means listed in the Universala Vortaro or an Aldono. Everything built from existing roots by the rules needs nobody's approval:

• Mi trovis ĝin en la retejo. - I found it on the website.

Five decisions worth knowing

The Akademio rules rarely, and usually to settle an argument that was costing people time:

What each one looks like:

• 1967. Of the 31 members who voted, 26 held that only the aspect reading matches Zamenhof's usage: -at- under way, -it- finished. The passive has the full story.
• 1974. It withdrew the old disapproval of -io, called it a correct use of Zamenhof's method, and left the choice to usage. See countries and peoples.
• 2007. Where the hatted letters cannot be produced, the Fundamento's own ch gh hh jh sh u come first. Other substitutes are acceptable only where the h-system is impractical, and only as a technical means, not a reform. The ruling names no other system; the x-system is the one most people use.
• 2013 and 2021. Names are in personal names. On gender-neutral pronouns such as ri, it voted to take no position and to leave the question alone for at least ten years.

The reference shelf

None of these is official. They are where you check:

• Mi serĉis la vorton en la vortaro. - I looked the word up in the dictionary.

PMEG describes how careful writers use the language and says where usage is divided; it does not legislate. When the dictionaries disagree, the Tekstaro answers the question that finally settles most arguments: do people actually write it?

So: kiu decidas?

• Kiu decidas? La uzo. - Who decides? Usage.

The parts that are fixed are the parts a learner wants fixed: the endings, the sixteen rules, the core roots. The open part is the vocabulary. Nobody can tell you a sentence is illegal; they can only tell you nobody writes it that way.

Mistakes English speakers make

What to do next

1. Read the sixteen rules once: they fit on two pages.
2. Bookmark PMEG and vortaro.net.
3. Read the passive to see the 1967 decision at work.

See also

• La kongreso - the congress that began at Boulogne in 1905.
• Esperanto hodiaŭ - the associations and where the language lives now.
• The passive - the -at- and -it- question the Akademio settled in 1967.
• Countries and peoples - -ujo against -io, and the 1974 decision.
• Typing Esperanto - the h-system and the x-system side by side.
• Personal names - the Akademio's 2013 names recommendation.
• Word building - the machinery that makes new words without anybody's permission.