A pair of users active in the Konsultejo have an interpretation of the Fundamento which I've never heard from any Esperantist before (and I'm not a newcomer to Esperantujo). [1]

Unfortunately, my attempts to explore it in the Konsultejo turned sour when my interlocutors started lecturing me about my typos. I thought it wisest to disengage, but I want to get others' opinions on the issue.

The interpretation, roughly, is as follows: The usage of a word, root, or particular grammatical form, is kontraufundamenta if it is not clearly sanctioned in the Fundamento or by the Akademio.

For example, using an "international" root heretofore not seen in Esperanto is permitted, because it is sanctioned by Rule 15. Using spontan/a instead of spontane/a, however, is necessarily wrong: for only the latter has been official by the Akademio, while the former has not even been deemed "tolerated".

At face value, this interpretation seems restrictive to the point of extremism, not to mention paradoxical: how can the Akademio "approve" a new form unless it is already widely in use? And how can it become widespread if it is deemed "wrong" and "kontraufundamenta" before the fact?

This doesn't even take into account the fact that Esperantujo regularly ignores the Akademio - e.g., the official terms sugestii, nihilismo, evolucio, inaŭguracio are used much less than the simple sugesti, neniismo, evoluado, inaŭgurado, respectively (among countless others).

Thoughts? Does anyone else agree with this interpretation? Am I un-Esperantist for finding it a bit crazy?

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[1] The initial conversation is very fragmented, but you can see most of starting on page 2 of this thread and throughout this thread: note users akueck and Bernadox.

Tempodivalse:A pair of users active in the Konsultejo have an interpretation of the Fundamento which I've never heard from any Esperantist before (and I'm not a newcomer to Esperantujo). [1]

Unfortunately, my attempts to explore it in the Konsultejo turned sour when my interlocutors started lecturing me about my typos. I thought it wisest to disengage, but I want to get others' opinions on the issue.

The interpretation, roughly, is as follows: The usage of a word, root, or particular grammatical form, is kontraufundamenta if it is not clearly sanctioned in the Fundamento or by the Akademio.

For example, using an "international" root heretofore not seen in Esperanto is permitted, because it is sanctioned by Rule 15. Using spontan/a instead of spontane/a, however, is necessarily wrong: for only the latter has been official by the Akademio, while the former has not even been deemed "tolerated".

Sounds to me like a neologisto twisting the Fundmaento to force neoligismo as opposed to skemismo.

but that's just conspiracy theorist me

I adhere to this school, called Velgerismo or Jurscienca Aliro, for me most of its conclusions come naturally from the Antaŭparolo, e.g. the case spontan' vs. spontane' is clear as well water on base of its 8th paragraph.
If you look at decisions of the Academy from before about 1990 (later they unfortunately changed their behavior), you see they are implicitl based on the same reasoning, in other cases like declaratons of tolerated forms (like feder' besides federaci') or in fact all the Oficialaj Aldonoj would be senseless.

But I won't go deeper into this as this discussion is in English.

I recommend the book by H. Welger, it makes many of the implicit rules of the Fundamento clear and lets you better understand how Zamenhof thought about linguistic change in E-o, which is not like in other languages.
Of course also on the base of the juristic account you can have diverging opinions, and of course I don't second in any way the very aggressive language of some of its adherents.

Tempodivalse:Thoughts? Does anyone else agree with this interpretation? Am I un-Esperantist for finding it a bit crazy?

No I don't think your view is at all un-Esperantist. To the contrary it seems to me to be the pedantic and extremist position - exemplified in this case by the strange need to call people out on utterly insignificant stylistic misdemeanours - that's against the spirit of Esperanto.

However, if I understand the interlocutors correctly, their argument (at least in the "fare de" thread) was that a new preposition FAR would require a new rule in the Fundamento in order to sanction its usage in passive participles, where "de" is currently mandated. Since a rule is required, FAR must be deemed "malĝusta Esperanto" until such times as the rule is added by official decree.

I don't personally agree with this argument as there are other possible uses for FAR besides the kontraŭfundamenta passive participle usage. As far as I can see these usages don't require any new rule, and I don't think any need for one was successfully demonstrated. There was some "Velgerisma" stuff about "streketaj/senstreketaj" radikoj, but I didn't find it at all convincing.

Generally my view is, if a particular word/expression/usage does not clearly break a specific (not subjectively inferred) Fundamento rule, then the only relevant questions are whether it violates the grammar (in which case it is malĝusta), and whether it contradicts established norms of usage (in which case it's evitinda, though possibly malĝusta too in extreme cases).

You can argue whether a new form violates the "spirit" of the Fundamento, but since this is no more than a subjective judgement I don't see it as a basis for declaring something to be objectively malĝusta.

Also, I do not think that lack of usage-precedent in the Fundamento is a reason to deem a particular form malĝusta, or for that matter even evitinda, as was also suggested. The Fundamento is a small set of documents that by its nature will not cover every word or mode of expression possible in the language. IMO we should leave room for the language to evolve - so long as it doesn't break clear rules.

Side question: Who came out with the German, English and French versions of the Gramatiko? Zamenhof himself obviously wrote the Russian version. Did he then translate it into the other languages or did other people do the translating?

orthohawk:Side question: Who came out with the German, English and French versions of the Gramatiko? Zamenhof himself obviously wrote the Russian version. Did he then translate it into the other languages or did other people do the translating?

I've wondered the same thing. The Russian pronunciation guide gives the pronunciation of e as э, but the English "as in make" and the French as é. Russian э is more like the English e in "met" and the French è as in père. Roughly.

I've just assumed Zamenhof knew Russian way better than he knew English or French and used that pronunciation.

"far" already is a root, so where's the point in using it as a preposition?

Fenris_kcf:"far" already is a root, so where's the point in using it as a preposition?

It's mojosa!

Bruso:The Russian pronunciation guide gives the pronunciation of e as э, but the English "as in make" and the French as é. Russian э is more like the English e in "met" and the French è as in père. Roughly.

English doesn't have the sound [e], so it can't be described correctly using English words. I'm not sure, but i think the same holds for French.

Bruso:I've just assumed Zamenhof knew Russian way better than he knew English or French and used that pronunciation.

Russian was his mother-tongue (or more precice: his father-tongue).

Fenris_kcf:

Bruso:The Russian pronunciation guide gives the pronunciation of e as э, but the English "as in make" and the French as é. Russian э is more like the English e in "met" and the French è as in père. Roughly.

English doesn't have the sound [e], so it can't be described correctly using English words. I'm not sure, but i think the same holds for French.

No, French does have it. it's spelled "e ague" (IOW é)