 What's up guys! Evil D here and today I'm going to speak to you about a particular adjective I see jumping up in grammar discussions here and there and it throws some people off if they're new to the language and Or it causes massive flame wars between two different people when they have a certain thought about something And it's usually a way of saying nah, I'm right So the adjective is contrao fundamenta and it basically means against the foundation now before I can just explain What that is I have to give you a like a bird's-eye view of the entire language Not the language, but the entire history of Esperanto from a grammar perspective or a like evolutionary Expective. I love doing this. But anyway, okay, so here's how it all began as we all know Esperanto is an artificial language in origin. It's no longer artificial. It's like it's a fully living language Which is just Going along however it pleases but in origin it's created. So you jump back almost like a hundred and fifty years and you've Got Zamenhof who created the language and when he created obviously only he spoke it and then more and more people start to learn it now By about 1905 you had a lot of friction within the Esperanto community Even though it was small a lot of people wanted to change aspects of the language and others wanted to keep them the same and There was actually a lot of battles over this just like today. Okay, nothing's really changed I guess but yeah, so it was like that back then and what the the main Pioneers of the language decided to do is they grabbed a bunch of documents that Zamenhof wrote and also some Which I think he edited but anyway, basically the main documents at the time like on the Universal Dictionary The exercise I think it was there was a few other things as well And what they did is they come to all into one book and they called it la fundamento de Esperanto And basically what that means in English is the foundation of Esperanto And this book was deemed net to Shebla, which means not touchable No one can no one can change it and if you attempt to change it and you start speaking your change version You're no longer speaking Esperanto. You're speaking a different language So the whole idea was that if you wanted to speak Esperanto You had to follow the rules and principles established in the Fundamento de Esperanto Now this was very important for the young language because it gave some form of Stability to the language because no one wanted to really completely go against Zamenhof like he's going to create the language But anyway, it created a foundation and established norm and then everything else kind of just spawned off of that one Grouping of works. Okay, so it was the Fundamento de Esperanto now. We're about a hundred and fifty years later Okay, and nowadays obviously Like for instance, I've never fully read the Fundamento de Esperanto three from beginning to end I just I haven't so and most Esperanist I I'm gonna say this and I'm probably gonna cop a lot of flak over this But most Esperanist I probably say a hundred percent certainly have never read it through Eva Most of them have learned what I call or deem modern Esperanto. Okay, so modern Esperanto is Obviously the Esperanto we all speak now, but it's quite it's not quite it's Slightly different. Okay, it's slightly diverged from the original Esperanto now when I say diverged We can go back now and we can look at the Fundamento de Esperanto at least the parts I've read and still fully understand what's being discussed However, if you grad someone from Zamenhof's time you put them here They wouldn't have a clue what half the stuff we're saying. Yes because technology and everything's changed But also because a lot of words have entered into the language, which just didn't exist originally They've just been added Willy-nilly I should say like some people just you know found that we need this word or we don't want to create this Construction have just kind of chucked it all in and now we have modern Esperanto And also some grammar forms because of influences from other languages have changed even Volopuk had made its original Influence on Esperanto, so it's had a lot of influences since the beginning and the language has slightly changed Okay, so what happens nowadays is you'll see a grammar discussion and say to Esperanto again to battle and I'll say one of Will say Tio Estas Contraro Fundamenta that is against the foundation or the founding document of Esperanto Now what I'm trying to get at with all of this is is that even though it's against the founding document It may not actually be against modern Esperanto because most people nowadays don't read as I've said the Fundamental de Esperanto What they do read is the Plena Ilustrita Votaro, which is a piv it's Translates as the fully illustrated dictionary though It's not illustrated anymore at least not the online one which can be found at Votaro net and that there is like the main dictionary in the Esperanto community. It's fully an Esperanto So obviously there's main dictionaries for the different languages, but for the Esperanto dictionary That's the prominent dictionary that exists and most people refer to that and how it Specifies the usage of words now what you got to remember is the Plena Ilustrita Votaro also refers back to the Fundamental and most of its definition so we'll say this is how it was used in the founding document this is how it was used and Although some of the uses have expanded and changed slightly ever since then now the next thing is a lot of people obviously use the Style guide, which is P. Megan English and that translates as Plena my libero de Esperanto gramatico now basically whenever someone has a grammar question Most people refer to that document say no, it's this is how it's used now La plena my libero de Esperanto gramatico. It has also It also sorry refers back to the fundamental de Esperanto, but again There are certain usages and styles it recommends, which is also Technically I will say contrao fundamental although not everyone will debate that and some people will debate that however, there's also another source of the language overall and that is the Academy of Esperanto now the Academy of Esperanto has been around since Almost like slightly after the time of the Fundamental de Esperanto and its main goal was to basically Shepard the evolution of the language and when I say shepherd you got to remember as a language grows No one controls it not even the creator. That's what happened with all the boot. That's why I failed That's a that's a discussion for another video, but basically as the language evolves No one has control, but the Academy of Esperanto is basically a grouping of I can't remember like 20 individuals Who are usually really highly regarded in the Esperanto community because of books have written or because of all sorts of stuff Or because they're actually worked on these other documents. I've previously mentioned and their job is to say This is how you should use something. This is how it's recommended and that recommendation is based on usage in the Fundamental de Esperanto Now the problem with the Academy is that there's certain things they can just never Authorize even though it's used in everyday conversation because it's just contra fundamental and they don't want to like You know stick their necks out and say yeah, well even though everyone uses it this way It's not really like that in you know the fundamental de Esperanto because someone will come along and hack that head off Not like physically hack it off, but you get the idea. So yeah, the three main sources are the voltado Oh, I'm sorry. La plena illustrita voltado Plenum and liberal de Esperanto gramatico and la academia de Esperanto, okay? So those are the three sources, but most they all in varying degrees also refer back to the fundamental de Esperant Esperanto And then you also have the modern Esperanto, which is reflected in those three However is different again from those well not really the first two, but it's different slightly from la academia de Esperanto So you've got the language which is being Recorded by those three and the language has changed slightly since the beginning So whenever you hear contra fundamental, it's basically saying you're what you're saying is against the founding document Now that doesn't necessarily mean that it's bad Esperanto Now that's usually thrown out when people start talking about proposals for language reform and change now That's another topic, but I'll just quickly talk about it again Proposals are usually done when someone sees or a group of people see a particular Improfection with Esperanto what you have to remember is that Esperanto is a living language. It's yes It's probably it's probably got heaps of imperfections, but you can't change that. It's a language It's like going up to someone in English saying, sorry I don't like the way that you're using this can you please change it because no one's gonna take you seriously The problem with Esperanto is that since it's got artificial origins people think it's still artificially controlled No one controls this language. Good luck with that Oh, and by the way, a more recent development in the Esperanto community is vicar pedio, which is Wikipedia That has also got a very big influence on the modern usage of Esperanto because obviously Vicar pedio is probably the most up-to-date out of all of those because there's a lot of topics Which aren't discussed in any of them, but are in vicar pedio So if you can't find whatever you're looking for in those you go look at vicar pedio But you got to remember if it's a new concept There's probably a lot of discussion and debate about how to speak about this concept of what verbs use etc etc But yeah, that's that's the main sources of the language itself So if you've understood all that you'll now understand and understand why it's impossible to reform Esperanto because It's a language and no one actually controls it You can put out a proposal if you like for instance, I've seen a lot of debates recently about itch is more Which is a debate about sexism in Esperanto, and I'm not gonna not in this video I'm not gonna say which one or whatever way we should go, but For those who do propose it the only thing I can say is that if you really propose it use it most like You know most Esperanists will either understand you or they won't and you'll either break the communication or you'll help Communication whatever but you've got to use it otherwise no one's gonna understand it And if you're gonna go, oh, but everyone's gonna complain well then give up on the proposal because it's never gonna happen It's a language. It's in all honesty most proposals for any language never actually happened when you think about it Languages evolve based on needs like for instance This is one that I like to talk about for a lot of people and I know I'm starting to go a little bit off topic here But I want to get this out There's a word for cool in Esperanto and that is mojosa Okay, and most most of the older generation of Esperan is not most but a lot of them don't like it Okay, they'll be like that's that's not a real word it whatever like it. I'll say it's content I'll from the mentor which it's not really but they'll say, you know, it's got no backing anything or this or that but it's a word that's been internally created in Esperanto Through organic means there's no way of really controlling that and the reason it exists is because there was a need for it And the thing is as more and more young people used it the older people obviously learnt its meaning and even though someone might say that's Contrary fundamental guess what everyone understands it now and that's how it is So that's how languages evolve in general and that's exactly how Esperanto evolves And that's why most proposals will never see the light of day in any real usage When you think about it most proposals are actually put forward by people who just start learning the language And once they've fully learned the language they give up on those proposals And if those proposals got any merit they will find their own way naturally into the language now I've got way off the topic like I was just meant to be talking about one thing and I've just gone All way off, you know, yeah, that happens Anyway, so if you like this video give it a like share it around with your friends Especially those who are just learning Esperanto and obviously if they speak English And subscribe if you haven't already and I'll see you in the next video And if you're not there, well guess what I'm gonna hit you with the Fundamento de Esperanto