In the "Fundamenta Gramatiko" section of the Fundamento de Esperanto, 16 rules are presented. In the following pages you will become acquainted with them all, but first you can, if you wish, read some additional clarifications about the rules.

Additional clarifications about the 16 rules

The official name of the "Fundamenta Gramatiko" is Fundamenta Gramatiko de la Lingvo Esperanto en Kvin Lingvoj (Fundamental Grammar of the Esperanto Language in Five Languages). That chapter contains the famous 16 rules. It is a common misconception that Esperanto has only 16 rules. In fact, the number of rules is far greater; indeed the "Fundamenta Gramatiko" itself contains 17 rules, as it begins with an unnumbered explanation of the alphabet. Further, more rules can be found in the Ekzercaro section, both as direct instructions and by means of examples. Some parts of the Fundamenta Gramatiko can only be properly understood if one compares them with the practical usage in the Ekzercaro.

The Fundamenta Gramatiko is the most important set of rules in Esperanto grammar. It forms the basis for all other rules. But one should keep in mind that the text was written at the end of the 19th century, in a completely traditional style, and entirely from a European viewpoint. (That however does not mean that Esperanto is similar to European languages alone.) One should therefore understand the rules in the context of that period's style of explaining things.

The Fundamenta Gramatiko in the Fundamento is in French, English, German, Russian and Polish, but not in Esperanto. An Esperanto version can be found on pages 239-241 of the book Fundamenta Krestomatio, but that version, although significant, does not serve as an official law-giving version, whereas the versions in the Fundamento do.

The five versions in national languages are not entirely the same. Information found in some versions is not present in others. The following version is a combination of the five national-language texts.

The rules

The rules of the "Fundamenta Gramatiko" are divided into three groups:

1. A) Alphabet with an unnumbered rule that presents the alphabet of Esperanto with some indications regarding pronunciation (which are mostly not reproduced here) and with two remarks.
   
   
2. B) Parts of speech with rules 1 - 8: 1. article, 2. nouns, 3. adjectives, 4. numerals, 5. pronouns, 6. verbs, 7. adverbs, 8. prepositions.
   
   
3. C) General rules with rules 9 - 16: 9. reading/writing, 10. accent, 11. compound words, 12. negatives, 13. directional N-suffix, 14. the preposition je, 15. foreign words, 16. apostrophe.
   
   

Note: The rules are presented here in a somewhat different manner to the version in the book Fundamento de Esperanto - that is, we have used a slightly different arrangement of the text with more space.