View source for "Sixteen Rules" issue

The core of Esperanto propaganda has long been the claim that it has only [http://www.webcom.com/~donh/Esperanto/rules.html 16 rules] (''dekses reguloj'') of grammar.

Properly put, the [[baseline]] of Esperanto (the ''Fundamento'') has 16 rules, stated very elliptically, and intended for people already familiar with European grammars. Good standard Classical Esperanto, as used by [[Zamenhof]] and his contemporaries, emulated by the modern cultural elite, and codified in the ''Plena Analiza Gramatiko'', obviously has a good deal more than 16 rules of grammar.

Outside the elite, the "16 rules" recur in Esperanto propaganda, and instigated [[An Esperantist Comments|piece of counter-polemic]], written by [[Athelstan]], in which Lojban was described as having only "10 rules". The point of the exercise was that the "16 rules" are nonsensical as a be-all and end-all of Esperanto grammar, and cannot be used to lord it over Lojban. The counterpolemic instigated [http://groups.google.com/groups?q=harlow+lojban&hl=en&safe=off&rnum=3&selm=3B6ED68C.6DA152F4%40hotmail.com counter-counterpolemics], and so forth.