Ido was created in 1907 out of a desire to reform perceived flaws in Esperanto, a language that had been created 20 years earlier to facilitate international communication. The name comes from the Esperanto wordido, meaning "offspring",[4] since the language is a "descendant" of Esperanto. After its inception, Ido gained support from some in the Esperanto community. A setback occurred with the sudden death in 1914 of one of its most influential proponents,Louis Couturat. In 1928, leaderOtto Jespersen left the movement for his own languageNovial.
Ido declined in popularity for two reasons: the emergence of further schisms arising from competing reform projects, and a general lack of awareness of Ido as a candidate for an international language. These obstacles weakened the movement and it was not until the rise of the Internet that it began to regain momentum.
Ido uses the same 26 letters as theEnglish (Latin) alphabet, with nodiacritics. It draws its vocabulary from English, French, German, Italian, Latin, Russian, Spanish and Portuguese, and is largely intelligible to those who have studied Esperanto.
Several works of literature have been translated into Ido,[5] includingThe Little Prince,[6] the Book of Psalms, and theGospel of Luke.[7] As of the year 2000, there were approximately 100–200 Ido speakers in the world.[1] As of 2022, Ido has 26 speakers inFinland, according toStatistics Finland.[2]
The idea of a universal second language is not new, and constructed languages are not a recent phenomenon. The first known constructed language wasHildegard of Bingen'sLingua Ignota, created in the 12th century. The concept did not attract significant interest until the languageVolapük was created in 1879. Volapük was popular for some time and apparently had a few thousand users, but was later eclipsed by the popularity ofEsperanto, which arose in 1887. Several other languages, such asLatino sine Flexione andIdiom Neutral were also put forward. It was during this time that French mathematicianLouis Couturat formed theDelegation for the Adoption of an International Auxiliary Language.
This delegation made a formal request to theInternational Association of Academies inVienna to select and endorse an international language; the request was rejected in May 1907.[8] The Delegation then met as a Committee in Paris in October 1907 to discuss the adoption of a standard international language. Among the languages considered was a new language anonymously submitted at the last moment (and therefore against the Committee rules) under the pen nameIdo.[9] In the end the committee, always without plenary sessions and consisting of only 12 members, concluded the last day with 4 votes for and 1 abstention. They concluded that no language was completely acceptable, but that Esperanto could be accepted "on condition of several modifications to be realized by the permanent Commission in the direction defined by the conclusions of the Report of the Secretaries [Louis Couturat andLéopold Leau] and by the Ido project".[10]
The International Ido Congress inDessau, Germany, in 1922
Esperanto's inventor,L. L. Zamenhof, having heard a number of complaints, had suggested in 1894a proposal for a reformed Esperanto with several changes that Ido adopted and made it closer to French: eliminating the accented letters and theaccusative case, changing the plural to an Italianesque-i, and replacing the table of correlatives with more Latinate words. However, the Esperanto community voted and rejected Zamenhof's reformed Esperanto,[9] and likewise most rejected the recommendations of the 1907 Committee nominally composed of 12 members. Zamenhof, undoubtedly reminiscent of his experience of the 1894 reforms, strongly supported the Esperanto Committee majority decision.[11] Furthermore, controversy ensued when the "Ido project" was found to have been primarily devised byLouis de Beaufront, whom Zamenhof had chosen to represent Esperanto before the committee, as the committee's rules dictated that the creator of a submitted language could not defend it.[12] The Committee's meetings were mainly conducted in French, with occasional German.[11] When the president of the Committee asked who was the author of Ido's project, Couturat, de Beaufront and Leau answered that they were not. De Beaufront was the person who presented Ido's project and gave a description as a better, richer version of Esperanto. Couturat, Leau, de Beaufront and Jespersen were finally the only members who voted, all of them for Ido's project. A month later, Couturat accidentally forwarded Jespersen a copy of a letter in which he acknowledged that de Beaufront was the author of the Ido project.[11] Jespersen was angered by this and asked for a public confession. De Beaufront procrastinated for four months before making a public confession.[11]
It is estimated that some 20% of Esperanto leaders and 3–4% of ordinary Esperantists switched to Ido, which from then on suffered constant modifications seeking to perfect it, but which ultimately had the effect of causing many Ido speakers to give up on trying to learn it.[13] Although it fractured the Esperanto movement, the schism gave the remaining Esperantists the freedom to concentrate on using and promoting their language as it stood.[14] At the same time, it gave the Idists freedom to continue working on their own language for several more years before actively promoting it. TheUniono di la Amiki di la Linguo Internaciona (Union of Friends of the International Language) was established along with an Ido Academy to work out the details of the new language.[9]
Couturat, who was the leading proponent of Ido, was killed in an automobile accident in 1914.[9] This, along withWorld War I, practically suspended the activities of the Ido Academy from 1914 to 1920.[8] In 1928 Ido's major intellectual supporter, the Danish linguistOtto Jespersen, published his own planned language,Novial. His leaving the Ido movement set it back even further.[15]
The language still has active speakers, numbering about 500.[16] The Internet has sparked a renewal of interest in the language in recent years. A sample of 24 Idists on theYahoo! groupIdolisto during November 2005 showed that 57% had begun their studies of the language during the preceding three years, 32% from the mid-1990s to 2002, and 8% had known the language from before.[17]
Camiel de Cock was named secretary of linguistic issues in 1990, succeeding Roger Moureaux.[19] He resigned after the creation of a linguistic committee in 1991.[20] De Cock was succeeded by Robert C. Carnaghan, who held the position from 1992 to 2008. No new words were adopted between 2001 and 2006.[21] Following the 2008–2011 elections of ULI's direction committee,Gonçalo Neves replaced Carnaghan as secretary of linguistic issues in February 2008.[22] Neves resigned in August 2008.[23] A new linguistic committee was formed in 2010.[24][25][26] In April 2010, Tiberio Madonna was appointed as secretary of linguistic issues, succeeding Neves.[27][28] In January 2011, ULI approved eight new words.[29] This was the first addition of words in many years.[30] After a series of severe conflicts with the Directing Committee of ULI, Tiberio Madonna was revoked as secretary of linguistic issues on the 26th of May 2013 by official announcement from Loïs Landais, the secretary of ULI .[31]In January 2022, ULI approved a set of new words (34)[32]
Ido has five vowelphonemes. The values[e] and[ɛ] are interchangeable depending on speaker preference, as are[o] and[ɔ]. The orthographic sequences⟨au⟩ and⟨eu⟩ indicatediphthongs in word roots but not when created by affixing.[33]
All polysyllabic words are stressed on the second-to-last syllable except for verbinfinitives, which are stressed on the last syllable – skolo, kafeo andlernas for "school", "coffee" and the present tense of "to learn", but irar, savar and drinkar for "to go", "to know" and "to drink". If ani oru precedes another vowel, the pair is considered part of the same syllable when applying the accent rule – thusradio, familio andmanuo for "radio", "family" and "hand", unless the two vowels are the only ones in the word, in which case the "i" or "u" is stressed:dio,frua for "day" and "early".[34]
The definite article isla and is invariable. The indefinite article (a/an) does not exist in Ido. Each word in the Ido vocabulary is built from a root word. A word consists of a root and a grammatical ending. Other words can be formed from that word by removing the grammatical ending and adding a new one, or by inserting certainaffixes between the root and the grammatical ending.
Some of the grammatical endings are defined as follows:
These are the same as in Esperanto except for-i,-ir,-ar,-or and-ez. Esperanto marks noun plurals by anagglutinative ending-j (so plural nouns end in-oj), uses-i for verb infinitives (Esperanto infinitives are tenseless), and uses-u for the imperative. Verbs in Ido, as in Esperanto, do not conjugate depending on person, number or gender; the -as, -is, and -os endings suffice whether the subject is I, you, he, she, they, or anything else. For the word "to be," Ido allows eitheresas ores in the present tense; however, the full forms must be used for the past tenseesis and future tenseesos." Adjectives and adverbs are compared in Ido by means of the wordsplu = more,maxim = most,min = less,minim = least,kam = than/as. There exist in Ido three categories of adverbs: the simple, the derived, and the composed. The simple adverbs do not need special endings, for example:tre = very,tro = too,olim = formerly,nun = now,nur = only. The derived and composed adverbs, not being originally adverbs but derived from nouns, adjectives and verbs, have the ending-e.
Ido word order is generally the same as English (subject–verb–object), so the sentenceMe havas la blua libro is the same as the English "I have the blue book", both in meaning and word order. There are a few differences, however:
Adjectives can precede the noun as in English, or follow the noun as in Spanish. Thus,Me havas la libro blua means the same thing.
Ido has theaccusative suffix-n. Unlike Esperanto, this suffix is only required when the object of the sentence is not clear, for example, when the subject-verb-object word order is not followed. Thus,La blua libron me havas also means the same thing.
Ido generally does not impose rules of grammaticalagreement between grammatical categories within a sentence. For example, the verb in a sentence is invariable regardless of the number and person of the subject. Nor must the adjectives be pluralized as well the nouns – in Idothe large books would bela granda libri as opposed to the Esperantola grandaj libroj.
Negation occurs in Ido by simply addingne before a verb:Me ne havas libro means "I do not have a book". This as well does not vary, and thus the "I do not", "He does not", "They do not" before a verb are simplyMe ne,Il ne, andLi ne. In the same way, past tense and future tense negatives are formed byne before the conjugated verb. "I will not go" and "I did not go" becomeMe ne iros andMe ne iris respectively.
Yes/no questions are formed by the particleka in front of the question. "I have a book" (me havas libro) becomesKa me havas libro? (do I have a book?).Ka can also be placed in front of a noun without a verb to make a simple question, corresponding to the English "is it?"Ka Mark? can mean, "Are you Mark?", "Is it Mark?", "Do you mean Mark?" depending on the context.
Thepronouns of Ido were revised to make them more acoustically distinct than those of Esperanto, which all end ini. Especially the singular and plural first-person pronounsmi andni may be difficult to distinguish in a noisy environment, so Ido hasme andni instead. Ido also distinguishes betweenintimate (tu) and formal (vu) second-person singular pronouns as well as plural second-person pronouns (vi) not marked for intimacy. Furthermore, Ido has a pan-gender third-person pronounlu (it can mean "he", "she", or "it", depending on the context) in addition to its masculine (il), feminine (el), and neuter (ol) third-person pronouns.
ci, although technically the familiar form of the word "you" in Esperanto, is seldom used. Esperanto's inventor himself did not include the pronoun in the first book on Esperanto and only later reluctantly; later he recommended against usingci because different cultures have conflicting traditions regarding the use of the familiar and formal forms of "you".[36]
ri,iŝi,iĝi and by extensioniri are proposed neologisms and are rare, but they are still used albeit seldom.
ol, like Englishit and Esperantoĝi, is not limited to inanimate objects, but can be used "for entities whose sex is indeterminate:babies, children, humans, youths, elders, people, individuals, horses, [cattle], cats, etc."
Lu is often mistakenly labeled anepicene pronoun, that is, one that refers to both masculine and feminine beings, but in fact,lu is more properly a "pan-gender" pronoun, as it is also used for referring to inanimate objects. FromKompleta Gramatiko Detaloza di la Linguo Internaciona Ido by Beaufront:
Lu (likeli) is usedfor all three genders. Thatlu does duty for the three genders at will in the singular is not in itself any more astonishing than seeingli serve the three genders at will in the plural ... By a decision (1558) the Idist Academy rejected every restriction concerning the use oflu. One may thus use that pronoun in exactly the same way for a thing and a person of obvious sex as for animals of unknown sex and a person that has a genderless name, likebaby, child, human, etc., these being as truly masculine as feminine.
The motives for this decision were given in "Mondo", XI, 68:Lu for the singular is exactly the same asli for the plural. Logic, symmetry and ease demand this. Consequently, just asli may be used for people, animals, and things whenever nothing obliges one to express the gender, solu may be used for people, animals, and things under the same condition. The proposed distinction would be a bothersome subtlety ...
Composition in Ido obeys stricter rules than in Esperanto, especially formation ofnouns, adjectives and verbs from a radical of a differentclass. The reversibility principle assumes that for each composition rule (affix addition), the corresponding decomposition rule (affix removal) is valid.
Hence, while in Esperanto an adjective (for instancepapera), formed on the noun radicalpaper(o), can mean an attribute (papera enciklopedio "paper-made encyclopedia") and a relation (papera fabriko "paper-making factory"), Ido will distinguish the attributepapera ("paper" or "of paper" (not "paper-made" exactly)) from the relationpaperala ("paper-making").
Similarly,krono means in both Esperanto and Ido the noun "crown"; where Esperanto allows formation of "to crown" by simply changing the ending from noun to verbkroni ("crowning" iskronado), Ido requires an affix so the composition is reversible:kronizar ("the act of crowning" iskronizo).
According toClaude Piron, some modifications brought by Ido are in practice impossible to use and ruin spontaneous expression:
Ido displays, on linguistic level, other drawbacks Esperanto succeeded to avoid, but I don't have at hand documents which would allow me to go further in detail. For instance, if I remember correctly, where Esperanto only has the suffix-igi*, Ido has several: *-ifar*, *-izar*, *-igar*, which match subtleties which were meant to make language clearer, but that, in practice, inhibit natural expression.[37]
Vocabulary in Ido is derived from French, Italian, Spanish, English, German, and Russian. Basing the vocabulary on various widespread languages was intended to make Ido as easy as possible for the greatest number of people possible. Early on, the first 5,371 Ido word roots were analyzed compared to the vocabulary of the six source languages, and the following result was found:[38]
2024 roots (38%) belong to 6 languages
942 roots (17%) belong to 5 languages
1111 roots (21%) belong to 4 languages
585 roots (11%) belong to 3 languages
454 roots (8%) belong to 2 languages
255 roots (5%) belong to 1 language
Another analysis showed that:
4880 roots (91%) are found in French
4454 roots (83%) are found in Italian
4237 roots (79%) are found in Spanish
4219 roots (79%) are found in English
3302 roots (61%) are found in German
2821 roots (52%) are found in Russian
Comparison of Ido vocabulary with its six source languages (by # of roots)
Ido
French
Italian
Spanish
English
German
Russian
bona
bon
buono
bueno
good
bonus
gut
Bonus
khoroshiy
(хороший)
donar
donner
dare
donare
dar
donar
give
donate
geben
dat, darit
(дать) (дарить)
filtrar
filtrer
filtrare
filtrar
filter
filtern
filtrovat
(фильтровать)
gardeno
jardin
giardino
jardín
garden
Garten
sad
(caд)
kavalo
cheval
cavallo
caballo
horse
cavalry
Pferd
Kavallerie
loshad, kobyla
(лошадь, кобыла)
maro
mer
mare
mar
sea
marine
Meer
more
(море)
naciono
nation
nazione
nación
nation
Nation
natsija
(нация)
studiar
étudier
studiare
estudiar
study
studieren
izuchat
(изучать)
yuna
jeune
giovane
joven
young
juvenile
jung
yunyi, molodoy
(юный, молодой)
Comparison of Ido vocabulary with Esperanto and Latin (or Germanic root)
Ido
Esperanto
Latin
Germanic
bona
bona
bonum
donar
doni
dare
filtrar
filtri
spargere
felt
gardeno
ĝardeno
hortum
gardo
kavalo
ĉevalo
equum, caballus
maro
maro
mare
naciono
nacio
gentem, natio
studiar
studi
studere
yuna
juna
iuvenis
jung
Vocabulary in Ido is often created through a number of official prefixes and suffixes that alter the meaning of the word. This allows a user to take existing words and modify them to createneologisms when necessary, and allows for a wide range of expression without the need to learn new vocabulary each time. Though their number is too large to be included in one article, some examples include:
The diminutive suffix-et-.Domo (house) becomesdometo (cottage), andlibro (book) becomeslibreto (novelette or short story).
The pejorative suffix-ach-.Domo becomesdomacho (hovel), andlibro becomeslibracho (a shoddy piece of work, pulp fiction, etc.)
The prefixretro-, which implies a reversal.Irar (to go) becomesretroirar (to go back, backward) andvenar (to come) becomesretrovenar (to return).
New vocabulary is generally created through an analysis of the word, itsetymology, and reference to the six source languages. If a word can be created through vocabulary already existing in the language then it will usually be adopted without need for a new radical (such aswikipedio forWikipedia, which consists ofwiki +enciklopedio forencyclopedia), and if not an entirely new word will be created. The wordalternatoro for example was adopted in 1926, likely because five of the six source languages used largely the sameorthography for the word, and because it was long enough to avoid being mistaken for other words in the existing vocabulary.[39] Adoption of a word is done through consensus, after which the word will be made official by theunion. Care must also be taken to avoidhomonyms if possible, and usually a new word undergoes some discussion before being adopted. Foreign words that have a restricted sense and are not likely to be used in everyday life (such as the wordintifada to refer tothe conflict betweenIsrael andPalestine) are left untouched, and often written in italics.
Ido, unlike Esperanto, does not assume the male sex by default. For example, Ido does not derive the word for "waitress" by adding a feminine suffix to "waiter", as Esperanto does. Instead, Ido words are defined assex-neutral, and two different suffixes derive masculine and feminine words from the root:servisto for a waiter of either sex,servistulo for a male waiter, andservistino for a waitress. There are only two exceptions to this rule:[18] First,patro for "father",matro for "mother", andgenitoro for "parent", and second,viro for "man",muliero for "woman", andadulto for "adult".[40]
Patro nia, qua esas en la cielo, tua nomo santigesez; tua regno advenez; tua volo facesez quale en la cielo, tale anke sur la tero. Donez a ni cadiel'omnadia pano, e pardonez a ni nia ofensi, quale anke ni pardonas a nia ofensanti, e ne duktez ni aden la tento, ma liberigez ni del malajo.
English
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be your name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
Ido has a number of publications that can be subscribed to or downloaded for free in most cases.Kuriero Internaciona is a magazine produced in France every few months with a range of topics.Adavane! is a magazine produced by the Spanish Ido Society every two months that has a range of topics, as well as a few dozen pages of work translated from other languages.Progreso is the official organ of the Ido movement and has been around since the inception of the movement in 1908. Other sites can be found with various stories, fables or proverbs along with a few books of the Bible translated into Ido on a smaller scale. The sitepublikaji has a few podcasts in Ido along with various songs and other recorded material.
Wikipedia includes anIdo-language edition (known in Ido asWikipedio); in 2018 it was the 93rd most visited Wikipedia,[41] and is second most viewed Wikipedia edition in artificial language (after Esperanto).[42]
TheIdo star orJankó star is the main symbol of Ido. It is a six pointed star, with the points representing Ido's six source languages: English, French, Italian, German, Spanish and Russian. Alternatively, the six points represent the sixcontinents (excluding Antarctica). The emblem was originally a six pointed white star on a circular blue background, consisting of two concentric, equilateral triangles, with one vertically flipped. However, this was soon changed due to the similarity it presented with theStar of David, since a trueinternational auxiliary language should not have religious affiliations.
After a search to find an appropriate new symbol, theIdo-Akademio decided on the current Ido symbol, created by their secretary,Paul von Jankó (hence the alternative name the Jankó star). The current Ido Star is aconcaveisotoxalhexagon, with a vertically flipped equilateral triangle overlaid on top. This new shape also had the benefit of being able to becopyrighted.[citation needed]
^"Libreyo" (in Ido). 27 January 2018.Archived from the original on 3 January 2019. Retrieved27 December 2018.
^Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (2013).La Princeto (in Ido). Translated by Fernando Tejón.Archived from the original on 26 October 2023. Retrieved27 December 2018.
^"Evangelio da Santa Lukas"(PDF) (in Ido). Translated by L. Kauling. 1926.Archived(PDF) from the original on 9 May 2018. Retrieved27 December 2018.
^Leau, Léopold (August 1933)."La Vereso pri la Delegitaro en 1907" [The Truth about the Delegation in 1907].Progreso (in Ido).X (96): 4.Archived from the original on 27 March 2022. Retrieved12 February 2012.
^Lapenna, Ivo; Ulrich Lins; Tazio Carlevaro (1974).Esperanto en perspektivo: Faktoj kaj analizoj pri la internacia lingvo [Esperanto in Perspective: Facts and Analyses about the International Language] (in Esperanto). London: Centro de Esploro kaj Dokumentado pri la Monda Lingvo-Problemo. p. 424.
^Harlow, Donald J (4 July 2006)."Ido".How to Build a Language.Archived from the original on 14 February 2020. Retrieved12 February 2020.
^Seagull, Gareth (29 October 2019)."Should there be a Universal Language?".Raptor Translations Magazine: The Translation Business Magazine. Raptor Consolidated Media Group.Archived from the original on 10 November 2019. Retrieved5 January 2021.
^Bol, Jacques (15 November 2004)."Pri Camiel de Cock" [About Camiel de Cock] (in Ido). Archived fromthe original on 26 October 2023. Retrieved2 August 2016.
^Neves, Gonçalo (29 August 2008)."demisiono ed adio" [resignation and farewell] (in Ido). Archived fromthe original on 26 October 2023. Retrieved2 August 2016.
^Landais, Loïc (28 September 2009)."Linguala Komitato di ULI" [Linguistic Committee of the ULI] (in Ido). Archived fromthe original on 26 October 2023. Retrieved2 August 2016.
^"Linguala Komitato di ULI" [Linguistic Committee of the ULI]. Uniono por la Linguo Internaciona Ido (ULI).Archived from the original on 1 April 2012. Retrieved19 April 2012.
^"Nomino di Sekretario por Linguala Questioni di ULI" [Nomination of the Secretariat for Linguistic Functions of the ULI].Uniono por la Linguo Internaciona Ido (in Ido). 3 April 2010.Archived from the original on 28 October 2012. Retrieved19 April 2012.
^De Beaufront, Louis (2004) [1st pub. 1925]. Tejón, Fernando (ed.)."Pronunco dil vokali"(PDF).Kompleta Gramatiko detaloza di la linguo internaciona Ido (in Ido). Ponferrada, Spain: Krayono. p. 7.Archived(PDF) from the original on 13 August 2015.
^De Beaufront, L (2004)."Acento tonika" [Tonic accent](PDF).Kompleta Gramatiko Detaloza di Ido. pp. 11–12.Archived(PDF) from the original on 6 February 2012. Retrieved19 January 2012.
^abDe Beaufront, L (2004)."Kompleta Gramatiko Detaloza di Ido" [Comeplete Detailed Grammar of Ido](PDF). pp. 7–10.Archived(PDF) from the original on 6 February 2012. Retrieved19 January 2012.
^De Cock, Camiel (1988)."Lexiko di nova vorti" [Lexicon of new words].Archived from the original on 11 October 2017. Retrieved19 January 2012.
^ApGawain, Niklas; Hugon, P. D.; Moore, J. L.; De Beaufront, Louis (2008) [1st pub. 1999]. Muelver, Jerry (ed.).Ido for All(PDF) (1.6 ed.). North American Ido Society. pp. 42, 52, 70. Archived fromthe original(PDF) on 25 November 2011.
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