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Ido



 
 
Ido is a constructed language
Constructed language

A planned or constructed language?known Colloquialism or informally as a conlang?is a language whose phonology, grammar, and/or vocabulary have been consciously devised by an individual or group, instead of having evolved natural languagely....
 created with the goal of becoming a universal second language for speakers of different linguistic backgrounds as a language easier to learn than ethnic languages. Unlike English, which is a natural
Natural language

In the philosophy of language, a natural language is a language that is spoken, Sign language, or writing by humans for general-purpose communication, as distinguished from formal languages and from constructed languages....
 and frequently irregular language, Ido was specifically designed for grammatical, orthographic
Orthography

The orthography of a language specifies the correct way of using a specific writing system to write the language. Orthography is derived from Greek language ????? orth?s and ???fe?? gr?phein ....
, and lexicographical regularity, and to favor no one who might otherwise be advantaged in a situation due to native fluency in a widespread language.






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Ido is a constructed language
Constructed language

A planned or constructed language?known Colloquialism or informally as a conlang?is a language whose phonology, grammar, and/or vocabulary have been consciously devised by an individual or group, instead of having evolved natural languagely....
 created with the goal of becoming a universal second language for speakers of different linguistic backgrounds as a language easier to learn than ethnic languages. Unlike English, which is a natural
Natural language

In the philosophy of language, a natural language is a language that is spoken, Sign language, or writing by humans for general-purpose communication, as distinguished from formal languages and from constructed languages....
 and frequently irregular language, Ido was specifically designed for grammatical, orthographic
Orthography

The orthography of a language specifies the correct way of using a specific writing system to write the language. Orthography is derived from Greek language ????? orth?s and ???fe?? gr?phein ....
, and lexicographical regularity, and to favor no one who might otherwise be advantaged in a situation due to native fluency in a widespread language. In this sense, Ido is classified as a consciously created International Auxiliary Language
International auxiliary language

An international auxiliary language or interlanguage is a language meant for communication between people from different nations who do not share a common native language....
 (conIAL). Many other reform projects appeared after Ido: examples such as Occidental
Occidental language

The language Occidental, later Interlingue, is a constructed language created by the Balto-German naval officer and teacher Edgar de Wahl and published in 1922....
 and Novial
Novial

Novial [nov- + IAL, International Auxiliary Language] is a constructed language international auxiliary language intended to facilitate international communication and friendship, without displacing anyone's native language....
 appeared afterwards but have since faded into obscurity. At present, Ido is one of the three auxiliary languages (along with Esperanto and Interlingua
Interlingua

Interlingua is an international auxiliary language , developed between 1937 and 1951 by the International Auxiliary Language Association . It is the second or third most widely used IAL and the most widely used International auxiliary language#Classification IAL: in other words, its vocabulary, grammar and other characteristics are largely...
) with a large body of literature and a relatively large speaker base.

Ido was developed in the early 1900s, and retains a sizable following today, primarily in Europe
Europe

Europe is, conventionally, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural , the Caspian Sea, and by the Caucasus Mountains to the southeast....
. It is largely based on Esperanto, created by L. L. Zamenhof
L. L. Zamenhof

Ludwik Lazarz Zamenhof was an Ophthalmology, philologist, and the inventor of Esperanto, a constructed language designed for international communication....
. Ido first appeared in 1907 as a result of a desire to reform perceived flaws in Esperanto that some of its supporters believed to be a hindrance in its propagation as an easy-to-learn second language.

The name of the language traces its origin to the Esperanto/Ido word ido, meaning "offspring", since the language was a "descendant" of Esperanto.

Ido uses the 26 Latin letters used in the English alphabet
English alphabet

The modern English alphabet is a Latin-based alphabet consisting of 26 letters, like in the Basic modern Latin alphabet:The exact shape of printed letters varies depending on the typeface....
 with no diacritic
Diacritic

A diacritic is a small sign added to a letter to alter pronunciation or to distinguish between similar words. The term derives from the Greek language d?a???t???? ....
s. While still being completely morphologically regular, Ido resembles the Romance languages
Romance languages

The Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European languages comprising all the languages that descend from Latin language, the language of ancient Rome....
 in appearance and is sometimes mistaken for Italian
Italian language

Italian is a Romance languages spoken by about 63 million people as a first language, primarily in Italy. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four Linguistic geography of Switzerlands....
 or Spanish
Spanish language

Spanish or Castilian is a Romance languages that originated in northern Spain, and gradually spread in the Kingdom of Castile and evolved into the principal language of government and trade....
 at first glance. Ido is largely intelligible to those who have studied Esperanto, though there are certain differences in word formation, grammar and grammatical-function words that make it more than a simple reform project. Ido is a stand-alone language.

After its inception, Ido gained support (estimates generally range around 20%) from some in the Esperanto community at the time, but following the sudden death in 1914 of one of its most influential proponents, Louis Couturat
Louis Couturat

Louis Couturat was a France logician, mathematics, philosophy, and linguistics....
, it declined in popularity. There were two reasons for this: first, the emergence of further schisms arising from competing reform projects; and second, 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 its former momentum.

History


Ido Kongreso En Desau 1922
The idea of a universal second language is not new, and constructed languages are not a recent phenomenon. The first known constructed language was created in the 12th century by St Hildegard of Bingen
Hildegard of Bingen

Hildegard of Bingen , also known as Blessed Hildegard and Saint Hildegard, was a German people abbess, author, counselor, Linguistics, naturalist, scientist, philosopher, physician, herbalist, poet, visionary and composer....
 under the name Lingua Ignota
Lingua Ignota

A Lingua Ignota was described by the 12th century abbess of Rupertsberg, Hildegard of Bingen. A recognized saint of the Roman Catholic Church, she apparently used it for mystical purposes....
. But the idea did not catch on in large numbers until the 19th century with the language Volapük
Volapük

Volap?k is a constructed language, created in 1879?1880 by Johann Martin Schleyer, a Roman Catholic Church priest in Grand Duchy of Baden, Germany....
, created in 1879 by German
Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands....
 Catholic
Catholic

Catholic is an adjective derived from the Greek language adjective , meaning "whole" or "complete". In the context of Christianity ecclesiology, it has a rich history and several usages....
 priest
Priest

A priest or priestess is a person having the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, rites of sacrifice to, and propitiation of, a deity or deities....
 Johann Martin Schleyer
Johann Martin Schleyer

Johann Martin Schleyer , Germany Catholic priest who invented the constructed language Volap?k. His official name was "Martin Schleyer"; he added the name "Johann" unofficially....
. Volapük was popular for some time and apparently had a few thousand users, but was later eclipsed by the popularity of Esperanto, which arose from L. L. Zamenhof
L. L. Zamenhof

Ludwik Lazarz Zamenhof was an Ophthalmology, philologist, and the inventor of Esperanto, a constructed language designed for international communication....
's book Unua Libro
Unua Libro

The Unua Libro was the first publication to describe the international language Esperanto . It was first published in Russian language on July 26, 1887 in Warsaw, by L....
 in 1887. The simpler grammar and less changed vocabulary of Esperanto appealed to many, and its popularity quickly rose. The first World Congress of Esperanto
World Congress of Esperanto

The World Congress of Esperanto has the longest tradition among international Esperanto conventions, with an almost unbroken run of more than a hundred years....
 was held in 1905. However, some within the Esperanto community itself felt that the language should undergo further reform before being officially selected as a universal second language. It was at this time that Couturat formed the Delegation for the Adoption of an International Auxiliary Language
Delegation for the Adoption of an International Auxiliary Language

The Delegation for the Adoption of an International Auxiliary Language was a body of academics convened in the early part of the 1900s to decide on the issue of the which international auxiliary language should be chosen for international use....
.


This delegation made a formal request to the International Association of Academies
International Association of Academies

The International Association of Academies was an academy designed for the purpose of linking the various Academies around the world, of which the first meeting was held in Paris, France, in 1900....
 in Vienna
Vienna

Vienna is the Capital of Republic of Austria and also one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.7 million...
 to select an international language; the request was rejected in May 1907. The Delegation then decided to meet as a Committee in Paris
Paris

Paris is the Capital of France and the country's largest city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the ?le-de-France Regions of France ....
 in October 1907 to discuss the adoption of a standard international language among the various competitors that had been devised till then. According to the minutes
Minutes

Minutes also known as protocols, are the instant written record of a meeting or hearing . They often give an overview of the structure of the meeting, starting with a list of those present, a statement of the various issues before the participants, and each of their responses thereto....
 of the Committee, it was decided that no language was completely acceptable, but that Esperanto
Esperanto

is the most widely spoken constructed language international auxiliary language in the world. Its name derives from Doktoro Esperanto, the pseudonym under which L....
 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 (Couturat and Leopold Leau
Léopold Leau

L?opold Leau was a French people mathematician, primarily known for his many well-documented ties to international auxiliary languages.The Delegation for the Adoption of an International Auxiliary Language was founded on January 7 1901 on Leau's initiative....
) and by the Ido project." This (anonymous) "Ido project" was later suggested to have been primarily devised by Couturat with some help from Esperanto's representative before the Committee, Louis de Beaufront
Louis de Beaufront

Marquis Louis de Beaufront was a major influence in the development of Ido, an international auxiliary language. Beaufront was initially an advocate of Esperanto and was largely responsible for its early diffusion in western Europe as well as one of its first French proponents....
. Beaufront had himself argued for reforming Esperanto before he was selected to the Delegation. His eventual "conversion" to the Ido camp, upon the presentation of that language, was thus consistent with his earlier positions.

Early supporters of Esperanto tended to resist reforms, and its inventor, Zamenhof, deferred to their judgment. Several of the reforms adopted by Ido were themselves proposed at various times by Zamenhof, especially in 1894 when he proposed eliminating the accented letters and the accusative case (referring to it as "superfluous ballast" ), changing the plural to an Italianesque -i, and replacing the table of correlatives with more Latinate words (see History of Esperanto
History of Esperanto

The constructed language international auxiliary language Esperanto was developed in the 1870s and 80s by L. L. Zamenhof, and first published in 1887....
 and Reformed Esperanto
Reformed Esperanto

Reformed Esperanto was a reformed version of Esperanto created in 1894. It is notable as the only complete Esperantido to have been created by Esperanto's original creator, Dr....
). The custom of keeping the basic rules of Esperanto fixed remains today.

Couturat, who was the leading proponent of Ido, was killed in an automobile accident in 1914, which, along with World War I
World War I

World War I, or the First World War , was a global military conflict which involved the Great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies of World War I and the Central Powers....
, dealt a serious blow to the Ido movement. Although that movement recovered to some degree in the immediate postwar period, the whole movement of international languages became balkanized
Balkanization

Balkanization is a geopolitics term originally used to describe the process of fragmentation or division of a region or state into smaller regions or states that are often hostile or non-cooperative with each other....
. With the publication of an even more Europeanized planned language, Occidental
Occidental language

The language Occidental, later Interlingue, is a constructed language created by the Balto-German naval officer and teacher Edgar de Wahl and published in 1922....
, in 1922, Ido went into decline. The Ido movement lost a majority of its published periodicals in the subsequent year or so, and the defection of its major intellectual supporter, the Danish linguist Otto Jespersen
Otto Jespersen

Jens Otto Harry Jespersen or Otto Jespersen was a Denmark linguistics who specialized in the grammar of the English language language.He was born in Randers in northern Jutland and attended Copenhagen University, earning degrees in English, French language, and Latin....
, in 1928 on the occasion of the publication of his own planned language Novial
Novial

Novial [nov- + IAL, International Auxiliary Language] is a constructed language international auxiliary language intended to facilitate international communication and friendship, without displacing anyone's native language....
, seemed at the time to provide a quietus.

Some observers trace the eclipse of Ido to its hybrid character – part Esperanto reform project, part Standard Average European
Standard Average European

Standard Average European is a concept introduced by Benjamin Whorf to distinguish Indo-European languages and especially Western Indo-European languages from languages of other grammatical types....
 (see Sapir–Whorf hypothesis
Sapir–Whorf hypothesis

In linguistics, the Sapir?Whorf hypothesis postulates a systematic relationship between the Grammatical category of the language a person speaks and how that person both understands the world and behaves in it....
). In this view, once it was clear that Ido would neither displace Esperanto nor be adopted by the Esperanto community, many viewed its Esperanto-like features as unnecessary baggage and moved on to more naturalistic projects. Those who approved of them tended to return to the larger Esperanto community.

Ido's decline had slowed by the 1930s, and the movement was still a significant force in interlinguistics
Interlinguistics

Interlinguistics is the study of various aspects of international communication. This may include, for example, changes in languages related to contacts between two or more languages....
 during the long gestation of the International Auxiliary Language Association
International Auxiliary Language Association

The International Auxiliary Language Association was founded in 1924 to "promote widespread study, discussion and publicity of all questions involved in the establishment of an international auxiliary language, together with research and experiment that may hasten such establishment in an intelligent manner and on stable foundations."...
's project. Like the Occidentalists
Occidental language

The language Occidental, later Interlingue, is a constructed language created by the Balto-German naval officer and teacher Edgar de Wahl and published in 1922....
, many Idists hoped that IALA would produce a language relatively close to their own preferences. In the end, the radically naturalistic Interlingua
Interlingua

Interlingua is an international auxiliary language , developed between 1937 and 1951 by the International Auxiliary Language Association . It is the second or third most widely used IAL and the most widely used International auxiliary language#Classification IAL: in other words, its vocabulary, grammar and other characteristics are largely...
 was even farther from Ido than Occidental, and (in contrast to Occidental) there was no major migration of Ido supporters to the new language.

Ido's survival during this period was assisted by financial resources accumulated during its heyday (e.g., the chemist Wilhelm Ostwald
Wilhelm Ostwald

Friedrich Wilhelm Ostwald was a Baltic German chemist. He received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1909 for his work on catalysis, chemical equilibria and reaction velocities....
 had donated the proceeds of his 1909 Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize

The Nobel Prize , established in the 1895 will of Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel; it was first awarded in Nobel Prize in Physics, Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, Nobel Prize in Literature, and Nobel Peace Prize in 1901....
 to an Ido foundation).

The language still has active speakers today, and the Internet has sparked a renewal of interest in the language in recent years. The estimates of the number of speakers range from 2000 to 5000. In comparison, Esperanto
Esperanto

is the most widely spoken constructed language international auxiliary language in the world. Its name derives from Doktoro Esperanto, the pseudonym under which L....
 has at least 100,000 (Sidney S. Culbert
Sidney S. Culbert

Sidney Spence Culbert was a linguist, psychologist and Esperanto. Born in Miles City, Montana, Culbert moved to Tacoma, Washington with his family in 1923 and lived in Tacoma and Seattle for most of his life....
's widely cited estimate of 1.6 million speakers
Esperanto

is the most widely spoken constructed language international auxiliary language in the world. Its name derives from Doktoro Esperanto, the pseudonym under which L....
 is controversial).

Jespersen, who was present during the ten days of Committee deliberations in Paris and later served as part of the permanent Commission, wrote a history of Ido.

A number of Esperanto supporters have attacked Ido over the years. The Esperantist Don Harlow
Don Harlow

Donald Harlow was an active Esperantist and former president of Esperanto-USA , and also former editing of ELNA's magazine Esperanto USA. He authored a self-published book on the Esperanto movement, The Esperanto Book, which is ....
 has characterized Ido's founders as underhanded and conspiratorial; see also Emile Boirac's report in the list of external links; also Gaston Waringhien's “Kulisaj manovroj” (Maneuvers in the Wings) in his 1887 kaj la sekvo, Antwerp: Stafeto, 1980. However, most Ido partisans argue that Harlow's history is polemical and is not consistent with all the eyewitness accounts, such as those reported by Jespersen. Harlow bases his account on material from some other eyewitnesses such as Emile Boirac
Émile Boirac

?mile Boirac was a France philosopher and psychic, promoter of Esperanto.He was designated in 1898 president of the University of Grenoble and in president of Dijon University....
 and Gaston Moch
Gaston Moch

Gaston Moch was the secretary of the Esperanto Centra Oficejo and a member of the Lingva Komitato.Moch was born in Paris, France. He was the Son of French Jewish Military officer, Col....
 and with other source documentation (such as Zamenhof's correspondence with Couturat and others during the period, as published in the two-volume Leteroj de Zamenhof, Paris: SAT, 1948), to which Jespersen, according to Harlow, would not have had access.

Comparison with Esperanto

Ido inherits many features of the grammar of Esperanto
Esperanto grammar

Esperanto is a constructed language international auxiliary language. A highly regular grammar makes Esperanto much easier to learn than most other languages of the world, though particular features may be more or less advantageous or difficult depending on the language background of the speaker....
, and in many cases, the vocabulary is similar. Ido shares with Esperanto the goals of grammatical simplicity and consistency, ease of learning, and the use of loanword
Loanword

A loanword is a word directly taken into one language from another with little or no translation. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept whereby it is the Meaning or idiom that is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself....
s from various European languages. The two languages, to a great extent, are mutually intelligible. However, certain changes were introduced to address some of the concerns that had arisen about Esperanto. These include:

  • Esperanto's alphabet
    Alphabet

    An alphabet is a standardized set of letter basic written symbols each of which roughly represents a phoneme, a spoken language, either as it exists now or as it was in the past....
     uses six non-Latin letters, three of which are not found in any other existing language; as a result, Esperanto in typing and in Internet e-mail and newsgroups frequently resorts to any of several schemes to represent these special letters. This leads to the situation where the same word may be displayed any of several different ways. Ido addresses this issue by using the 26-letter Latin alphabet
    Latin alphabet

    The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. It evolved from the western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumae alphabet, and was initially developed by the Ancient Romes to write the Latin....
     with two digraphs
    Digraph (orthography)

    A digraph, bigraph , or digram is a pair of characters used to write one phoneme or a sequence of phonemes that does not correspond to the normal values of the two characters combined....
    , ch and sh instead of Esperanto's c and s. The digraph qu, representing , as in English "quick", is used instead of Esperanto kv, and likewise gu is used instead of gv. Ido orthography
    Orthography

    The orthography of a language specifies the correct way of using a specific writing system to write the language. Orthography is derived from Greek language ????? orth?s and ???fe?? gr?phein ....
     is phonemic
    Phonemic orthography

    A phonemic orthography is a writing system where the written graphemes correspond to phonemes, the spoken sounds of the language. These are sometimes termed true alphabets, but non-alphabetic writing systems like syllabary can be phonemic as well....
     in the sense that each written word has an unambiguous pronunciation, but it does not have the one-to-one correspondence between letters and phoneme
    Phoneme

    In human language, a phoneme is the smallest posited linguistically distinctive unit of sound. Phonemes carry no semantic content themselves. In theoretical terms, phonemes are not the physical segment s themselves, but cognitive abstractions or categorizations of them....
    s that Esperanto has.
  • Ido generally does not impose rules of grammatical agreement
    Agreement (linguistics)

    In languages, agreement is a form of cross-reference between different parts of a sentence or phrase. Agreement happens when one word changes in form depending on to which other words it is being related....
     between grammatical categories within a sentence, believing them to be grammatically complex and redundant in a potential universal second language. For example, in Esperanto, the verb in a sentence is invariable regardless of the number and person of the subject. This principle was not extended in Esperanto to adjectives and nouns, however; as a result, in Esperanto an adjective must agree in number and case with the noun it modifies as with the French grands livres (large books), where the adjective must be pluralized as well as the noun. There is no such requirement in English; for example, where number is emphasized by variation of the verb, and Ido eliminates this feature from its grammar.
  • Esperanto requires the use of the -n ending to signify the use of the accusative case
    Accusative case

    The accusative case of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. The same case is used in many languages for the objects of prepositions....
    . Ido allows the use of this feature in ambiguous situations where the object of a sentence does not follow the subject, but in all other situations, the accusative case was eliminated as redundant.
  • Ido imposes consistent rules on the use of endings to transform a word from one meaning or part of speech to another, thus simplifying the amount of vocabulary memorization that is necessary.
  • Ido, unlike Esperanto, does not assume the male sex as the default for family relationship words. For example, Ido does not derive the word for "sister" by adding a feminine suffix to the word for "brother", as standard Esperanto does. Instead, some relationship root words are defined as sex neutral, and two different suffixes derive masculine- and feminine-specific words from the root—frato (sibling) > fratulo (brother), fratino (sister). In other cases, Ido has two or three root words where Esperanto has one—genitoro (parent), patro (father), matro (mother).
  • Ido's vocabulary attempts to use cognate
    Cognate

    Cognates in linguistics are words that have a common etymology origin.An example of cognates within the same language would be English shirt vs....
    s that are shared in common by as many of its six source languages as possible.
Nevertheless, modern Esperanto has received some influence from Ido in areas such as a clarification of the rules for word derivation and suffixes like -oz- ("abundant in") and -end- ("required to").

Phonology

Ido has the same typical five-vowel system (a, e, i, o, u have their IPA values) as Esperanto, and most of the same consonants, omitting two consonant phoneme
Phoneme

In human language, a phoneme is the smallest posited linguistically distinctive unit of sound. Phonemes carry no semantic content themselves. In theoretical terms, phonemes are not the physical segment s themselves, but cognitive abstractions or categorizations of them....
s used by Esperanto, IPA and . (The distinctions between and between carry a very low functional load in Esperanto, and so were deemed to be unnecessary in Ido.) Without those two consonant phonemes, the consonants in the language are as follows:

Bilabial
Bilabial consonant

In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:...
Labio-
dental
Labiodental consonant

In phonetics, labiodentals are consonants Place of articulation with the lower lip and the upper teeth. The labiodental consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:...
Alveolar
Alveolar consonant

Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the Dental alveolus of the superior teeth....
Post-
alveolar
Postalveolar consonant

Postalveolar consonants are consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the back of the alveolar ridge, placing them a bit further back in the mouth than the alveolar consonants, which are at the ridge itself, but not as far back as the hard palate ....
Palatal
Palatal consonant

Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate . Consonants with the tip of the tongue curled back against the palate are called retroflex consonant....
Velar
Velar consonant

Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the Soft palate)....
Glottal
Glottal consonant

Glottal consonants are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricatives, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider them to be consonants at all....
Nasal
Nasal consonant

A nasal consonant is produced with a lowered soft palate in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. The oral cavity still acts as a resonance chamber for the sound, but the air does not escape through the mouth as it is blocked by the tongue....
      
Plosive    
Affricate
Affricate consonant

Affricate consonants begin as stop consonants but release as a fricative consonant rather than directly into the following vowel....
       
Fricative
Fricative consonant

Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two Place of articulation close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German language , the final consonant of Bach; or the side of the tongue ag...
    
Tap
Flap consonant

In phonetics, a flap or tap is a type of consonantal sound, which is produced with a single contraction of the muscles so that one articulator is thrown against another....
       
Approximant      


The accent rule in Ido is regular, but slightly more complex than that of Esperanto: all polysyllables are stressed on the penultimate (second from last) syllable except for verb infinitive
Infinitive

In grammar, infinitive is the name for certain verb forms that exist in many languages. In the usual description of English language, the infinitive of a verb is its basic form with or without the grammatical particle to: therefore, do and to do, be and to be, and so on are infinitives....
s, which are stressed on the ultimate syllable—skolo, kafeo and lernas for "school", "coffee" and "learn", but irar, savar and drinkar for "to go", "to know" and "to drink". If an i or u precedes another vowel, the pair is considered part of the same syllable when applying the accent rule—thus radio, familio and manuo for "radio", "family" and "hand".

Grammar


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 certain affix
Affix

An affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word. Affixes may be derivation , like English -ness and pre-, or inflectional, like English plural -s and past tense -ed....
es between the root and the grammatical ending. As with Esperanto, Ido is grammatically invariable; there are no exceptions in Ido, unlike in natural languages.

Some of the grammatical endings are defined as follows:

Grammatical form Ido Esperanto English
Singular noun
Noun

In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open class lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition....
-o (libro) -o (libro) book
Plural noun
Noun

In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open class lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition....
-i (libri) -oj (libroj) books
Adjective
Adjective

In grammar, an adjective is a word whose main syntax role is to grammatical modifier a noun or pronoun, giving more information about the noun or pronoun's definition....
-a (varma) -a (varma) warm
Adverb
Adverb

An adverb is a part of speech. It is any word that modifies any other part of language: verbs, adjectives , clauses, sentence s and other adverbs, except for nouns; modifiers of nouns are primarily determiners and adjectives....
-e (varme) -e (varme) warmly
Present tense infinitive
Infinitive

In grammar, infinitive is the name for certain verb forms that exist in many languages. In the usual description of English language, the infinitive of a verb is its basic form with or without the grammatical particle to: therefore, do and to do, be and to be, and so on are infinitives....
-ar (irar) -anti (iranti) -i (iri) to be going to go
Past tense infinitive
Infinitive

In grammar, infinitive is the name for certain verb forms that exist in many languages. In the usual description of English language, the infinitive of a verb is its basic form with or without the grammatical particle to: therefore, do and to do, be and to be, and so on are infinitives....
-ir (irir) -inti (irinti) to have gone
Future tense infinitive
Infinitive

In grammar, infinitive is the name for certain verb forms that exist in many languages. In the usual description of English language, the infinitive of a verb is its basic form with or without the grammatical particle to: therefore, do and to do, be and to be, and so on are infinitives....
-or (iror) -onti (ironti) to be going to go
Present
Present tense

The present tense is the Grammatical tense that may be used to express:* action at the present* a state of being;* a habitual action;* an occurrence in the near future; or...
-as (iras) -as (iras) go, goes
Past
Past tense

The past tense is a verb grammatical tense expressing action, activity, state or being in the past of the current moment , or prior to some other event, whether that is past, present, or future ....
-is (iris) -is (iris) went
Future
Future tense

In grammar, the future tense is a verb form that marks the event described by the verb as not having happened yet, but expected to happen in the future , or to happen subsequent to some other event, whether that is past, present, or future ....
-os (iros) -os (iros) will go
Imperative
Imperative

Imperative can mean:*Imperative mood, a grammatical mood expressing commands, direct requests, and prohibitions*Imperative programming, a programming paradigm in computer science...
-ez (irez) -u (iru) go!
Conditional
Conditional mood

The conditional mood is the form of the verb used in conditional sentences to refer to a hypothetical state of affairs, or an uncertain event that is contingent on another set of circumstances....
-us (irus) -us (irus) would go


These are the same as in Esperanto except for -i, -ir, -ar, -or and -ez. Esperanto marks noun plurals by an agglutinative 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 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.

Syntax

Ido word order is generally the same as English (subject verb object), so the sentence Me 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 be written either before the noun as in English, or after the noun as in Spanish
    Spanish language

    Spanish or Castilian is a Romance languages that originated in northern Spain, and gradually spread in the Kingdom of Castile and evolved into the principal language of government and trade....
    . Thus, Me havas la libro blua is also permissible.
  • Ido has the optional -n accusative ending that is used when the object of the sentence is not clear, or it may be used to alter word order when desired. La blua libron me havas is another acceptable way of saying the same thing.


Negation occurs in Ido by simply affixing ne to the front of 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 simply Me ne, Il ne, and Li ne. In the same way, past tense and future tense negatives are formed by ne in front of the conjugated verb. "I will not go" and "I did not go" become Me ne iros and Me ne iris respectively.

Yes/no questions are formed by the particle ka in front of the question. "I have a book" (me havas libro) becomes Ka 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.

Pronouns

The pronoun
Pronoun

In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun with or without a Determiner , such as Wiktionary:you and Wiktionary:they in English language....
s of Ido were revised to make them more acoustically distinct than those of Esperanto, which all end in i. Especially the singular and plural first-person pronouns mi and ni may be difficult to distinguish in a noisy environment, so Ido has me and ni instead. Ido also distinguishes between intimate (tu) and formal (vu)
T-V distinction

In sociolinguistics, a T-V distinction describes the situation wherein a language has Grammatical person pronouns that distinguish varying levels of politeness, social distance, courtesy, familiarity, or insult toward the addressee....
 second-person singular pronouns as well as plural second-person pronouns (vi) not marked for intimacy. Furthermore, Ido has a pan-gender third-person pronoun lu (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.

Pronouns
singularpluralindefinite
firstsecondthirdfirstsecondthird
familiarformalmasculinefeminineneuterpan-gendermasculinefeminineneuterpan-gender
English I thou/you you he she it he/she/it we you    they one
Esperanto mi cią vią li si gi gi˛ ni vi    ili oni
Ido me tu vu il(u) el(u) ol(u) lu ni vi ili eli oli li on(u)
  1. ci, while technically the familiar form of the word "you" in Esperanto, is almost never used. Results on Google have shown that while tu is only slightly less common than vu in Ido, ci is used less than half of one percent of the amount vi is in Esperanto. Esperanto's inventor himself did not include the pronoun in the first book on Esperanto and only later reluctantly; later he recommended against using ci on the grounds that different cultures have conflicting traditions regarding the use of the familiar and formal forms of "you", and that a universal language should avoid the problem by simply using the formal form in all situations. Unlike some other languages that use a formal second person pronoun, vi is not capitalized.
  2. tiu, though not a personal pronoun, is usually used in this circumstance, because many people have a hard time applying "it" to humans.


It should be noted that ol, like English it and Esperanto gi, is not limited to inanimate objects, but can be used "for entities whose sex is indeterminate: babies, children, humans, youths, elders, people, individuals, horses, cows, cats, etc."

Lu is often mistakenly labeled an epicene
Epicene

Epicene is an adjective for loss of gender distinction, often specific loss of masculinity. It includes:* effeminacy ? a male with female characteristics,...
 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. From Kompleta Gramatiko Detaloza di la Linguo Internaciona Ido by Beaufront:

Lu (like li) is used for all three genders. That lu does duty for the three genders at will in the singular is not in itself any more astonishing than seeing li serve the three genders at will in the plural ... By a decision (1558) the Idist Academy rejected every restriction concerning the use of lu. 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, like baby, 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 as li for the plural. Logic, symmetry and ease demand this. Consequently, just as li may be used for people, animals, and things whenever nothing obliges one to express the gender, so lu may be used for people, animals, and things under the same condition. The proposed distinction would be a bothersome subtlety...

Vocabulary

Vocabulary in Ido is based on words intended to give the greatest facility to the most speakers. Early on, the first 5000+ roots were analyzed compared to the vocabulary of English, French, Spanish, German, Russian and Italian, and the following result was found:

  • 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
    • Total 5371 100%


In addition, a comparison of Ido vocabulary to the six shows the following for the similarities of Ido to the six languages above:

  • French 4880: 91%
  • Italian 4454: 83%
  • Spanish 4237: 79%
  • English 4219: 79%
  • German 3302: 61%
  • Russian 2821: 52%


This is consistent with the fact that Ido is sometimes mistaken for French, Italian or Spanish at first sight.

Comparison of vocabulary with the six languages:

Ido English Italian French German Russian Spanish
bona good ("bonus") buono bon gut ("Bonus") khoroshiy (???????) bueno
donar give ("donate") dare ("donare") donner geben darit dar, donar
filtrar filter filtrare filtrer filtern filtrovat (???????????) filtrar
gardeno garden giardino jardin Garten ogorod jardín
kavalo horse ("cavalry") cavallo cheval Pferd ("Kavallerie") loshad, kobyla (??????, ??????) caballo
maro sea ("marine") mare mer Meer more mar
naciono nation nazione nation Nation natsija nación
studiar study studiare étudier studieren izuchat, (???????) estudiar
yuna young ("juvenile") giovane jeune jung yunyi joven


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 create neologism
Neologism

A neologism is a newly coined word that may be in the process of entering common use, but has not yet been accepted into mainstream language . Neologisms are often directly attributable to a specific person, publication, period, or event....
s 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) becomes dometo (cottage), and libro (book) becomes libreto (novelette or short story).
  • The pejorative suffix -ach-. Domo becomes domacho (hovel), and libro becomes libracho (a shoddy piece of work, pulp fiction, etc.)
  • The prefix retro-, which implies a reversal. Irar (to go) becomes retroirar (to go back, backward) and venar (to come) becomes retrovenar (to return).


New vocabulary is generally created through an analysis of the word, its etymology
Etymology

Etymology is the study of the roots and history of words; and how their form and meaning have changed over time.In languages with a long detailed history, etymology makes use of philology, the study of how words change from culture to culture over time....
, 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 as wikipedio for Wikipedia, which consists of wiki + enciklopedio for encyclopedia), and if not an entirely new word will be created. The word alternatoro for example was adopted in 1926, likely because five of the six source languages used largely the same orthography
Orthography

The orthography of a language specifies the correct way of using a specific writing system to write the language. Orthography is derived from Greek language ????? orth?s and ???fe?? gr?phein ....
 for the word, and because it was long enough to avoid being mistaken for other words in the existing vocabulary. Adoption of a word is done through consensus, after which the word will be made official by the union
Uniono por la Linguo Internaciona Ido

Uniono por la Linguo Internaciona Ido , the Union for the International Language Ido, is the official union of the Ido-language movement. Based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, its main functions are the propagation of the language, arranging the yearly Ido#Recent and upcoming international Ido conventions in which Ido speakers gather, and the...
. Care must also be taken to avoid homonym
Homonym

In linguistics, a homonym is one of a group of words that share the same spelling and the same pronunciation but have different meanings, usually as a result of the two words having different origins....
s 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 word intifada
Intifada

Intifada is an Arabic Language word which literally means shaking off, though it is generally translated into English as rebellion or uprising....
 to refer to the conflict between Israel
Israel

Israel officially the State of Israel , is a country in the Middle East located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its relatively small area....
 and Palestine
Palestinian territories

The Palestinian territories are composed of two discontiguous regions, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, whose final status has yet to be determined....
) are left untouched, and often written in italics.

Ido-speaking community

As with all constructed languages, gauging the number of speakers of Ido is an extremely difficult task. Usenet
Usenet

Usenet, a portmanteau of "user" and "network", is a worldwide distributed Internet discussion system. It evolved from the general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name....
 postings by the prominent Esperantist Don Harlow
Don Harlow

Donald Harlow was an active Esperantist and former president of Esperanto-USA , and also former editing of ELNA's magazine Esperanto USA. He authored a self-published book on the Esperanto movement, The Esperanto Book, which is ....
 have estimated the population at being somewhere in the thousands, but no accurate numbers exist. Moreover, given the often political IAL environment in which those that speak a language are not merely language users but adherents to its system and linguistic philosophy as well, there are two categories of those that know the language, Ido speakers and Ido supporters. Ido resembles Esperanto to a large extent, and many Esperantists have learned Ido out of curiosity while still not using it, preferring to support the more well-known Esperanto movement instead. One Esperanto bulletin board included the following:

It is possible to find discussions of this nature on the Internet in English, Esperanto, Ido, Interlingua and other IALs, each understanding the other with little problem.

A number of Esperantists viewed the schism of Ido as a mixed blessing, and a number of writings show that some were inversely glad to see those who were interested only in creating a perfect language by constantly reforming it leave the fold so that those remaining could work on using and promoting the language itself. However, these "constant reformers" eventually moved on to other reform projects, few of which survived much beyond the deaths of the authors themselves, and Ido has remained constant since then—it is safe to say that were Ido a community of language reformers during its early days, that this is not the case anymore.

A small sample of 24 Idists on the Yahoo!
Yahoo!

Yahoo! Inc. is an United States public company corporation with headquarters in Sunnyvale, California, , and provides Internet services worldwide....
 group Idolisto during late 2005 showed that 57% had begun their studies of the language during the past three years, 32% from the mid-1990s to 2002, and 8% had known the language from before.

Language examples


La Princeto (The Little Prince)


Chapter 17 of The Little Prince
The Little Prince

The Little Prince , published in 1943, is France aviator Antoine de Saint-Exup?ry's most famous novel. He wrote it in the United States while renting The Bevin House in Asharoken, New York, on Long Island....
; the conversation between the Little Prince and the snake upon his arrival on Earth. The title of the Ido-language version is La Princeto.


CHAPITRO XVII
–Bona nokto ! –dicis la surprizata princeto.
–Bona nokto ! –dicis la serpento.
–Adsur qua planeto me falis ? –questionis la princeto.
–Adsur Tero, sur Afrika. –respondis la serpento.
–Ha !... Kad esas nulu sur Tero ?
–To esas la dezerto, e nulu esas sur la dezerti. Tero esas tre granda –dicis la serpento.


La princeto sideskis sur stono e levis lua okuli a la cielo.


–Me questionas a me –lu dicis- ka la steli intence brilas por ke uladie singlu povez trovar sua stelo. Videz mea planeto, olu esas exakte super ni... ma tre fore !
–Olu esas bela planeto –dicis la serpento-. Por quo vu venis adhike ?
–Esas chagreneto inter floro e me –dicis la princeto.
–Ha ! –dicis la serpento.


E la du permanis silence.


–Ube esas la personi ? –klamis fine la princeto-. Onu esas kelke sola sur la dezerto...
–Inter la personi onu anke esas sola –dicis la serpento.


La princeto regardis la serpento longatempe.


–Vu esas stranja animalo ! –dicis la princeto-. Vu esas tam tenua kam fingro...
–Yes, ma me esas plu potenta kam fingro di rejo –dicis la serpento.


La princeto ridetis.


–Me ne kredas ke vu esas tre potenta, mem vu ne havas pedi... nek vu povas voyajar...
–Me povas transportar vu plu fore kam navo -dicis la serpento.


Ed olu spulis la maleolo di la princeto, same kam ora braceleto.


–Ta quan me tushas retroiras a la tero deube lu venis. Ma vu esas pura e vu venas de stelo...


La princeto nulon respondis.


–Me kompatas vu, qua esas tante sola sur ta harda granita Tero. Me povas helpar vu se vu sentas nostalgio a vua planeto. Me povas...


–Ho ! –dicis la princeto-. Me bone komprenis, ma pro quo vu sempre parolas enigmatoze ?


–Me solvas omna enigmati –dicis la serpento.


E la du permanis silence.


Averto lektenda
La verko La princeto licencesas sub Creative Commons License, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/legalcode
Autoro.- Fernando Tejón, krayono@yahoo.es
Ret-pagino.- http://es.geocities.com/idohispania/laprinceto/laprinceto.html


Mea vido-cirklo (horizonto)

Translation of tune by Russian bard Alexander Sukhanov
Alexander Sukhanov

Alexander Alekseevich Sukhanov is a Russians composer and Bard_ ? he wrote nearly one hundred fifty songs. Professionally, Sukhanov is a mathematician....
 from verses by Russian poet Yunna Morits
Yunna Morits

Yunna Morits , is a Russian artist of many talents primarily known as a poet, was born in Kiev in a Jewish family. Her father Pinchas Moritz, was imprisoned under Stalin, she suffered from tuberculosis in her childhood, and spent years of hardship in the Urals during WWII....
.
(listen)
Me nule savas la Angla, la Franca, la Greka,
Mea vid-cirklo do restas sat mikra e streta -
En mea vid-cirklo trovesas nur flori, arbori,
Nur tero e maro, aero, fairo, amoro.


Me nule savas la Dana e la Portugala,
Mea vid-cirklo restas sat infantala -
Nur joyi rapide pasant', bruligiva aflikto,
Nur esperi, e timi noktal' es en mea vid-cirklo.


Me savas nek la Sanskrito e nek la Latina,
Mea vid-cirklo es ancien-mod' quale tino
Nur morto e nasko homala, nur grani ed astri
Aden mea vid-cirklo penetras e standas sat mastre.


Mea savo artala esas fakultativa.
Mea vid-cirklo restas presk' primitiva -
En olu es nia afero intima, interna
Por ke kun homaro la Tero flugadez eterne.


Mea vid-cirklon restriktas nur timi, esperi,
En olu trovesas nur amo, nur maro e tero.
Aden mea vid-cirklo penetras e standas sat mastre
Nur morto e nasko homala, nur grani ed astri.


Literature and publications


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 site publikaji has a few podcasts in Ido along with various songs and other recorded material.

The online encyclopedia Wikipedia
Wikipedia

Wikipedia is a Free content, multilingualism encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit organization Wikimedia Foundation. Its name is a portmanteau of the words wiki and encyclopedia....
 includes an (known in Ido as Wikipedio); , it has over 15,000 articles.

Recent and upcoming international Ido conventions

  • 2009: Tallinn
    Tallinn

    Tallinn is the capital and largest city in the Republic of Estonia and of Harju County. It occupies a surface of 159.2 km? in which 397,617 inhabitants live....
    , Estonia
    Estonia

    Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Finland across the Gulf of Finland, to the west by Sweden across the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by the Russia ....
     ()
  • 2008: Wuppertal
    Wuppertal

    ||-||}Wuppertal is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located on the Wupper river south of the Ruhr area. Population 361,333 ....
    -Neviges, Germany
    Germany

    Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands....
    , participants from 5 countries ()
  • 2007: Paris
    Paris

    Paris is the Capital of France and the country's largest city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the ?le-de-France Regions of France ....
    , France
    France

    France , officially the French Republic , is a country whose Metropolitan France is located in Western Europe and that also comprises various Overseas departments and territories of France....
    , 14 participants from 9 countries (, )
  • 2006: Berlin
    Berlin

    Berlin is the Capital of Germany city and one of sixteen States of Germany of Germany. With a population of 3.4 million within its city limits, Berlin is the country's largest city....
    , Germany, approx. 25 participants from 10 countries ()
  • 2005: Toulouse
    Toulouse

    Toulouse is a commune of France in southwest France on the banks of the Garonne, half-way between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea....
    , France, 13 participants from 4 countries ()
  • 2004: Kiev
    Kiev

    Kiev, also known as Kyiv , is the Capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River....
    , Ukraine
    Ukraine

    Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east; Belarus to the north; Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary to the west; Romania and Moldova to the southwest; and the Black Sea and Sea of Azov to the south....
    , 17 participants from 9 countries ()
  • 2003: Großbothen
    Großbothen

    Gro?bothen is a municipality in the Leipzig district in Saxony, Germany. Gro?bothen has an area of 33.45 km? and a population of 3,568 ....
    , Germany, participants from 6 countries ()
  • 2002: Kraków
    Kraków

    Krak?w , in English also spelled Krakow or Cracow , is one of the largest and oldest cities in Poland, with a population of 756,336 in 2007 ....
    , Poland
    Poland

    Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe. Poland is bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian Enclave and exclave, to the north....
    , 14 participants from 6 countries ()
  • 2001: Nuremberg
    Nuremberg

    Nuremberg is a city in the Germany State of Bavaria, in the Regierungsbezirk of Middle Franconia. It is situated on the Pegnitz River river and the Rhine?Main?Danube Canal and is Franconia's largest city....
    , Germany, 14 participants from 5 countries ()
  • 1998: Bialobrzegi
    Bialobrzegi

    Bialobrzegi [] is a town in Poland, in Mazowsze Voivodeship, about 60 km south of Warsaw. It is the capital of Bialobrzegi County. Population is 7,262 ....
    , Poland, 15 participants from 6 countries
  • 1997: Bakkum (mun. Castricum
    Castricum

    Media:Nl-Castricum.ogg is a municipality and a town in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland.On October 6, 1799 a Franco-Dutch army under Guillaume Brune defeated an Anglo-Russian army under Ralph Abercromby and the Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany in the Battle of Castricum....
    ), Netherlands
    Netherlands

    The Netherlands is a country that is part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a parliamentary democratic constitutional monarchy. The Netherlands is located in North-West Europe, and bordered by the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east....
    , 19 participants from 7 countries
  • 1995: Elsnigk
    Elsnigk

    Elsnigk is a municipality in the district of Anhalt-Bitterfeld, in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany....
    , Germany
  • 1991: Ostend
    Ostend

    ||-||-||}Ostend  is a Belgium city and Municipalities in Belgium located in the Flemish Region Provinces of Belgium of West Flanders....
    , Belgium
    Belgium

    * A small German-speaking Community of Belgium exists in eastern Wallonia. Belgium's linguistic diversity and related political and cultural conflicts are reflected in the history of Belgium and a complex Communities and regions of Belgium....
    , 21 participants
  • 1980: Namur
    Namur (city)

    Namur is a city and Municipalities in Belgium in Wallonia, in southern Belgium. It is both the capital of the Provinces of Belgium of Namur and of the Walloon Region ....
    , Belgium, 35 participants
  • 1960: Zürich
    Zürich

    Z?rich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Z?rich. The city is Switzerland's main commercial and cultural centre and sometimes called the Cultural Capital of Switzerland, the political capital of Switzerland being Berne....
    , Switzerland
    Switzerland

    Switzerland is a landlocked Swiss Alps country of roughly 7.7 million people in Western Europe with an area of 41,285 km?. Switzerland is a federal republic consisting of 26 states called Cantons of Switzerland....
    , ca. 50 participants


External links


Overview and answers to common questions

  • (html, pdf)


History and opinions on Ido

  • about his experiences as part of the Delegation's Committee
  • , a rebuttal of criticisms made about the events of the Delegation, based on his own experiences as a member of the Delegation
  • , and by Don Harlow
  • - Discussion about Ido, links to websites, organizations, mailing lists, courses, dictionaries, grammars, etc.
  • - Commentary and grammatical summary of Ido, with glossary and links

Pages in Ido and places to learn the language

  • Simple Ido-English dictionary is
  • "Ido for All", a course for English speakers, can be found in pdf form at http://idomondo.org/nova-skolo.zip . A partial translation into French can be found at http://www.ido-vivo.info/Francaidokurso/ . MP3 files for lessons 1–7 can be found at http://www.iolairweb.co.uk/ido/idoforall.htm .
  • (PDF), ,
  • MP3 files can also be found at .
  • A much larger list of sites in Ido and about Ido in 33 other languages can be found on the Ido Wikipedia.
  • , a blog in Ido dealing with economics and finance. Also a fourth-year dissertation on the in Ido by the same author
  • - the entire Dyer Ido-English/English-Ido Dictionary online