12 votes

Ido: A reformed and simplified offspring of Esperanto

7 comments

  1. [6]
    mrbig
    (edited )
    Link
    I was into Esperanto about 20 years ago. Went to our local association to find a very old man selling books. There were no courses, events, or anything like that. So I bought one and studied it a...

    I was into Esperanto about 20 years ago. Went to our local association to find a very old man selling books. There were no courses, events, or anything like that. So I bought one and studied it a bit. Neat language.

    Esperanto is the most popular artificial language in the world (maybe with the exception of Klingon). Ido is similar to Esperanto, but much less popular. Maybe it is superior but I don't see the point.

    7 votes
    1. [4]
      petrichor
      Link Parent
      The biggest changes Ido makes to the language are to ease pronunciation and writing - dropping the -oj plural suffix for -i, and getting rid of diacritics entirely - and around the gender system....

      The biggest changes Ido makes to the language are to ease pronunciation and writing - dropping the -oj plural suffix for -i, and getting rid of diacritics entirely - and around the gender system. Esperanto's is male-by-default (eg. aktoro/aktorino), while Ido is neutral-by-default (eg. aktoro/aktorulo/aktorino).

      They're both very European, but Ido also keeps the full English alphabet (while Esperanto drops q, w, x, and y) to preserve the native spelling of some roots.

      8 votes
      1. [3]
        mrbig
        (edited )
        Link Parent
        That is fine. But if I were to truly back an artificial auxiliary language, I'd probably choose the one with supporters in the millions instead of hundreds. Just a practical consideration, really.

        That is fine. But if I were to truly back an artificial auxiliary language, I'd probably choose the one with supporters in the millions instead of hundreds. Just a practical consideration, really.

        4 votes
        1. pallas
          Link Parent
          It's really better, I think, to see Ido and Esperanto as being dialects, rather than different languages. Wikipedia points this out, and that they are largely mutually intelligible. Ido itself is...

          It's really better, I think, to see Ido and Esperanto as being dialects, rather than different languages. Wikipedia points this out, and that they are largely mutually intelligible. Ido itself is based initially on Zamenhof's attempt to create a reformed Esperanto, which was rejected by the Esperanto community at the time, likely as the result of the linguistic conservatism and resistance to evolution that tends to arise with constructed languages.

          Personally, I could not support use of Esperanto, given its egregious sexism problem which is both needless and completely unacceptable in a modern constructed language. A language where the word for father is "patro" and the word for mother is "patrino" does not seem like a language that should be accepted as reasonable.

          More generally, I feel like this points to a problem of constructed languages ending up somewhat paradoxically being very stifled in ability to evolve compared to organic languages.

          5 votes
        2. petrichor
          Link Parent
          Of course, and I just meant to make the case that they're very likely mutually intelligible while highlighting some of its nice characteristics.

          Of course, and I just meant to make the case that they're very likely mutually intelligible while highlighting some of its nice characteristics.

          2 votes
    2. unknown user
      Link Parent
      Saluton, [eks]kolego! If you are ever interested in reviving your EO, the Discord server of the /r/Esperanto subreddit is fairly active. There is also ##esperanto on Freenode (also bridged as...

      Saluton, [eks]kolego!

      If you are ever interested in reviving your EO, the Discord server of the /r/Esperanto subreddit is fairly active. There is also ##esperanto on Freenode (also bridged as #eo:matrix.org in Matrix), but it's not as active.

      3 votes
  2. Kuromantis
    Link
    There's also this video from a guy that likes conlangs, which seems like a decent analysis IMO.

    There's also this video from a guy that likes conlangs, which seems like a decent analysis IMO.

    1 vote