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This article attempts to highlight the main differences between Esperanto and Ido , two Constructed Languages that have a related past but have since parted ways. Ido was invented in the early 20th century after a schism between those who believed that Esperanto had inherent flaws that prevented it from being a suitable International Auxiliary Language , and those who believed that Esperanto was sufficient as it was, and that endless tinkering with a language would only weaken it in the end. For information on the languages themselves, see the links above. The languages remain close, and to some extent mutually intelligible. An Italian play which was written with the dialog in two dialects of Italian was translated with Esperanto and Ido representing these two dialects. In the same manner in which dialects often serve as sources for new words through the literature of ethnic languages, so Ido has contributed many neologisms to Esperanto (especially in poetic substitutes for long words using the ''mal-'' prefix). LINGUISTIC COMPARISON Esperanto is based on the '' Fundamento De Esperanto '' by L. L. Zamenhof , whereas the grammar of Ido is explained in the '' Kompleta Gramatiko Detaloza Di La Linguo Internaciona Ido ''. Morphology Morphology is where one of the largest differences between the two languages can be seen. Both languages have the same grammatical rules concerning nouns (ending with -o), adjectives (ending with -a) and many other aspects. However, the relationship between nouns, verbs and adjectives underwent a number of changes with Ido, based on the principle of reversibility. In both languages one can see a direct relationship between the words ''multa'' "many" and ''multo'' "a multitude" by simply replacing the adjectival ''-a'' with a nominal ''-o'', or the other way around. Some minor differences include the loss of Adjectival Agreement , and the change of the plural from an Agglutinative ''-j'' tacked onto the end to a Synthetic replacement of the terminal ''-o'' with an ''-i''. Hence, Esperanto ''belaj hundoj'' ("beautiful dogs") becomes Ido ''bela hundi''. Ido also does away with the direct object ending ''-n'', so Esperanto ''mi amas la belajn hundojn'' ("I love the beautiful dogs") would in Ido become ''me amas la bela hundi''. Greater differences arise, however, with the derivations of many words. For example, in Esperanto, the noun ''krono'' means "a crown", and by replacing the nominal ''o'' with a verbal ''i'' one derives the verb ''kroni'' "to crown". However, if one were to begin with the verb ''kroni'', "to crown", and replace the verbal ''i'' with a nominal ''o'' to create a noun, the resulting meaning would not be "a coronation", but rather the original "crown". This is because the root ''kron-'' is inherently a noun: With the nominal ending ''-o'' the word simply means the thing itself, whereas with the verbal ''-i'' it means an action performed with the thing. To get the name for the performance of the action, it is necessary to use the suffix ''-ado'', which retains the verbal idea. Thus it is necessary to know which part of speech each Esperanto root belongs to. Ido introduced a number of suffixes in an attempt to clarify the morphology of a given word, so that the part of speech of the root would not need to be memorized. In the case of the word ''krono'' "a crown", the suffix ''-izar'' "to cover with" is added to create the verb ''kronizar'' "to crown". From this verb it is possible to remove the verbal ''-ar'' and replace it with a nominal ''-o'', creating the word ''kronizo'' "a coronation". By not allowing a noun to be used directly as a verb, as in Esperanto, Ido verbal roots can be recognized without the need to memorize them. However, this solution is only partial, and with other derivations it is still necessary to know the parts of speech of Ido roots. The main difference is that Ido corresponds more overtly to the expectations of the Romance languages, whereas Esperanto is more heavily influenced by Slavic semantics. This aspect of Esperanto had been simply assumed by its inventor, and had not been made explicit when Ido was created. Vocabulary Although both Esperanto and Ido share a large amount of the same vocabulary, there are many important differences. Ido uses the twenty-six letter Latin Alphabet in its entirety without any special characters or Diacritic s. Conversely, Esperanto eliminates the "unnecessary" letters " Q ", " W ", " X ", and " Y "; and adds " ĉ ", " ĝ ", " ĥ , " ĵ ", " ŝ " and " ŭ ". Aside from these minor spelling differences, Ido aims to correct what were perceived as deficiencies in Esperanto. Internationality The creators of Ido felt that much of Esperanto was either not internationally recognizable, or unnecessarily deformed. Ido aims to fix these with more "international" or "corrected" roots. This can sometimes be at the expense of Esperanto's simplified word building process. Below are some examples in first Esperanto then Ido with English , French , Spanish and Italian for linguistic comparison: Affixes Ido claims the prefix ''mal-'' (creating a word with the exact opposite meaning) in Esperanto to be overused as a prefix, and also that it can be inappropriate since it has negative meanings in many languages, and proposes ''des-'' as an alternative in some cases. Ido also uses a series of opposite words in lieu of a prefix. For example, instead of ''malbona'' ("bad", the opposite of ''bona'', "good"), Ido uses ''mala'', or instead of ''mallonga'' ("short", the opposite of ''longa'', "long"), ''kurta''. Listening comprehension was also given as a reason: the primary Ido grammar book states that one reason for the adoption of the Latin -based ''sinistra'' for "left" instead of ''maldextra'' (''mal-'' plus the word ''dextra'', or ''dekstra'' for "right") is that often only the last one or two syllables can be heard when shouting commands. Ido does not assume male Gender in a word. For example, ''frato'' means "brother" in Esperanto, but "sibling" in Ido. Ido uses the suffixes ''-ino'' ("female", used as in Esperanto) and ''-ulo'' ("male", not to be confused with the same Esperanto suffix which means "person"). Thus "sister" would be ''fratino'' (the same as Esperanto), but brother, ''fratulo'' . Some groups use three separate words: ''patro'' ("father"), ''matro'' ("mother") and ''genitoro'' ("parent"). Compare this with Esperanto ''patro'', ''patrino'' and ''gepatroj'' respectively. The last is especially difficult in Esperanto, since the prefix ''ge-'' means "both genders together" and is inherently plural, thus rendering "parents" instead of "parent". One might say ''unu el la gepatroj'', "one (out) of the parents". Correlatives Ido does not use the regularized table of Correlative s as Esperanto, but uses Latin-derived roots, so Esperanto, ''kio'' equals Ido ''quo'', "what"; Esperanto ''tie'', equals Ido ''ibe'', "there", etc. Proper nouns Esperanto may or may not "Esperantize" names and proper nouns, depending on many factors. Most standard European names have equivalents, as do many major cities and all nations. Ido, on the other hand, treats most proper nouns as foreign words, and does not render them into Ido. Personal names As stated above, most European first before the given name and others last after it, it is usual in Esperanto circles to find the surname in all Capital Letter s. "John Smith" may be rendered "John SMITH" or "Johano SMITH" in the first mention. Most non-Western names do not have equivalents and are rendered as close as possible in Esperanto orthography. Ido, on the other hand, simply leaves the names as is; "John Smith" would be "John Smith" in Ido. Names from languages with non-Latin scripts are rendered as phonetically as possible. Ido does not capitalize surnames. Place names Most countries have their own names in Esperanto. The system of derivation, though is sometimes complex. In Old World nations, where the country is named after an ethnic group, the main root means a person of that group: ''anglo'' is an Englishman, ''franco'' is a Frenchman. Originally, names of nations were created by the addition of the suffix ''-ujo'' (container), hence England and France would be rendered ''Anglujo'' and ''Francujo'' respectively (literally, "a container full of Englishmen/Frenchmen"). More recently, Esperanto has adopted ''-io'' as the national suffix, thus creating names more inline with standard international practice (and less odd-looking): ''Anglio'', ''Francio''. In the New World , where citizens are named for their nation, the name of the nation is the main word, and its inhabitants are derived from that: ''Kanado'' ("Canada"), ''kanadano'' ("Canadian"). Names of cities may or may not have an Esperanto equivalent: ''Londono'' for London, ''Nov-Jorko'' for New York. Place names which are difficult to render in Esperanto, or which would be mangled beyond recognition usually remain in their native form: Cannes is usually rendered as "Cannes". In Ido, country names must conform to the language's orthography but otherwise are left unchanged: ''Europa'', ''Peru'', ''Amerika''. City names are treated as foreign word (London), except at times when part of the name itself is a regular noun or adjective: Nov-York (''Nov'' for ''nova'', or "new", but the place name York is not changed as in "Nov-Jorko" in Esperanto). This is not a hard and fast rule, however, and ''New York'' is also acceptable, similar to writing ''Köln'' for the city of ''Cologne'' in Germany. South Carolina becomes Sud-Karolina, much in the same way that a river called the "Schwarz River" is not transcribed as the "Black River" in English even though ''schwarz'' is the German word for ''black''. However, less well-known place names are generally left alone, so a small town by the name of "Battle River" for example would be written the same way, and not transcribed as "Batalio-rivero". This is because transcribing a little-known place name would make it nearly impossible to find in the original language. NUMBER OF SPEAKERS The most reliable estimate for the number of Esperanto speakers is around 1.6 million, though estimates vary widely. In the same manner estimates for the number of Ido speakers are far from accurate, but 500 to a few thousand is most likely. It is also important to note the distinction between the number of speakers compared to the number of supporters; the two languages resemble each other enough that a few weeks of study will enable one to understand the other with little difficulty, and there are a number of people that have learned Ido out of curiosity but prefer to support the larger Esperanto movement. The number of participants at the respective international conferences is also much different: Esperanto averages 2000 to 3000 participants every year whereas Ido has had a mere 15 on average for the past decade. HISTORY This section attempts to chronicle the history of the Esperanto and Ido movements in relationship to one another. For individual histories of the languages, please see: History Of Esperanto and History Of Ido . The history of Esperanto and its relationship to Ido is one filled with perceived rivalry and betrayal as well as a good amount of misunderstanding. Many Esperantists have felt betrayed by the Ido movement, and many Idists feel their language doesn't get the respect it deserves. In 1900 Louis Couturat , after initial correspondences with Esperanto-founder L. L. Zamenhof created the Delegation For The Adoption Of An International Auxiliary Language . In 1907 in Vienna , the Delagation met to chose an International Auxiliary Language to give its approval from among the many candidates which had crept up. Most Esperantists assumed Esperanto would be an easy win. However, when Couturat presented his own pet project, a series of reforms to Esperanto which would eventually become Ido, and demanded an answer within a month, many in the Esperanto movement felt betrayed. Some Esperantists even accuse Courutat and his colleague Marquis Louis De Beaufront of a conspiracy saying the Internation Deligation was simply a front to put forth Ido. Idists tend to see things differently. They note that many of the changes Ido made to Esperanto were those originally proposed by Zamenhof's Reformed Esperanto , which were ultimately rejected by the majority of the language's speakers. Idists perceived that Esperanto was flawed in many ways, and that rather than a conspiracy against the language, the proposals put forward by Courutat were simply improvements which were sorely needed. LANGUAGE SAMPLES FOR COMPARISON Here is The Lord's Prayer in both languages: SEE ALSO REFERENCES EXTERNAL LINKS
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