Comparison between Esperanto and Ido

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 was almost good enough, were it not for inherent features seen by them as flaws that prevented it from being a suitable proposal of 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.

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 in sentences where the subject precedes the object, so Esperanto mi amas la belajn hundojn ("I love the beautiful dogs") would in Ido become me amas la bela hundi.

However, Esperantists point out that the Esperanto adjective-noun agreement makes possible a greater freedom of word order and a somewhat greater redundancy.

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.

Ido corresponds more overtly to the expectations of the Romance languages, whereas Esperanto is more heavily influenced by Slavic semantics and phonology.

Vocabulary

Although both Esperanto and Ido share a large amount of vocabulary, there are many important differences. Ido uses the twenty-six letter Latin alphabet in its entirety without any special characters or diacritics. 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, the creators of Ido aimed to correct what they believed to be deficiencies in Esperanto.

However, Ido lacks the one-to-one correspondence between letters and phonemes that Esperanto has, using the three digraphs ‹qu›, ‹sh› and ‹ch›. One-to-one correspondence has been adopted in Esperanto to ease pronunciation learning and parsability of the written text. (The Fundamento de Esperanto allows the use of the digraphs ‹ch›, ‹gh›, ‹hh›, ‹jh›, ‹sh› and the single letter <u> instead of the ordinary diacritical letters of Esperanto when those are unavailable. With the advent of computers, another system of surrogate Esperanto writing using ‹cx›, ‹gx›, ‹hx›, ‹jx›, ‹sx› and ‹ux› was introduced. It however remains unofficial.

The creators of Ido felt that much of Esperanto was either not internationally recognizable, or unnecessarily deformed, and aimed to fix these with more "international" or "corrected" roots. This can sometimes be at the expense of Esperanto's simpler word building process. Below are some examples in first Esperanto then Ido with English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese for linguistic comparison:

Esperanto	Ido	English	French	German	Italian	Spanish	Portuguese
bubalo	bufalo	buffalo	buffle	Büffel	bufalo	búfalo	búfalo
ĉelo	celulo	cell	cellule	Zelle	cellula	célula	célula
ĉirkaŭ	cirkum	around/circa	autour de	ungefähr/circa	circa	alrededor, cerca	ao redor, em volta
dediĉi	dedikar	to dedicate	dédier	widmen	dedicare	dedicar	dedicar
edzo	spoz(ul)o	husband/spouse	époux	Ehemann	sposo	esposo	esposo/marido
elasta	elastika	elastic	élastique	elastisch	elastico	elástico	elástico
estonteco	futuro	future	futur	Zukunft	futuro	futuro	futuro
kaj	e(d)	and	et	und	e(d)	y/e	e
lernejo	skolo	school	école	Schule	scuola	escuela	escola
limo	limito	limit	limite	Limit	limite	límite	limite
maĉi	mastikar	to chew/masticate	mâcher	kauen	masticare	masticar	mastigar
mencii	mencionar	to mention	mentionner	erwähnen	menzionare	mencionar	mencionar
nacio	naciono	nation	nation	Nation	nazione	nación	nação
penti	repentar	to repent	repentir	bereuen	pentirsi	arrepentirse	arrepender-se
ŝipo	navo	boat/ship	bateau/navire	Schiff	barca	barco/nave/navío	barco/navio
taĉmento	detachmento	detachment	détachement	Trennung	distaccamento	destacamento	destacamento
vipuro	vipero	viper	vipère	Viper	vipera	víbora	víbora

Note that three of the languages chosen in this chart are Romance languages and that English has also had large influences from French and Latin. In comparison, Esperanto is somewhat more influenced by German vocabulary and Slavic semantics (as in the case of prefix mal-) and has more priority over word compounding by affixes.

Affixes

Ido claims the prefix mal- (creating a word with the exact opposite meaning) in Esperanto to be overused as a prefix, and also to be inappropriate since it has negative meanings in many languages, and introduces des- as an alternative in such 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. Esperanto has developed alternate forms for many of these words (such as liva for maldekstra), but most of these are rarely used in normal usage.

Most Esperanto words are gender-neutral ("table", "grass", etc.). However, Esperanto assumes the male gender by default in other words, mainly words dealing with familial relationships, professions and some animals. These words can be made female with the use of the feminine suffix. In Ido there is no default gender for normal root words, and one simply adds the corresponding masculine or feminine suffix only when desired. 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" is fratino (the same as Esperanto), but brother is fratulo. "Sibling" and other gender neutral forms are especially difficult in Esperanto since Esperanto simply does not have a word for such gender neutral forms. Esperanto does, however, have an epicene prefix that indicates “both sexes together”: ge-. Patro means "father" and patrino "mother"; gepatroj means "parents". In standard usage gepatro cannot be used in the singular to indicate a parent of unknown gender; one would say instead unu el la gepatroj, "one (out) of the parents".

There is a nonstandard suffix in Esperanto that means "male": -iĉo- (see Gender reform in Esperanto). There is also an existing official prefix, vir-, with the same meaning. These gender differences exist for as many Esperanto words exist which are masculine by default.

A few exceptions exist in Ido's gender system as described above, which avoid its suffix system, for which it was decided that the feminine words were so much more recognizable to its source languages: viro ("man"), muliero ("woman"), patro ("father"), and matro ("mother"). Compare these with Esperanto viro, virino, patro, and patrino, respectively. Ido also has several other neutral-gender words, such as genitoro for "parent". Gepatri in Ido means the same as Esperanto gepatroj (i.e. "parents" of both genders); genitori means "parents" in the English sense, not making any implication of gender whatsoever.

Many other Ido words, such as amiko, follow Esperanto’s system of affixes; these words are normally neutral in Esperanto as well as Ido.

Correlatives

Esperanto adopts a regular scheme of correlatives organized as a table. Instead of that, Ido adopts ad hoc Latin-derived roots which are more recognizable for speakers of Romance languages but which do not form a regular system. 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

Most European names have Esperanto equivalents, such as Johano 'John', Aleksandro 'Alexander', Mario or Maria 'Mary', among others. Some Esperanto speakers choose to take on a fully assimilated name, or to at least adjust the orthography of their name to the Esperanto alphabet. Others leave their name completely unmodified. This is regarded as a personal choice, and the Academy of Esperanto officially affirmed this proclaiming that “everyone has the right to keep their authentic name in its original orthography, as long as it is written in Latin letters.”

Personal names in Ido, on the other hand, are always left unmodified, and surnames are not capitalized.

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, many Esperanto have adopted -io as the national suffix, thus creating names more in line with standard international practice (and less odd-looking): Anglio, Francio, nevertheless the suffix remains unofficial.

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 lack widespread recognition, 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 words (London), except 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 Esperanto "Nov-Jorko"). 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

Esperanto is estimated to have approximately 100,000 to 2 million fluent speakers. 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 and vice versa. The number of participants at the respective international conferences is also much different: Esperanto conferences average 2000 to 3000 participants every year whereas Ido conferences have had anywhere from 13 to 25 participants over the last decade. Each language also has a number of regional conferences during the year on a much less formal basis, and with smaller numbers.

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 Delegation 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 Couturat and his colleague Marquis Louis de Beaufront of a conspiracy saying the International Delegation 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:

Esperanto version: Patro nia, kiu estas en la ĉielo, Via nomo estu sanktigita. Venu Via regno, plenumiĝu Via volo, kiel en la ĉielo, tiel ankaŭ sur la tero. Nian panon ĉiutagan donu al ni hodiaŭ. Kaj pardonu al ni niajn ŝuldojn, kiel ankaŭ ni pardonas al niaj ŝuldantoj. Kaj ne konduku nin en tenton, sed liberigu nin de la malbono. Amen.

Ido version: 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 cadie l'omnadiala 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. Amen.

References

• Why Ido?.

External links

• Fundamento de Esperanto.
• Kompleta Gramatiko di la Linguo Internaciona Ido (187-page PDF file).
• How is Ido different from Esperanto?, in Wikibooks.
• Which IAL? A comparison of the two languages and others by a supporter of both and the IAL concept in general.