Complete Detailed Grammar of the International Language Ido/What Is Ido?
What Is Ido?
editIdo is the international language, designed to be a neutral second language for all, which results from the work of the "Delegation for the Adoption of an International Auxiliary Language" (delegation).
La Délégation pour l'adoption d'une langue auxiliaire internationale, founded in January 1901, was a committee of persons delegated by 310 congresses or societies from different countries with different aims, to examine the many projects or systems of international language, and to adopt the best one. Up to 1907 it received 1,250 signatures from members of numerous Academies or Universities, which showed their interest in the task.
In June 1907 an international committee of eminent scientists and linguists was elected, which, after an extensive examination of every project old and new for an International Language, finally adopted Esperanto with several recommended modifications. The result was complemented by extensive "field testing", public and international, from 1908 to 1914, in the magazine Progreso[progress], and the end result was the language "Ido". This is not therefore, like Esperanto, a simple product from one man.
It should be noted that the Committee of the Delegation included some Esperantists including the President of the Esperantist "Lingva Komitato" himself. Also, the decision to adopt Esperanto "with the restriction of some modifications", was unanimous. If, afterwards, a schism occured, the schism shouldn't be attributed to the Idists, but to those who forgot promises, votes, or signatures.
The Committee of the Delegation was thus described by Mr. Gaston Moch, in the place of his rector Emile Boirac, a very eminent chief Esperantist: "German and French had there three representatives, English two, and the languages Danish, Spanish, Greek and Hungarian one; the most diverse fields of knowledge were represented, and one remarked and named four reputed philologists, Mr. Baudouin of Courtenay, Jespersen, Lambros and Schuchardt."