Hi Folks,

I've got a few notes sketched in here and there about
things which might be interesting to bring up in
AUXLANG, and now that I look at them together, it
seems that they're all interconnected.

First, I want to report that in spite of what happened
on *this* list as a result of my "Idist jokes", I
have not yet succeeded in offending all Idists.  In
fact, one well known Idist recently wrote to me to
encourage me to continue the series of audio skits
in which an angry Idist and a singing squirrel become
friends yet still have some problems getting along,
since he sees the humor in it as something which
could help bring people together and help us all to
see that "Idisti ed Esperantisti ne es enemiki, ma
amiki qui aspirar lo sama: neutra linguo por omni."
He's even offered to help me with the bits.

Side note - I was particularly pleased that this Idist
describe the Ido in Helmut's second appearance as
"bela e klara" - especially after the hate mail we
received detailing the "sisadekekin erori" in his
first appearance - although, for the most part, these
were not errors, per se, but were concessions to make
what he said more understandable /a prime vista/ to
the Esperantist audience of Radio Verda.  He also
described my bilingual filk as "grandioza".

(Ouch, I just strained my shoulder patting myself
on the back.)

Second random thought:  Related to this idea that
Esperantists and Idists are (at the core, at least)
after the same thing, not so long ago, I gave a
presentation to a group of local Baha'is about the
the book "Lidia" by Wendy Heller.  Whenever I go to
the Baha'i center, there are always lots of questions
about Esperanto.  I brought many things away from this
last meeting (well, second to last, because I went
back "to listen" in the meanwhile) - but one
particular conversation stands out.

Related to my Idist friend's comment, one gentleman
asked (as if the answer would surely be "yes") whether
Esperantists would consider their goal fulfilled if,
in the end, a different neutral language was
universally adopted.  I agreed with him -- after all,
something along these lines is even part of the
Fundamento.  Was my answer complely true and completly
honest?  I don't know.  Without a doubt, there will
be a portion of people who will continue with
Esperanto, just as there are people who learn Volapük
today, even though the movement has officially given
up any aspirations as a world language.  I also
suspect that there would be at least a few holdouts
who will insist that Esperanto should replace the
other language -- just as there are Idists still today
who insist that Ido should replace Esperanto.  I'd
like to think that my answer to my friend was honest
and that these Esperanto-only holdouts would be a
minority.  Thoughts anyone?

My friend, that is, this same gentleman, pointed out
the value of the Esperanto movement for illustrating
the workability of the *idea* of a universal language,
and encouraged me to "keep doing what you're doing" -
right at the time when I was starting to think that
I'd already done my due as a volunteer teacher of
Esperanto.  As a result, I continue to teach Esperanto
via e-mail.  (To Don Harlow - is this the "idealist"
in me winning out over the guy who is in it for
selfish gain?)

A third thought, also related to the first, is that
when I was baiting James here not so long ago, I
challenged him to show his objectivity by coming up
with a list of things which Esperanto does better
than Ido (or at least no worse).  I didn't think he
would accept my challenge, but in case he did, I
started working on my answer to the obvious counter-
challenge as a way of taking a dose of my own
medicine. Now seems like as good a time as any to
share it with the list.

My knowledge of Ido is fairly limited to what I've
been able to pick up from this list, from reading
three books in Ido without making an explicit study
of the grammar (I read the first book without knowing
the difference between "il" and "li"), and from a
few experimental exchanges with an Idist on this
list in an ad hoc mixture of Ido and Esperanto.
Perhaps as a result of this limited knowledge, or of
my pro-Esperanto bias, or of actual Esperanto
superiority, I was not able to come up with 10 items
for my list "An Esperantist's 10 things which are
better in Ido, or at least no worse."

So... as a gesture of good will, here is:

"An Esperantist's 8 things which are better in Ido,
or at least no worse"

Disclaimer: I am rather fond of Esperanto the way it
is.  The purpose of this exercise is to show that I
am not fixated on any particular detail of IAL
design.  I'm also a way of learning to keep an open
mind.  Additionally, my knowledge of Ido is rather
superficial.

1 - Verb endings: There is no reason to say that
    -u and -i are better than -ez and -ar.
2 - Alphabet: I have no objection to using
    combinations of letters to represent one sound,
    as long as it's done consistently, which seems
    to be done in Ido - although, I suppose Ido still
    has the problem of knowing how to pronounce
    unassimilated words.
3 - Foreign names and foreign words: On rare occasions
    it seems strange to Esperantize certain words in
    Esperanto.  As far as I know, these rare occasions
    are non-existent in Ido.
4 - Vocabulary: Se vi shatas "sukron", kaj mi ja
    "sukeron", mian kafon mi trinkos kun "sukro", kaj
    jam ne "sukero."
5 - Plural:  While I prefer having a separate plural
    ending, I don't think that the rule "change the -o
    to an -i" is any more difficult in Ido than the
    corresponding rule in Esperanto.
6 - The word "kom" is as least as good as its
    counterpart in Esperant.
7 - Ido has "darfas", which struck me as really extra
    cool when I first started learning Esperanto.
8 - Numbers.  I rather like Esperanto's system, but
    Ido's system seems to work.  If I woke up tomorrow
    morning and found all the Esperantists using Ido
    numbers, it wouldn't kill the language.

Lest anybody thing that I'm about to convert to Ido,
here's a short list and an Idist joke which my brother
made up yesterday.

Ido's non-improvements:

1 - Adjective agreement.  I understand the argument
that a language without adjective agreement should be
easier to learn because it has fewer complications.
Agreement, though, isn't so hard to learn, and once
you learn it, it's a wonderful thing to have.  Surely
part of my problem with Ido adjectives is that I'm
used to adjectives like "granda, bona" being singular
in Esperanto, which they are not in Ido.  Still, other
languages I'm familiar with have more articles than
Esperanto and Ido (e.g. "a big brown deer" vs "some
big brown deer").  These serve to mark the beginning
of longer noun phrases as plural as well as marking
the noun.  Ido doesn't seem to have this -- with the
the possible exception of some specific number words.

2 - Accusative.  Yes, technically, Ido does have an
accusative ending.  It's not clear to me when or how
you use it.  In practice, it seems only to be used
in relative pronouns (not unlike "whom") - which
means you need to learn the same rule as in Esperanto
but then almost never use it.  I understand that it
*can* be used in cases of exceptional word order,
but it is not clear what that means.  The singing
Idist in one of my bits sings "Me ne friponas, amiki
ni besonas" -- but then I started to wonder whether
it should be "amikin ni besonas"... and if so, whether
that would be clear on a gut level to regular Idists,
who almost never use the accusative in real life.

3 - derivation.  I understand Idists think the Ido
system is so much better than Esperanto's, but I
find it complicated and much more confusing than
helpful.

Q: Why did the Idist cross the road?

A: Because the other Idist was on the other side.

Amike salutas,
Thomas/Tomaso ALEXANDER.
www.NightinGael.Net
---Anything below this line is not from Thomas ---

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