About Ido and Idistaro.com

Esez bonvenanta ad Idistaro.com!

For those who don't know what language most of the content on this site is written in, it's in a language called Ido that as of 2007 has been in existence for a full 100 years.

Ido was created to be a language particularly easy for people to learn, eventually for worldwide use in between people that don't have a common language; thus, a language that does not replace natural languages but protects them, given that people are able to learn Ido in considerably less time than it takes to learn natural languages, and thus can be learned without having to spend the time currently spent on natural languages with all their irregularities.

In short, Ido is the language you wish you had had to learn (or now have to learn for those who are students) in school.

For a more in-depth overview of the language see the external links and the Wikipedia article on Ido, but here are some of its features:

-Ido uses the 26 letters of the alphabet. It has no characters with special accents or diacritics.

-The grammar is completely regular. This means no irregular verbs, no exceptions whatsoever. Verbs in the present tense all end in -as, those in the future tense in -os, those in the past tense in -is. All adjectives end in -a, all nouns in -o, all adverbs in -e. All words are pronounced exactly as they are written, and the emphasis is completely regular.

Some examples:
-Water: aquo
-Cold: kolda
-Coldly: kolde
-Go/goes: iras
-Went: iris
-Will go: iros

-Ido has a system of derivation that allows you to build upon words you already know to create new words. For example:

Prezidar, to preside. Remove the -ar from the verb infinitive and add -anto (suffix meaning a person that does something) to come up with prezidanto, president.

Aquo, water. Remove the final o and add -ala (suffix meaning related to) to get aquala, aquatic.

You can add more than one suffix as well. The name of this site is Idistaro.com, which is built up from Ido + -isto (similar to the English -ist, a person that acts for, uses or believes in something) + -aro (suffix meaning 'a group of something'), resulting in Idistaro, which means 'a group of Idists', or the Ido-using community.

How many people use Ido? It's impossible to come up with an exact number for a language not an official language of any one country, but the number seems to be in the low thousands. Ido has an annual 'renkontro' (gathering) that usually happens over a full three days and attracts about 20+ people every time. There are also smaller informal gatherings throughout the year. I myself have used Ido in person and an guarantee that it works just as well spoken as written.

The vocabulary of Ido is also largely built from six major languages, namely English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, and Russian, so simply learning Ido will aid you in understanding the other languages as well. Ido aims for words known to as many people as possible, and the statistics bear this out:

(a comparison done some time ago on over 5000 roots in Ido)

* 2024 roots (38%) belong to 6 languages
* 942 roots (17%) belong to 5 languages
* 1111 roots (21%) belong to 4 languages
* 585 roots (11%) belong to 3 languages
* 454 roots (8%) belong to 2 languages
* 255 roots (5%) belong to 1 language
Total 5371 100%

And here is how Ido vocabulary works out compared to the six languages mentioned above:

* French 4880: 91%
* Italian 4454: 83%
* Spanish 4237: 79%
* English 4219: 79%
* German 3302: 61%
* Russian 2821: 52%

With a language as worthwhile as Ido, it's a pity that its internet presence has been less than ideal. It is easy enough to find dozens and dozens of groups and pages on the language, but the majority are hosted on free sites and have little chance for interaction outside the groups on Yahoo! Groups. It's for this very reason that Idistaro.com was created. On Idistaro.com you can write in Ido on anything, or in any other language on the subject of the language Ido. If you have any suggestions for the site I'm always open to hearing them.

So if you want to start using Ido now, first go to the Ido-Skolo link, and start using it here or on some of the other groups online, such as on Yahoo! Groups. Hope to see you writing in Ido on the site some time soon, and the Ido community will be that much richer for your participation.

Dave MacLeod