Идо: история и современное состояние международного языка.

Constructed international auxiliary language
the language

Ido declined in popularity for two reasons: the emergence of further schisms arising from competing reform projects, and a general lack of awareness of Ido as a candidate for an international language. These obstacles weakened the movement and it was not until the rise of the Internet that it began to regain momentum. Ido uses the same 26 letters as the English (Latin) alphabet, with no diacritics. It draws its vocabulary from English, French, German, Italian, Latin, Russian, Spanish and Portuguese, and is largely intelligible to those who have studied Esperanto. Several works of literature have been translated into Ido, including The Little Prince, the Book of Psalms, and the Gospel of Luke. As of the year 2000, there were approximately 100–200 Ido speakers in the world. As of 2022, Ido has 26 native speakers in Finland.

The idea of a universal second language is not new, and constructed languages are not a recent phenomenon. The first known constructed language was Hildegard of Bingen's Lingua Ignota, created in the 12th century. The concept did not attract significant interest until the language Volapük was created in 1879. Volapük was popular for some time and apparently had a few thousand users, but was later eclipsed by the popularity of Esperanto, which arose in 1887. Several other languages, such as Latino sine Flexione and Idiom Neutral were also put forward. It was during this time that French mathematician Louis Couturat formed the Delegation for the Adoption of an International Auxiliary Language. This delegation made a formal request to the International Association of Academies in Vienna to select and endorse an international language; the request was rejected in May 1907. The Delegation then met as a Committee in Paris in October 1907 to discuss the adoption of a standard international language. Among the languages considered was a new language anonymously submitted at the last moment (and therefore against the Committee rules) under the pen name Ido. In the end the committee, always without plenary sessions and consisting of only 12 members, concluded the last day with 4 votes for and 1 abstention. They concluded that no language was completely acceptable, but that Esperanto could be accepted "on condition of several modifications to be realized by the permanent Commission in the direction defined by the conclusions of the Report of the Secretaries [Louis Couturat and Léopold Leau] and by the Ido project". Esperanto's inventor, L. L. Zamenhof, having heard a number of complaints, had suggested in 1894 a proposal for a Reformed Esperanto with several changes that Ido adopted and made it closer to French: eliminating the accented letters and the accusative case, changing the plural to an Italianesque i, and replacing the table of correlatives with more Latinate words. However, the Esperanto community voted and rejected Reformed Esperanto, Furthermore, controversy ensued when the "Ido project" was found to have been primarily devised by Louis de Beaufront, whom Zamenhof had chosen to represent Esperanto before the committee, as the committee's rules dictated that the creator of a submitted language could not defend it. The Committee's meetings were mainly conducted in French, with occasional German. Although it fractured the Esperanto movement, the schism gave the remaining Esperantists the freedom to concentrate on using and promoting their language as it stood. At the same time, it gave the Idists freedom to continue working on their own language for several more years before actively promoting it. The Uniono di la Amiki di la Linguo Internaciona (Union of Friends of the International Language) was established along with an Ido Academy to work out the details of the new language.

The language still has active speakers, numbering about 500. The Internet has sparked a renewal of interest in the language in recent years. A sample of 24 Idists on the Yahoo! group Idolisto during November 2005 showed that 57% had begun their studies of the language during the preceding three years, 32% from the mid 1990s to 2002, and 8% had known the language from before.

Ido has a number of publications that can be subscribed to or downloaded for free in most cases. Kuriero Internaciona is a magazine produced in France every few months with a range of topics. Adavane! is a magazine produced by the Spanish Ido Society every two months that has a range of topics, as well as a few dozen pages of work translated from other languages. Progreso is the official organ of the Ido movement and has been around since the inception of the movement in 1908. Other sites can be found with various stories, fables or proverbs along with a few books of the Bible translated into Ido on a smaller scale. The site publikaji has a few podcasts in Ido along with various songs and other recorded material. Wikipedia includes an Ido language edition (known in Ido as Wikipedio); in 2018 it was the 93rd most visited Wikipedia, and is second most viewed Wikipedia edition in artificial language (after Esperanto).

The Ido star or Jankó star is the main symbol of Ido. It is a six pointed star, with the points representing Ido's six source languages: English, French, Italian, German, Spanish and Russian. Alternatively, the six points represent the six continents (excluding Antarctica). The emblem was originally a six pointed white star on a circular blue background, consisting of two concentric, equilateral triangles, with one vertically flipped. However, this was soon changed due to the similarity it presented with the Star of David, since a true international auxiliary language should not have religious affiliations. After a search to find an appropriate new symbol, the Ido Akademio decided on the current Ido symbol, created by their secretary, Paul von Jankó (hence the alternative name the Jankó star). The current Ido Star is a concave isotoxal hexagon, with a vertically flipped equilateral triangle overlaid on top. This new shape also had the benefit of being able to be copyrighted.