Roy McCoy | 1894, Ido, etc. [was: From Thomas Alexander….]

• Autor: Roy McCoy (“Mr_Roy_McCoy”)
• Tema: 1894, Ido, etc. [was: From Thomas Alexander….]
• Data: 2005-03-25 17:25
• Mesaje: 944 (presedente, seguente)

Thomas Alexander wrote (privately):

> I've been looking for information on the reform project of 1894
> and in the process, I've become curious about what modern
> reformemuloj think about it. [...]

Would never subscribe to esp-novo, eh?  Ego-surfing, eh?  Oh well,
greetings in any event.  In response to your questions:

It's been a long time since I read anything about the reform project
of 1894, and what remains in my memory is more a general negative
impression than any particular details. I can say that nobody has ever
been particularly enthusiastic about it as far as I know - you know,
hey, that was a great set of proposals, we really should go with it, etc.
Most of what was attractive about it was later incorporated into Ido,
I think, so there was nothing much left to recommend the original proposal,
which never impressed me as being very good in the first place - or even
serious. I would characterize it in the U.S. vernacular as "half-assed":
Zamenhof, yes, would always have liked to have seen Esperanto brushed up
and its more egregious faults corrected (read, principally, the diacritics),
but on the other hand he was compromised by several complicating factors
that I presumably don't have to lay out for you.

You're reminding me... I was going to say that you would need the bound
collection of "La Esperantisto" to get the details on the 1984 project,
but now I'm remembering that someone published it separately at some point,
in a little brochure that would be cheap or even free. The whole thing
should be on the Web, now that I think of it - or in one of the volumes
published by "ludovikito" and presumably still available from the UEA
book service. Anyway, I never liked what I saw of the 1984 project much,
and if anything in my reform style seems similar to it that's due more
to coincidence than to imitation.

> Also, I'm curious about your thoughts on Ido -- yours specifically,
> but also in general, what the people in your Nova Provo think about it.

"Nova Provo", again, was simply the name of the journal. There was an
association called Novo, but it merely drifted into the Yahoo chat group
you're familiar with. The others can say what they like - Ray Bergmann
is fairly positive about Ido, I think, and took various things from it
that I in turn took from him - but I can say myself simply that I don't
like Ido and never have, though one would suppose otherwise from the fact
that when I had the chance in Spain some years ago I read every issue of
its journal "Progreso" that had ever been published. To me it's simply
unattractive, no better than Esperanto in that regard and in a certain
way worse, though I would be hard put to describe this exactly. I'm a lot
more attracted by Lingua Franca Nova, which is enjoying a vogue at present -
though I don't have the time for it either.

> How often do people come up with Esperanto-Ido hybrids and the like.

Not often enough, not seriously enough, and - worst of all - with no
authority whatsoever. It has been and remains a game for amateurs,
unfortunately, the same as the traditional Esperanto movement and all
other interlinguistic endeavors. It should be otherwise, but it isn't.

> Your name came up last fall (2003) when we were staying with
> a couple in New Hampshire.  (I forgot their names.)

Vermont. Andy and Eva Behrens.

> Apparently you'd stayed there a few years before.  I suspect that would
> have been the same trip where you were calling me as you were driving
> down the New York State Thruway.

Yeah. Still sorry I missed you.

Best wishes,

Roy McCoy