IDITAROD, e-de'ta-rot', Alaska, a mining town, located in the region of the Iditarod and upper Innoko valleys, 510 miles distant from Seward. It is a prominent gold-mining centre and has wireless telegraphic communi cation.
IDO. The artificial language known as Ido had its origin in the work of the Delegation pour l'Adoption dune Longue Auxiliaire Inter nationale, founded in 1900. The Delegation de voted seven years to an examination of more than 60 schemes for an artificial language and in 1907 appointed a working committee of 16 emi nent representatives of all important language groups with the object of summing up the previous work of the Delegation and adopting an international auxiliary language capable of serving the needs of science, 'commerce and general intercourse. The committee, alter ex haustive consideration, decided to adopt in sub stance the Esperanto (q.v.) of Dr. Zainenhof, because of its many excellencies, but with cer tain important alterations, the chief of which were: (I) the replacement of certain letters requiring special type by Latin letters, taus al lowing the language to be printed anywhere; (2) suppression of certain useless grammatical rules in regard to the invariable use of an ac cusative form and concord of adjectives; (3) regularization of word derivation, in order to make the language a more fit instrument for the expression of exact thought; (4) enrich ment of the vocabulary by all words neces sary to translate exact ideas, in accordance with the principle of maximum internationality. The initiation of most of these reforms was chiefly due to Marquis L. de Beaufront, the Saint Paul of the Esperantist movement, who submitted them to the committee in a pamphlet under the pseudonym of lido* (Le;, a deriva tive) and which were voted on and unanimously adopted without knowledge as to the author. Rapport was attempted with the leading Espe rantists in the hope that they would carry out these necessary reforms. The Esperantists, however, then at the height of their success and for certain practical reasons, refused to con sider any changes. There was then formed the Uniono di la Amiki di la Linguo Internaciona, with an academy for linguistic study and a directing committee, composed of such eminent scholars as the philologist, Otto Jesperson of Copenhagen, the philosopher and authority on international linguistics, Louis Couturat of Paris; Scientists as L. Pfaundler of Graz, R. Lorenz of Zurich, and F. G. Donnan of Liver pool, with the famous chemist, William Ost wald of Leipzig, as president. A monthly journal, Progreso (Paris), was established under the editorship of Professor Couturat. The academy, with the criticism and suggestions of more than 100 other persons interested in the subject, continued the work along the lines laid down in the recommendations of the dele gation committee and in 1914 had practically completed its labors. During the years 1915-16 there were printed the large revised Ido–French and Ido–German dictionaries and considerable work done on an English edition. Because in a formative period, no extensive propaganda of Ido has heretofore been attempted, yet the Uniono has received the adherence of several thousands and had brought about, prior to the war of 1914, the printing of about a dozen small journals in the language.
Ido is indebted to Prof. Otto Jespersen for the happy formula which best expresses its basic principle: "That international language is best which is easiest for the greatest number of (an adaption of Bentham's famous ethical formula).
The vocabulary of Ido is made up by adopt ing as root-words that form of word most readily recognizable by the greatest number of Europeans and not merely by empirical selec tion, as in Esperanto, or by counting each language as of equal importance without refer ence to the numbers using it, as in Idiom Neutral. As a result, Ido is but the quintes sence of existing European language without the unnecessary duplications, rules and excep tions. It canpractically be read at sight by any educated European. To speak and write it properly demands considerable study, because of the numerous idiomatic phrases which exist in all natural language, yet it is beyond com parison easier of acquirement than the like task of learning any foreign language. Because of the large proportion of Romance roots found in the English and the adoption of many Latin derivatives into the Germanic and Russian languages, Ido has a predominately Romance appearance. The spelling is phonetic. with an avoidance of double letters, difficult diphthongs and heavy accumulations of consonants diffi cult of pronunciation.
The grammar is entirely without the irreg ularities which make natural languages so difficult and is very simple, though sufficient for all logical demands. All nouns end in -o in i the singular, -i in the plural; adjectives in -a; adverbs in -e; gender follows the natural method of the English; the verb is invariable in number and person; the auxiliary verb esar is used for the passive and compound tenses of the active, esas amata (is being loved) ; esas °manta (is loving) ; the indicative present, past and future is formed by adding -as, -is, -os; conditional, -us; imperative, -ez; infinitive present, -ar; active and passive participle, -ants and -ata.
The logical system of word derivation is chiefly the work of Professor Couturat. One has but to learn the root word and a limited number of prefixes and suffixes in order to give grammatical form to any idea which the root word is capable of expressing, or from any one grammatical form to work back logically to the other forms. This system of word-building wonderfully simplifies and enriches the vocab ulary, furnishing, as Professor Couturat states, 'tan instrument of precision for the analysis and exact expression of thought, which is very superior, from the point of view of logic, to our traditional languages, encumbered as they are by confused and ambiguous expressions.° • The following sentence, translated from Lin coln's Gettysburg address, may serve to indi cate some general differences between Ido and Esperanto. The Lord's Prayer which follows is written in Ido. Generally speaking, all con sonants are pronounced as in English; the vowels having values of a, as in father; e, as in vein; 1, as in machine; o, as in soul; u, as in rule: