Esperanto and Its Rivals: The Struggle for an International Language

In one of the last meetings, however, Couturat surprised Commission members when he presented a new language scheme. Apparently, this was an anonymous project, authored under the pseudonym "Ido," which nobody had ever heard of. Couturat explained to the members of the Commission that he knew who the author was, but he wanted to remain anonymous. He reassured them that the author was not a member of the Commission, as its statutes required.

After some discussion, the Commission examined Ido, as the language was later called. It became very clear that it was a radically reformed Espe- ranto. It incorporated some of the reforms rejected in the 1894 referendum, such as the suppression of the letters with diacritics (ĉ, ĝ, ĥ, ĵ, ŝ, ŭ) that looked too Slavonic. Ido also suppressed the accusative case, as well as the concor- dance of nouns and adjectives. More intriguingly, it also incorporated the ob- jections to Esperanto's word formation rules that Couturat had thoroughly criticized in his Etude sur la derivation en Esperanto, published only months before the Commission met.

In its last session, the Commission approved the Ido project. The only dis- approving voice came from the pacifist Moch, who was substituting for Boi- rac. According to Moch, the Commission was exceeding its prerogatives, since its job was to adjudicate among competing artificial languages, not to change or create a new one.7 For the sake of unanimity, however, Moch approved the Commissions final report, which agreed to accept Esperanto "in principle," meaning "on condition that it is changed . . . in the direction indicated by the secretaries' report and by the project called Ido, and if possible in agreement with the Lingva Komitato of the Esperantists."8 To negotiate this agreement, the Commission established a Permanent Committee presided over by Wilhelm Ostwald.

Although disturbing, the Committee's final decision was one that many Esperanto leaders expected, since talk about language reform had never ended. They were taken aback, however, by the commanding tone of Couturat and the Permanent Committee. A frenzied epistolary exchange ensued in the next months between Zamenhof, leading members of the Lingva Komitato, and the Permanent Committee. This correspondence shows a remorseful Boirac, who had proved unable to prevent the Paris Commission from endorsing Ido, an astonished Zamenhof trying to find out what his closest associates stood up for—particularly de Beaufront, his trusted confidant at the Commission— and Couturat and Ostwald discussing how to twist the arms of Zamenhof and leading Esperantists. More important, this correspondence shows that underlying the unavoidable clash between Esperantists and Idists was a di- vergent interpretation about the nature of authority in artificial languages. Whereas for Zamenhof and the leaders of the Lingva Komitato, the Paris Commission lacked legitimacy to propose reforms, since it did not emerge from within the ranks of the Esperanto community, for Couturat and as- sociates —the Idists— it was the only authoritative body to do so, given its scientific character. Thus, when the Esperantists invited the Idists to hold joint discussions within the Lingva Komitato, Couturat plainly refused. It did not make much sense for him to discuss scientific matters with lay people.

As we saw in Chapter 11, disagreements among the Esperantists at the Boulogne Congress had made it impossible to establish a stable, centralized organizational structure which represented the movement. This made things more difficult for Couturat. He was forced to deal with both the Lingva Komi- tato and Zamenhof, acting as the informal leader of the movement. This made interlocution with the Esperantists rather difficult: when addressed by Cou- turat, the Lingva Komitato deferred to Zamenhof, and when Zamenhof re- ceived a request from Couturat, he deferred to the Lingva Komitato. To end this situation, Ostwald demanded that Zamenhof act in an authoritarian man- ner to facilitate the transition from Esperanto to Ido. Zamenhof refused, insisting that he did not have the power to change the language,9 but he agreed to exercise his moral authority, although in the opposite direction.

In an open letter and four circulars that he sent in December 1907 to local groups and journals, Zamenhof asked the Esperantists to ignore the Idists and their Permanent Committee and work through the official channels, namely the Lingva Komitato and the annual congresses, for whatever changes or reforms the Esperanto community would be willing to make.10 Anyone who decided to work outside these channels, Zamenhof concluded, "does not deserve to call himself an Esperantist."11

Right after the publication of this letter, the Lingva Komitato conferred, asking its members about the reforms proposed by the Idists. Eight members refused to give a clear answer for lack of information, eleven wanted some changes to be introduced, eight approved of the Idists' proposals, and thirty- four completely disapproved them and refused to negotiate with an external body. These results and Zamenhof's position settled the issue and by Janu- ary 1908 the Esperantists ended their conversations with the Permanent Com- mittee. As Boirac explained to Ostwald in a private letter, the Idists' proposal to reform Esperanto was akin to the demand of a French person who is flu- ent in German that Germans change their language according to his prefer- ences. Boirac found this insulting and unacceptable. And since the Idists based their demands on scientific grounds, he rounded off his argument using the language of sociology: "According to us, Esperanto is an already existing lan- guage, living, similar in this respect to natural and national languages, En- glish, French, German, etc.; consequently it is like them a fact, even a social fact, which will evolve, like all social facts, by the action of humanity for the most part on its own initiative, whose life makes it possible in the same way."12 The end of the negotiations between the two camps compelled Esperan- tists to take sides. It is impossible to know for certain how many shifted to Ido. Different sources agree, however, that most rank-and-file Esperantists did not change sides. More precisely, it has been estimated that around one- quarter of the leadership—the most cultivated Esperantists, and hence the most sensitive to Couturat's scientific discourse—shifted to Ido.13 Couturat had administered a severe blow to the Esperanto community, and relations between the Idists and Esperantists were rather bitter from the start. This bit- terness was also fueled by suspicion on the side of the Esperantists toward de Beaufront: he had been entrusted by Zamenhof to defend Esperanto in the Commission, but ended up in the Idists' inner circle. Rumors were cir- culating that de Beaufront had been a double agent, and, more excruciating, that he was the author of Ido.