Schism and Ideals
The Story of Esperanto
Course 1 · Chapter 4 · Schism, Reform and Zamenhof's Ideals (1907-1917)
After Boulogne the movement was confident, and then it split. This chapter looks at the rival language Ido and the quarrel over reform, at the founding of the Universal Esperanto Association, at the wider hopes of Zamenhof himself, and at the way the First World War ended the early period of the movement and, in 1917, its founder's life. It is a chapter about disagreement, and so about how to describe a quarrel fairly. Names, dates and figures are from general knowledge and flagged "check". The people are discussed from published sources only, and Zamenhof's religious and ethical ideas are described neutrally.
The Delegation and Ido
The Delegation
In 1900 the philosopher Louis Couturat and the mathematician Léopold Leau organised a Delegation to ask the world's scientific academies to adopt an international auxiliary language (check). A committee met in Paris in 1907 to choose one (check). It decided that no existing language was fully suitable, but accepted Esperanto "with reforms" proposed in a paper signed with a pseudonym, Ido (check).
The surprise
"Ido" is an Esperanto word meaning "offspring". The author turned out to be Louis de Beaufront, who had been one of Zamenhof's most important supporters in France (check). Many Esperantists felt betrayed. Zamenhof refused to accept the reforms as a replacement for the language (check).
The split
Couturat became the main champion of the new language, called Ido. It removed the accented letters and the accusative ending, dropped adjective agreement, and changed many roots to be more familiar to speakers of Romance languages (check). Ido took away a number of leading Esperantists, and the two movements spent years arguing (check).
| Point (check each) | Esperanto | Ido |
|---|---|---|
| Alphabet | 28 letters with six accented ones | No accented letters |
| Accusative | Marked by -n | Used only when needed |
| Adjectives | Agree with the noun | Do not agree |
| Vocabulary | Roots from several European languages | More strictly chosen for similarity across Romance languages |
| Change | Fixed Fundamento; vocabulary grows by use | Designed to be revised by a committee |
For the grammar being compared, see Esperanto Grammar 1, Chapters 2 and 3. Ido continued as a small movement, and still has a small number of users today (check). It is not the last reform proposal: others have followed in the 20th and 21st centuries (Chapter 9).
The Universal Esperanto Association
- Founding. In 1908 a young Swiss Esperantist, Hector Hodler, founded the Universal Esperanto Association (UEA) in Geneva (check). It was a body for individual members, to keep the movement together across countries.
- The delegates. UEA's early idea was a network of local "delegates", volunteers in towns around the world who would help travellers and answer questions (check). It was a forerunner of later hospitality networks (Chapter 7).
- The yearbook. A yearbook listed the delegates and their addresses, and made the movement a map as well as a language community (check).
- The congresses. After Boulogne the congresses went on every year, in places such as Geneva (1906), Cambridge (1907), Barcelona (1909), Washington (1910) and Kraków (1912) (check).
Zamenhof's Ideals
The inner idea
The interna ideo was the hope that a shared language would help people of different nations see each other as brothers (check). Zamenhof returned to it in speeches and in the hymn La Espero. Many early supporters shared it, and others said they cared only about the practical use of the language.
Hillelism
In 1901 and 1906 he published a proposal, called Hillelism after the Jewish teacher Hillel, to turn the shared moral teachings of Judaism into a basis for peace among peoples (check). The proposal did not attract a movement, and he later moved to a wider idea.
Homaranism
In 1913 he published a declaration of Homaranismo ("humanity-ism"), a call for a common ethical commitment among people of different religions and nations, without a new church (check). Some Esperantists were uneasy, because the Declaration of Boulogne had separated the language from any ideology (Chapter 3).
It is worth noticing that Zamenhof both held these hopes and signed the declaration that the movement should not be tied to them. How he kept the two apart is a matter on which historians offer different readings, and the sources are his speeches and publications, not a systematic statement.
War and a Death
| Date (check each) | Event |
|---|---|
| 1912 | The Kraków congress; Zamenhof speaks on the inner idea. |
| 1914 | The Paris congress is cancelled as war breaks out; Zamenhof, travelling to it, is forced to turn back. |
| 1914 to 1918 | The First World War. Esperantists in neutral countries use the language to pass messages and trace missing people (check). |
| 1917 | Zamenhof dies in Warsaw, in April, aged 57 (check). |
He did not live to see the war end. The movement lost its founder at the moment when the League of Nations, new borders and new ideas about international cooperation offered the chance to apply his hopes (Chapter 5). The shape of the movement, with a fixed core and an open community, was already in place.
Exercises
Argue each side of the reform dispute in four points: the case for the Ido reforms, and the case for keeping the Fundamento fixed. Then say which evidence would decide it.
In about 100 words, explain the "inner idea" and Zamenhof's Hillelism and Homaranism, and say why some Esperantists were uneasy about them.
Test the claim "Ido nearly killed Esperanto" with the evidence in this chapter, and say what you would need to settle it.
Quick Reference
- Delegation and Ido: 1907 committee; the pseudonym "Ido" and Louis de Beaufront (check)
- UEA: founded in Geneva in 1908 by Hector Hodler (check)
- Ideals: the inner idea, Hillelism (1901, 1906), Homaranism (1913) (check)
- War: the 1914 Paris congress cancelled; Zamenhof died in 1917 (check)
- Method: describe a dispute from both sides before judging it