CORRESPONDENCE 107 



leaflets.^ No one who has read Dr. Zamenhof s Old Testament, Dr. Bein's 

 Faraono, or other similar masterpieces, can doubt that Esperanto is a hterary 

 language in the highest sense of the word. It is not claimed for Ido that it 

 is more than a convenient code, without pretension to literary merit or 

 beauty. Esperanto uses a small dictionary of root-words, which it enlarges 

 by regularly used affixes. Ido labours under a very large dictionary, and a 

 much greater number of affixes ; which however are not regularly used, 

 and are often used to no useful purpose. 



In Esperanto the feminine is regularly formed from the masculine by the 

 suffix -in : Jozefo, Jozefino, patro {isithei) , pafrino (mother). In Ido, " father " 

 is patro, or patrulo ; " mother " is patro, or patrino, or matro. In such cases 

 as " I hammered the nail, I addressed the letter, I gilded the picture, my 

 finger bled," Esperanto, like other languages, prefers a simple verb-form : 

 martelis, adresis, oris, sangis {is being the ending of the past tense), though 

 a more precise form is available when desirable. Ido by an arbitrary rule 

 petrifies these words into martelagis, adresizis, surorizis, sangifis. "The January 

 number " of this magazine would in Esperanto be la Januara mimero ; 

 in Ido la Januarala nttmero (this is to prevent the reader from supposing 

 that the number of the magazine is identical with the month of January !). 



The Esperanto mt7 okcent dudek fn (one thousand eight hundred and twenty- 

 three) is in Ido simplified to mil-e-oha-cent-e-dna-dek-e-tri ! ! Similar improve- 

 ments adorn every page of an Ido text. 



The reader who is interested will find a detailed study of the question 

 in Historio kaj Teorio de Ido by B. Kotzin, Moscow ; A utour de I' Esperanto, 

 and Histoire d'une Delegation by Prof. C. Aymonier, Paris ; and various 

 monographs on word-derivation and other works obtainable from this office. 

 Their criticisms, which remain unanswered, may be verified by personal 

 investigation. 



To sum up : If Ido is ever sufficiently finished and stable to be capable 

 of a literature, it will be more fitted for the role of an international language 

 than Latin. But this conclusion is of a theoretical interest only, for unless 

 it is radically reformed, Ido itself will not bear serious comparision with 

 Esperanto. It is in the main a re-hash of proposals fully discussed and 

 twice rejected by an overwhelming majority 25 years ago. Esperanto holds 

 the field, in theory and in practice, and except for the historian and the col- 

 lector of curiosities there is little inducement to spend time on an unscientific 

 and discredited plagiary. 



Montagu C. Butler, 

 Secretary, British Esperanto Association Inc. 

 17 Hart Street, London, W.C.i. 

 February 26, 1920. 



To the Editor of " Science Progress " 



THE GHOST-HYPOTHESIS 



I— From C. A. RICHARDSON 



Dear Sir, — I have read with much interest the energetic (if a trifle dogmatic) 

 reply of your correspondent (" The Writer of the Essay-Review ") to my 

 letter published in the January number of Science Progress. I very much 

 fear, however, that he has subtly avoided a definite answer to the most 



^ A number of technical terminologies and scientific works have been 

 published in Esperanto. The pages of La Scienca Revuo and other similar 

 magazines have further den^onstrated its suitability for scientific purposes. 



