Ido and Novial compared

Novial was created by the Danish linguist, Otto Jespersen in 1928, of whom was also one of the co-authors of Ido. Both of the languages have vocabularies based off of the Germanic and Romance languages, but are different grammatically in several important aspects. Comparisons among Ido, Novial, and other notable international auxiliary languages have formed an important part in interlinguistic study. For example, both Ido and Novial were two of the several languages studied by the International Auxiliary Language Association (IALA), which helped in the development of Interlingua. The purpose of this article is to create an overview of the relevant differences between Ido and Novial, as well as similarities.

Novial is more isolated, and to Jespersen's point of view, more natural.

Alphabets and pronunciation

Both languages are written using the modern Latin alphabet without diacritics.

In the Phonetic Novial spelling system (1928, 1930), the main differences between the Novial vocabulary and other systems comes from the suppression of c and z. The letter, s, plays an important role, but tends to mislead the visual appearance of some words (sientie = science, sesa = cease, sivil(i) = civil).

Ido	IPA	Novial
A, a	/a/	A, a
B, b	/b/	B, b
C, c	/ts/	TS, ts
CH, ch;	/tʃ/	CH, ch
D, d	/d/	D, d
E, e	/e/ or /ɛ/	E, e
F, f	/f/	F, f
G, g	/ɡ/	G, g
Dj, dj	/dʒ/	J, j
H, h	/h/	H, h
I, i	/i/	I, i
J, j	/ʒ/	J, j
K, k	/k/	K, k
L, l	/l/	L, l
M, m	/m/	M, m
N, n	/n/	N, n
O, o	/o/ or /ɒ/	O, o
P, p	/p/	P, p
QU, qu	/kw/ or /kv/	QU, qu
R, r	/r/	R, r
S, s	/s/	S, s (also Z,z)
SH, sh	/ʃ/	SH, sh
T, t	/t/	T, t
U, u	/u/	U, u
W, w	/w/	W, w (before a vowel) U, u (after a vowel)
V, v	/v/	V, v
X, x	/ks/ or /ɡz/	X, x
Y, y	/j/	Y, y
Z, z	/z/	Z, z (also S, s)

Personal pronouns

Pronouns

	singular							plural						indef.
	1st	2nd		3rd				1st	2nd	3rd
		familiar	formal	m.	f.	n.	pan-gender			m.	f.	n.	pan-gender
English	I	you (thou)	you	he	she	it	he/it	we	you				they	one
Ido	me	tu	vu	il(u)	el(u)	ol(u)	lu	ni	vi	ili;	eli;	oli;	li	on(u)
Novial	me	vu	vu	lo	la	lu(m)	le	nus	vus	los	las	lus	les	on

Verbal systems

The grammatical systems of Ido and Novial differ from each other to a great extent in the way that the tenses, moods, and voices of verbs are expressed. Both use a combination of auxiliary verbs and verb endings; however, Novial uses much more auxiliary verbs and much less endings, unlike Ido, which uses only one auxiliary verb and numerous verb endings.

As with most devised international auxiliary languages, all verb forms in Ido and Novial are independent of persons and number.

Language samples

This is the Lord's Prayer in both languages for comparison:

Ido: Patro nia, qua esas en la cielo, tua nomo santigesez; tua regno advenez; tua volo facesez quale en la cielo tale anke sur la tero. Donez a ni cadie l'omnidiala pano, e pardonez a ni nia ofensi, quale anke ni pardonas a nia ofensanti, e ne duktez ni aden la tento, ma liberigez ni del malajo.

Novial: Nusen Patre, kel es in siele, mey vun nome bli sanktifika, mey vun regno veni; mey on fa vun volio kom in siele anke sur tere. Dona a nus disidi li omnidiali pane, e pardona a nus nusen ofensos, kom anke nus pardona a nusen ofensantes, e non dukte nus en tentatione, ma liberisa nus fro malu.

See also

• Esperanto and Ido compared
• Ido and Interlingua compared
• Esperanto and Novial compared
• Interlingua and Novial compared

References

• Comparison between Ido and Novial on English Wikipedia
• Kompleta Gramatiko di la Linguo Internaciona Ido (187-page PDF file.)
• An International Language: Otto Jespersen's 1928 book which introduced Novial. Contains discussion of earlier auxiliary languages including Ido.
• An International Language: The Delegation. Ido Chapter of the first book about Novial which discusses Ido (specific criticisms of Ido are mentioned in various chapters of the book).
• OTTO JESPERSEN His Work for an International Auxiliary Language By Henry Jacob, 1943, Comparative Texts comparing Ido, Novial, Occidental, Latino sine flexione, Esperanto and English.
• A PLANNED AUXILIARY LANGUAGE By Henry Jacob, 1947. A detailed comparative study of interlinguistics with full grammatical details of five systems of demonstrated usefulness, Esperanto, Ido, Occidental, Novial, and Latino sine flexione.
• About Direct Derivation in International Languages By Friedrich Auerbach, 1930 (in Novial).
• A passage from Machievelli in Ido and Novial
• Contains many links pertinent to Novial, Ido, and Otto Jespersen

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