Wikipedia:Today's featured article/December 25, 2005

Ido is a constructed language, purposely created to be easier to learn than any other natural language, and ideally to become a universal second language that would be used by all when conversing with people from a different linguistic background. This is much in the same way that English is often used as a lingua franca at present in various international gatherings, but Ido was made to be grammatically regular, phonetic, and as the first language of none, to favour no one who might otherwise have an advantage in expression with his or her native language. Ido was developed in the early 1900s, and retains a small following today, primarily in Europe. It is largely based on Esperanto, created by L. L. Zamenhof. Ido first appeared in 1907 as a result of a desire to reform perceived flaws in Esperanto that its supporters believed to be a hindrance in its propagation as an easy-to-learn second language. Ido uses the twenty-six Latin letters used in the English alphabet with no diacritics. While still being completely grammatically regular, Ido resembles Romance languages in appearance and is sometimes mistaken for Italian or Spanish at first glance.

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