Comparison between Ido and Novial

Novial was created by Otto Jespersen, who had also been a co-author of Ido. Both languages base their vocabularies primarily on the Germanic and Romance languages but differ grammatically in several important respects. Comparisons among Ido, Novial, and other notable international auxiliary languages have formed an important part of interlinguistic studies. For example, both Ido and Novial were among the languages investigated by the International Auxiliary Language Association (IALA), which developed Interlingua. This article is intended to provide an overview of the salient differences and similarities of Ido and Novial.

Novial is more analytic than Ido, and in Jespersen's view more natural.

Alphabets and pronunciation[]

Both Ido and Novial are written using the modern Latin alphabet with no diacritics.

In the Phonetic Novial spelling system (1928, 1930) the main differences between the Novial vocabulary and those of other systems come from the suppression of the letters c and z. The letter s plays an important part but tends to distort the visual appearance of some words (sientie = science, sesa = cease, sivil(i) = civil). ^[1]

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
	1st	familiar	formal	m.	f.	n.	pan-gender	1st	2nd	m.	f.	n.	pan-gender	Reflexive
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	su	on(u)
Novial	me	vu	vu	lo	la	lu(m)	le	nus	vus	los	las	lus	les	se	on

Verbal systems[]

The grammars of Novial and Ido differ substantially in the way that the various tenses, moods and voices of verbs are expressed. Both use a combination of auxiliary verbs and verb endings. However, Novial uses many more auxiliary verbs and few endings, while Ido uses only one auxiliary verb and a greater number of verb endings.

As with most international auxiliary languages, all verb forms in Ido and Novial are independent of person (1st, 2nd or 3rd persons) and number (singular or plural).

Language sample for comparison[]

Here is the Lord's Prayer in both languages:

Ido version:

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 version:

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.

References[]

^ Chapter IV of "A Planned Auxiliary Language" by Henry Jacob, 1947.

External links[]

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
Comparison between Ido and Novial at .

[1] Chapter IV of "A Planned Auxiliary Language" by Henry Jacob, 1947.

[1]