In 1894, L. L. Zamenhof, who was the original creator of the constructed language Esperanto, proposed a complete series of reforms to Esperanto (in other words, an Esperantido). It is notable as the only complete Esperantido to be authored by Zamenhof himself, and it was presented in response to various reforms that had been proposed by others since the language's publication in 1887. The project was eventually rejected by the language's speakers, and subsequently even by Zamenhof himself. Some of the proposed reforms were used in another constructed language, Ido, beginning in 1907.

Background

Although Zamenhof's stated preference was to avoid any discussion of changes, he was put under considerable pressure, including financial, to respond to the diverse reforms proposed by others. Reluctantly he decided to present a reformed dialect himself and undertook to continue guiding the community, whether or not reforms were eventually agreed upon. Although Zamenhof initially called his reform a systematic attempt to re-create the language in the light of more than six years of practical experience, scarcely any of the Esperanto community of the time accepted it as a whole. The majority voted to reject all changes. Zamenhof himself later rejected the whole project and referred to 1894 as "a wasted year". In 1907 he expressly refused permission to anyone wishing to re-publish the proposed reforms. In 1929 Johannes Dietterle cited this refusal as justification for omitting details of the reform project from his collection of Zamenhof's complete works, Originala Verkaro. Some of the proposed reforms from 1894 such as replacing the -oj plural with -i, the removal of the diacritics and adjectival agreement were used in the language reform project Ido beginning in 1907, but these were not accepted by the Esperanto community either and Esperanto has changed relatively little since the publication of Zamenhof's Fundamento de Esperanto in 1905.

Main proposed changes

Alphabet

Language samples for comparison

The Lord's Prayer in several Reformed versions and standard Esperanto for comparison:

Sources

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