mea sam-ide-ana Idisti,

i just posted a message about 2 proposals to extend Ido to make it easier for
other language speakers to use and which makes Ido more flexible without any
need whatsoever to change Ido in the sense that no Ido material would need to be
modified. i only add some concepts to Ido, improving it. but it is fully
"backward compatible" so all books written would not be rendered gramatically
incorrect nor use "archaic" Ido words. my proposals only add options to Ido and
do not "antiquate" any Ido concepts. to understand the follow, i feel it is
important for you, the reader to understand that one of these proposals is to
use a new "-oy" suffix to indicate the singular OR plural noun, without
specifying whether it is singular or plural, as in the English "i saw the fish"
= 'me vidis la *fishoy" since we do not know whether the English 'fish' is
singular ('fisho') or plural ('fishi').

i now propose yet another (but more complex) proposal: a base 12 number system.
and i share only a few reason why it is useful, but it is by far not my entire
list of reasons to support it.

in short, i propose only 2 new words and do not propose any change to the
current system. i propose a word for 11 and another word for twelve.

i propose that 'ons' be used for 11, and 'doz' be used for 12. when saying
numbers, and when counting, i still think it best to use 'dek-e-un' for 11, as
the current "decimal" number system uses. but when we want base 12 numbers, i
propose 'ons' and 'doz' be added. i am aware that 'dozeno' is already an Ido
word (added recently, i believe). but having a 3 syllable word for 12 is quite a
handicap. i recognize that the designers of Ido saw the importance and
usefulness for digits to be single syllable like when saying numbers. 'zero' is
the only non-single syllable digit. and 'dek' is important to be a single
syllable because we have 'duadek-e-tri' and 'cent-e-triadek-e-kin'. since 'dek'
is used when combining larger numbers, it is quite important that 'dek' be a
single syllable. this is likewise why i propose a single syllable equivalent for
12. then we can use *doz-e-du = 12 + 2 = 14.

in short, the 'dozenal' number system (or the base 12 number system) which has
12 digits instead of our decimal number system which has 10 digits is quite
superior to our decimal number system. the reason is in the math, which all
'boils down to' 12 having more factors than 10. the factors of 12 (which exclude
1 and itself) are 2, 3, 4, and 6, while the similar factors of 10 are only 2,
and 5. in short this makes the dozenal number system *twice* as superior to the
decimal number system. but in recognition of this (and a few other resulting
advantages) i propose these two new Ido words. words for 11 and 12. i do NOT
propose a common use of 'ons' for 11 when counting and teaching people to count.
we *should* teach Ido learners 'dek-e-un' and 'dek-e-du', obviously. and we
should use them in common speech *unless* we are truly using the base 12 number
system, which i will give one huge advantage of using shortly.

i want to make a point that in music, it is harmonious because we hase 12 notes
in an octave (including sharps & flats). this harmony occurs because 12 has the
numerous factors that it does, as mentioned above.

we also have 12 hours before noon, and 12 hours after noon. this is a system
where i feel the dozenal number system makes telling the time easier. i am
finding that with my Ido students that i am helping to learn Ido, they can
adjust to 'doz-e-tri kloki' (3 pm) much better than 'dek-e-kin' (15:00) because
in the USA (my country), we hardly use the 24 hour time. altho i believe the 24
hour time is far superior to the am/pm system that we use. i have woken up
numerous times to find that my alarm clock did not ring because i mistakenly set
it for the wrong am/pm time (like i set if for 6pm instead of 6am) all because
my stupid alarm clock only shows a tiny little dot to show the difference
between am and pm. and to make it worse, it uses another little dot to show
whether the alarm is set or not. stupid design. but part of the fault is our
am/pm system.

i have found it SO useful to teach my Ido students this more simplified system
of Ido first, then when they get used to it, then move to the restrictive &
stricter limitations that the global Ido community uses to communicate.

Note that in of each list item below, the second sentance is the "simplified"
option, which is what i propose now.
Here is a list of what i use when teaching them time in this "simplified Ido":

Esas un kloko. = 01:00 =
Esas un klokoy. = 01:00 AM

Esas du kloki. = 02:00 =
Esas du klokoy. = 02:00 AM

Esas tri kloki. = 03:00 =
Esas tri klokoy. = 03:00 AM

Esas quar kloki. = 04:00 =
Esas quar klokoy. = 04:00 AM

Esas kin kloki. = 05:00 =
Esas kin klokoy. = 05:00 AM

Esas sis kloki. = 06:00 =
Esas sis klokoy. = 06:00 AM

Esas sep kloki. = 07:00 =
Esas sep klokoy. = 07:00 AM

Esas ok kloki. = 08:00 =
Esas ok klokoy. = 08:00 AM

Esas non kloki. = 09:00 =
Esas non klokoy. = 09:00 AM

Esas dek kloki. = 10:00 =
Esas dek klokoy. = 10:00 AM

Esas dek-e-un kloki. = 11:00 =
Esas ons klokoy. = 11:00 AM

Esas dek-e-du kloki. = 12:00 =
Esas doz klokoy. = 12:00 PM

Esas dek-e-tri kloki. = 13:00 =
Esas doz-e-un klokoy. = 01:00 PM

Esas dek-e-quar kloki. = 14:00 =
Esas doz-e-du klokoy. = 02:00 PM

Esas dek-e-kin kloki. = 15:00 =
Esas doz-e-tri klokoy. = 03:00 PM

Esas dek-e-sis kloki. = 16:00 =
Esas doz-e-quar klokoy. = 04:00 PM

Esas dek-e-sep kloki. = 17:00 =
Esas doz-e-kin klokoy. = 05:00 PM

Esas dek-e-ok kloki. = 18:00 =
Esas doz-e-sis klokoy. = 06:00 PM

Esas dek-e-non kloki. = 19:00 =
Esas doz-e-sep klokoy. = 07:00 PM

Esas duadek kloki. = 20:00 =
Esas doz-e-ok klokoy. = 08:00 PM

Esas duadek-e-un kloki. = 21:00 =
Esas doz-e-non klokoy. = 09:00 PM

Esas duadek-e-du kloki. = 22:00 =
Esas doz-e-dek klokoy. = 10:00 PM

Esas duadek-e-tri kloki. = 23:00 =
Esas doz-e-ons klokoy. = 11:00 PM

Esas duadek-e-quar kloki. = 24:00 =
Esas duadoz klokoy. = 12:00 AM

And remember, using the "strict" Ido, or "global Ido" or "true" Ido form is just
as correct in this "simplified" Ido as the simplification is. but i simply feel
that Ido *should* be simplified and it *should* be extended to use these
simplifications too. :)

This concludes my 3rd proposal.

My 4th proposal is probably the simplest of all my proposals: names of days of
the week and months of the year need not exist. In Portuguese and Hebrew, days
of the week are as easy as '1st-day', '2nd-day', '3rd-day', etc. i stood in
amazement when i read Ido's days of the week, in wonder why Ido named days of
the week. i wondered the same when i started learning Esperanto years before i
even knew of the existence of Ido. i mean, even i realized this one, and even
before i knew that Hebrew and Portuguese used these. i think this simplification
is obvious, but i believe some may object to it with one objection: that we
should have names of days of the week. and i am not opposed to having names of
the week. but i suggest *both* options. allow users which option they choose.
then if learning 7 + 12 new words is difficult and they don't want that rote
memorization they can learn it when they want. another benefit is that i
personally recognize the Ido days of the week as well as the months. but i, a
beginner, do not know them well enuf to write a list or say them all without
mistake. i will learn them as i need to. and i *can* learn them later. and i do
not *need* to learn them now. but many beginners will think "i need to learn the
days of the week. i may as well do this hard memorization now." but i say, why
add that difficulty? it is yet another needless restriction.

so my proposal is NOT to remove the names of the days of the week nor the names
months from Ido. but rather to *add* a numerical system for them. my proposal is
this, to follow all similarly numerically named systems:
una-dio = Sunday
dua-dio = Monday
tria-dio = Tuesday
quara-dio = Wednesday
kina-dio = Thursday
sisa-dio = Friday
sepa-dio = Saturday

i feel it is important to use Sunday and the first and Saturday as the last, for
several reasons. one is to match the already existing languages in Portuguese
and Hebrew. but also because Sunday has historically been the first day of the
week and it still in in some cultures. and Saturday likewise has been and is the
7th day of the week in some cultures. i believe there is a modern trend to treat
Monday as the first day of the week in many countries, but i believe this makes
it worse when trying to keep things simple between languages and cultures. in my
country, the USA, we usually treat Sunday as the first day of the week. but in a
minority of business environments, Monday is treated as the first with Saturday
being the 7th day. one example, but one which should be considered is in the SQL
programming language (Microsoft's database technology), when asked to return the
index for the day of the week. the default is to treat Sunday as day 1 and
Saturday as day 7, but they give the option where that default can be changed to
treat any day of the week as day 1. in all calendars that we buy in the USA,
Sunday is the first day, but i find most international calendars i've seen treat
Monday as the first day. perhaps this may be one reason that a numerical system
was not adopted in the past, but i feel this decision should be made as Sunday =
*una-dio.

i also want to note why i used '*una-dio' instead of 'unesma-dio'. i did not use
the Ido 'ordinal' number so that '1st day' would never be confused with Sunday.
if i go to a concert, and someone asks me which day i arrived to the conference,
and the conference started on Tuesday and went until Friday. then the 1st day of
the conference is Tuesday and the 4th day is Friday. but the Tuesday is the 3rd
day of the week. so if i respond with 'tria-dio' then i mean the 3rd day of the
week. but if i say 'triesma dio' then i mean litterally the '3rd day' which
would mean the 3rd day of the conference, which would be Thursday. this is why i
felt using the '-a' suffix instead of the gramattical ordinal suffix would be
superior than using '-esma' on the days of the week, which would then bring
ambiguousness, which would make such a system, in my opinion hardly worth using.
perhaps early Idists saw this disadvantage if there is no distinction between
the two meaning and perhaps decided names were also important for this reason.

personally, i prefer to use the numerical reason for yet another spiritual
reason. but i want Ido to have *both* options so each Idist can choose which
system they like better, and i feel that adding this extension to Ido does not
complicate it all. this proposal is so simple that i feel anyone with normal
intelligence can remember this after reading it only once. and i have read the
Ido names of the week many, many times, and i still don't remember them half
well.

and the same goes with the names of the month:
una-monato = January
dua-monato = February
...
deka-monato = October
onsa-monato = dek-e-una-monato = November
doza-monato = dek-e-dua-monato = December

note that here, this 'dozenal' (base 12) system comes in very useful again. but
my proposal is to let the speaker choose which system he/she prefers to use,
whether it is 'novembro' or 'onsa-monato' or 'dek-e-una-monato'. and here, my
personal preference is 'onsa-monato', but i want all to choose what is best for
them.

amike,
-Humilulo <><