Louis Chevreux (3 October 1855, Paris – 8 January 1935,

Thézy-Glimont Thézy-Glimont () is a commune in the Somme department in Hauts-de-France in northern France. Geography The commune is situated southeast of Amiens Amiens (English: or ; ; pcd, Anmien, or ) is a city and commune in northern France, l ...

), commonly known as Louis de Beaufront, was a major influence in the development of

Ido Ido () is a constructed language derived from Reformed Esperanto, and similarly designed with the goal of being a universal second language for people of diverse backgrounds. To function as an effective ''international auxiliary language'', I ...

, an

international auxiliary language An international auxiliary language (sometimes acronymized as IAL or contracted as auxlang) is a language meant for communication between people from all different nations, who do not share a common first language. An auxiliary language is primaril ...

. Beaufront was initially an advocate of

Esperanto Esperanto ( or ) is the world's most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Created by the Warsaw-based ophthalmologist L. L. Zamenhof in 1887, it was intended to be a universal second language for international communi ...

and was largely responsible for its early diffusion in western

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

as well as one of its first French proponents.

Work

Beaufront first discovered Esperanto in 1888 and in 1898 founded Société Pour la Propagation de l'Espéranto (SPPE). In 1900, he wrote the ''Commentaire sur la grammaire espéranto''. He was chosen to represent unmodified

before the Committee of the

Delegation for the Adoption of an International Auxiliary Language The Delegation for the Adoption of an International Auxiliary Language (french: Délégation pour l'adoption d'une langue auxiliaire internationale) was a body of academics convened in the early part of the 1900s (decade) to decide on the issue of ...

, attending the meetings of the Delegation Committee in October, 1907. While ostensibly representing

before the Committee, he was secretly secondary author after

Louis Couturat Louis Couturat (; 17 January 1868 – 3 August 1914) was a French logician, mathematician, philosopher, and linguist. Couturat was a pioneer of the constructed language Ido. Life and education Born in Ris-Orangis, Essonne, France. In 1887 he ...

of the original Ido project which impressed the Delegation Committee and led to the reform of

by the Committee's Permanent Commission. Letters that are kept in the

Department of Planned Languages and Esperanto Museum The Esperanto Museum and Collection of Planned Languages (german: Esperantomuseum und Sammlung für Plansprachen, eo, Esperantomuzeo kaj kolekto por planlingvoj), commonly known as the Esperanto Museum, is a museum for Esperanto and other const ...

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

show that he denied any co-authorship of Ido. Beaufront remained a proponent of Ido thereafter, and wrote the influential Ido grammar ''Kompleta Gramatiko Detaloza'', published in 1925. His personality was an unusual one. He claimed to be a Marquis, and claimed to have had an English grandmother, but there is no evidence for either of these claims. He appears as a character in

Joseph Skibell Joseph Skibell (born October 18, 1959) is a novelist and essayist living in Atlanta, Georgia and Tesuque, New Mexico. Skibell is the author of three novels, which use elements of history and fantasy, a collection of true stories, and a forthco ...

's 2010 novel, ''A Curable Romantic''.

External links

Online readable works of Louis de Beaufront
{{DEFAULTSORT:Beaufront, Louis De 1855 births 1935 deaths Idists French Esperantists Constructed language creators French Roman Catholics