Ido
“I haven't spoken it in 10 years.”
Ido was a language invented by Judge Lance Ito in the 1990s during one of his notorious "sidebars," in order to keep the media from understanding the proceedings of the O.J. Simpson Trial. The attempt was ultimately unsuccessful when Alan Turing's great-grand-nephew realized it was just Esperanto mixed with words from an even more useless language.
History[edit]
At the height of the Simpson trial, it became nearly impossible to hold court proceedings due to the media's picking-apart of everything that happened. After unsuccessful attempts to assassinate Matt Lauer, the need for an inter-court language became clear. When Pig Latin proved unsuccessful due to the Los Angeles Times' expert code-cracking team, Judge Ito decided it was time to create a language of his own.
The Committee to Adopt an Intercourt Language[edit]
Judge Ito convened a committee consisting of himself and notable Esperantists Richard Dalton and Seymour Skinner. Dalton suggested that the language be based on Cockney rhyming slang, but the other two decided to go with a modified Esperanto. Angry, Dalton would go on to write a scathing criticism of Ito and his language in the year 2008.
Initial success and downfall[edit]
Ido proved to be a great success for the first few days. Because it mixed Esperanto with French, no one under the age of 70 had ever heard anything like it. Thus it successfully kept reporters out of the trial. But when it was finally cracked, everyone decided to switch to extremely technical, scientific English instead.
Revival[edit]
Ido was revived in the 2000s by the satirical encyclopedia Wikipedia, who sought to poke fun at Uncyclopedia's inclusion of Esperanto in its list of supported languages. This became their second parody of the Esperanto Uncyclopedia, the first being the Esperanto Wikipedia.