History

The basic version of Neo was published in 1937 by Arturo Alfandari. It attracted attention in 1961 when Alfandari published his books Cours Pratique de Neo and The Rapid Method of Neo. The works included both brief and complete grammars, learning course of 44 lectures, translations of literary works, scientific and technical texts, idioms, detailed bidirectional French and English dictionaries. The total volume of the publications was 1,304 pages, with dictionaries numbering some 75,000 words.

The language combines the features of Esperanto or Ido, with the same goal: a simple, neutral and easy-to-learn second language for everybody.

Neo attracted the interest of the circle around the International Language Review, a periodical for IAL proponents whose publishers co-founded the international Friends of Neo (Amikos de Neo) with Alfandari; the organization also published its bulletin, the Neo-bulten. For a few years it looked like Neo could give some serious competition to Esperanto and Interlingua.

As Alfandari's health worsened, to avoid disappearance of his language, he founded a second, more serious organization: the Academy of Neo (Akademio de Neo), with the task of regulating, nurturing and spreading the language; but the organization was not very successful. Progress was cut short by Alfandari's death in 1969 and the language was mostly forgotten.