Constructed language

A constructed language (shortened to conlang)[a] is a language whose phonology, grammar,

orthography, and vocabulary, instead of having developed naturally, are consciously devised for
some purpose, which may include being devised for a work of fiction. A constructed language may
also be referred to as an artificial, planned or invented language, or (in some cases) a fictional
language. Planned languages (or engineered languages / engelangs) are languages that have been
purposefully designed; they are the result of deliberate, controlling intervention and are thus of a
form of language planning.[1]

The Conlang Flag, a symbol of language

construction created by subscribers to the
CONLANG mailing list, which represents
the Tower of Babel against a rising sun

There are many possible reasons to create a constructed language, such as to ease human
communication (see international auxiliary language and code); to give fiction or an associated
constructed setting an added layer of realism; for experimentation in the fields of linguistics,
cognitive science, and machine learning; for artistic creation; for fantasy role-playing games; and for
language games. Some people may also make constructed languages as a hobby, or in connection
to worldbuilding.

The expression planned language is sometimes used to indicate international auxiliary languages
and other languages designed for actual use in human communication. Some prefer it to the
adjective artificial, as this term may be perceived as pejorative. Outside Esperanto culture,[b] the term
language planning means the prescriptions given to a natural language to standardize it; in this
regard, even a "natural language" may be artificial in some respects, meaning some of its words
have been crafted by conscious decision. Prescriptive grammars, which date to ancient times for
classical languages such as Latin and Sanskrit, are rule-based codifications of natural languages,
such codifications being a middle ground between naïve natural selection and development of
language and its explicit construction. The term glossopoeia is also used to mean language
construction, particularly construction of artistic languages.[2]

Conlang speakers are rare. For example, the Hungarian census of 2011 found 8,397 speakers of
Esperanto,[3] and the census of 2001 found 10 of Romanid, two each of Interlingua and Ido and one
each of Idiom Neutral and Mundolinco.[4] The Russian census of 2010 found that in Russia there
were about 992 speakers of Esperanto (the 120th most common) and nine of the Esperantido Ido.[5]

Planned, constructed, artificial

The terms "planned", "constructed", "invented", "fictional",[6] and "artificial" are used differently in
some traditions. For example, few speakers of Interlingua consider their language artificial, since
they assert that it has no invented content: Interlingua's vocabulary is taken from a small set of
natural languages, and its grammar is based closely on these source languages, even including
some degree of irregularity; its proponents prefer to describe its vocabulary and grammar as
standardized rather than artificial or constructed. Similarly, Latino sine flexione (LsF) is a
simplification of Latin from which the inflections have been removed. As with Interlingua, some
prefer to describe its development as "planning" rather than "constructing". Some speakers of
Esperanto and Esperantidos also avoid the term "artificial language" because they deny that there is
anything "unnatural" about the use of their language in human communication.

By contrast, some philosophers have argued that all human languages are conventional or artificial.
François Rabelais's fictional giant Pantagruel, for instance, said: "It is a misuse of terms to say that
we have natural language; languages exist through arbitrary institutions and the conventions of
peoples. Voices, as the dialecticians say, don't signify naturally, but capriciously."[7]

Furthermore, fictional or experimental languages can be considered naturalistic if they model real
world languages. For example, if a naturalistic conlang is derived a posteriori from another language
(real or constructed), it should imitate natural processes of phonological, lexical, and grammatical
change. In contrast with languages such as Interlingua, naturalistic fictional languages are not
usually intended for easy learning or communication. Thus, naturalistic fictional languages tend to
be more difficult and complex. While Interlingua has simpler grammar, syntax, and orthography than
its source languages (though more complex and irregular than Esperanto or its descendants),
naturalistic fictional languages typically mimic behaviors of natural languages like irregular verbs
and nouns, and complicated phonological processes.
Overview

In terms of purpose, most constructed languages can broadly be divided into:

Engineered languages (engelangs), further subdivided into logical languages (loglangs),

philosophical languages and experimental languages, devised for experimentation in logic,
philosophy, or linguistics;

Auxiliary languages (auxlangs) or IALs (for International Auxiliary Languages), devised for
interlinguistic or international communication;

Artistic languages (artlangs), devised to create aesthetic pleasure or humorous effect (secret
languages and mystical languages are also usually classified as artistic languages).[8]

The boundaries between these categories are by no means clear.[9] A constructed language could
easily fall into more than one of the above categories. A logical language created for aesthetic
reasons would also be classifiable as an artistic language; one created with philosophical motives
could include being used as an auxiliary language. There are no rules, either inherent in the process
of language construction or externally imposed, that would limit a constructed language to fitting
only one of the above categories.

A constructed language can have native speakers if young children learn it from parents who speak
it fluently. According to Ethnologue, there are "200–2000 who speak Esperanto as a first language".
A member of the Klingon Language Institute, d'Armond Speers, attempted to raise his son as a
native (bilingual with English) Klingon speaker.[10]

As soon as a constructed language has a community of fluent speakers, especially if it has

numerous native speakers, it begins to evolve and hence loses its constructed status. For example,
Modern Hebrew and its pronunciation norms were developed from existing traditions of Hebrew,
such as Mishnaic Hebrew and Biblical Hebrew following a general Sephardic pronunciation, rather
than engineered from scratch, and has undergone considerable changes since the state of Israel
was founded in 1948 (Hetzron 1990:693). However, linguist Ghil'ad Zuckermann argues that Modern
Hebrew, which he terms "Israeli", is a Semito-European hybrid based not only on Hebrew but also on
Yiddish and other languages spoken by revivalists.[11] Zuckermann therefore endorses the
translation of the Hebrew Bible into what he calls "Israeli".[12] Esperanto as a living spoken language
has evolved significantly from the prescriptive blueprint published in 1887, so that modern editions
of the Fundamenta Krestomatio, a 1903 collection of early texts in the language, require many
footnotes on the syntactic and lexical differences between early and modern Esperanto.[13]
Proponents of constructed languages often have many reasons for using them. The famous but
disputed Sapir–Whorf hypothesis is sometimes cited; this claims that the language one speaks
influences the way one thinks. Thus, a "better" language should allow the speaker to think more
clearly or intelligently or to encompass more points of view; this was the intention of Suzette Haden
Elgin in creating Láadan, a feminist language[14] embodied in her feminist science fiction series
Native Tongue.[15] Constructed languages have been included in standardized tests such as the SAT,
where they were used to test the applicant's ability to infer and apply grammatical rules.[16][17] By the
same token, a constructed language might also be used to restrict thought, as in George Orwell's
Newspeak, or to simplify thought, as in Toki Pona. However, linguists such as Steven Pinker argue
that ideas exist independently of language. For example, in the book The Language Instinct, Pinker
states that children spontaneously re-invent slang and even grammar with each generation. These
linguists argue that attempts to control the range of human thought through the reform of language
would fail, as concepts like "freedom" will reappear in new words if the old words vanish.

Proponents claim a particular language makes it easier to express and understand concepts in one
area, and more difficult in others. An example can be taken from the way various programming
languages make it easier to write certain kinds of programs and harder to write others.

Another reason cited for using a constructed language is the telescope rule, which claims that it
takes less time to first learn a simple constructed language and then a natural language, than to
learn only a natural language. Thus, if someone wants to learn English, some suggest learning Basic
English first. Constructed languages like Esperanto and Interlingua are in fact often simpler due to
the typical lack of irregular verbs and other grammatical quirks. Some studies have found that
learning Esperanto helps in learning a non-constructed language later (see propaedeutic value of
Esperanto).

Codes for constructed languages include the ISO 639-2 " art " for conlangs; however, some
constructed languages have their own ISO 639 language codes (e.g. " eo " and " epo " for
Esperanto, " jbo " for Lojban, " ia " and " ina " for Interlingua, " tlh " for Klingon, " io " and " ido "
for Ido, " lfn " for Lingua Franca Nova, and " tok " for Toki Pona).

One constraint on a constructed language is that if it was constructed to be a natural language for
use by fictional foreigners or aliens, as with Dothraki and High Valyrian in the Game of Thrones
series, which was adapted from the A Song of Ice and Fire book series, the language should be
easily pronounced by actors, and should fit with and incorporate any fragments of the language
already invented by the book's author, and preferably also fit with any personal names of fictional
speakers of the language.
A priori and a posteriori languages

An a priori (from Latin a priori, "from the former") constructed language is one whose features
(including vocabulary, grammar, etc.) are not based on an existing language, and an a posteriori
language is the opposite.[8] This categorization, however, is not absolute, as many constructed
languages may be called a priori when considering some linguistic factors, and at the same time a
posteriori when considering other factors.

A priori language

An a priori language is any constructed language with some features which are not based on
existing languages. Instead these features are invented or elaborated to work differently or to allude
to different purposes. Some a priori languages are designed to be international auxiliary languages
that remove what could be considered an unfair learning advantage for native speakers of a source
language that would otherwise exist for a posteriori languages. Others, known as philosophical or
taxonomic languages, try to categorize their vocabulary, either to express an underlying philosophy
or to make it easier to recognize new vocabulary. Finally, many artistic languages, created for either
personal use or for use in a fictional medium, employ consciously constructed grammars and
vocabularies, and are best understood as a priori.

Examples of a priori languages

A priori international auxiliary languages

Balaibalan, attributed to Fazlallah Astarabadi or Muhyi Gulshani (14th century)

Solresol by François Sudre (1827)

Ro by Edward Foster (1906)

Sona by Kenneth Searight (1935)

Babm by Rikichi Okamoto (1962)

aUI by W. John Weilgart (1962)

Mirad (aka Unilingua) by Noubar Agopoff (1966)

Kotava by Staren Fetcey (1978)

Experimental languages

Láadan by Suzette Haden Elgin (1982)

 Ithkuil by John Quijada (2004)

A priori artistic languages

Quenya and Sindarin by J. R. R. Tolkien for The Lord of the Rings (published 1954)

Klingon by Marc Okrand for the science-fiction franchise Star Trek (1985)

Kēlen by Sylvia Sotomayor (1998)

Naʼvi by Paul Frommer for the movie Avatar (2009)

Dothraki and Valyrian by David Peterson for the television series Game of Thrones (2011)

Kiliki by Madhan Karky for the Baahubali films (2015)

Community languages

Damin (Yangkaal and Lardil people, 19th century or earlier)

Eskayan (Eskaya, c. 1920)

Medefaidrin (Ibibio, 1930s)

Palawa kani (Palawa, 1990s)

A posteriori language

An a posteriori language (from Latin a posteriori, "from the latter"), according to French linguist
Louis Couturat, is any constructed language whose elements are borrowed from or based on
existing languages. The term can also be extended to controlled versions of natural languages, and
is most commonly used to refer to vocabulary despite other features. Likewise, zonal auxiliary
languages (auxiliary languages for speakers of a particular language family) are a posteriori by
definition.

While most auxiliary languages are a posteriori due to their intended function as a medium of
communication, many artistic languages are fully a posteriori in design—many for the purposes of
alternate history. In distinguishing whether the language is a priori or a posteriori, the prevalence and
distribution of respectable traits is often the key.

Examples of a posteriori languages

A posteriori artistic languages

Brithenig by Andrew Smith (1996)

Atlantean by Marc Okrand for the film Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001)

Toki Pona by Sonja Lang (2001)

 Wenedyk by Jan van Steenbergen (2002)

Trigedasleng by David Peterson for the TV series The 100 (2014)

Nagwai by Naxikeestan (2023)

Controlled auxiliary languages

Latino sine flexione (Latin, 1911)

Basic English (English, 1925)

N'Ko (Manding, 1949)

Learning English (English, 1959)

Kitara (SW Ugandan Bantu, 1990)

Globish (English, 2004)

A posteriori international auxiliary languages

(1868) Universalglot

(1879) Volapük

(1885) Pasilingua

(1887) Esperanto

(1888) Mundolinco

(1902) Idiom Neutral

(1907) Ido

(1912) Reform-Neutral

(1922) Interlingue

(1928) Novial

(1937) Esperanto II

(c. 1943) Mondial

(1951) Interlingua

(1961) Neo

(1970) Afrihili

(c. 1979) Glosa

 (1986) Uropi

(1991) Romániço

(1998) Lingua Franca Nova

(2007) Sambahsa

(2010) Lingwa de planeta

Zonal auxiliary languages

Efatese (c. Vanuatu Oceanic, 19th century)

Romanid (Romance, 1956)

Palawa kani (Aboriginal Australian, 1992)

Folkspraak (Germanic, 1995)

Budinos (Finno-Ugric, 2000s)

Neolatino Romance (Romance, 2006)

Interslavic (Slavic, 2011)

History

Ancient linguistic experiments

Grammatical speculation dates from Classical Antiquity; for instance, it appears in Plato's Cratylus in
Hermogenes's contention that words are not inherently linked to what they refer to; that people
apply "a piece of their own voice ... to the thing".

Athenaeus tells the story[18] of two figures: Dionysius of Sicily and Alexarchus:

Dionysius of Sicily created neologisms like menandros "virgin" (from menei "waiting" and andra
"husband") for standard Greek parthenos; menekratēs "pillar" (from menei "it remains in one place"
and kratei "it is strong") for standard stulos; and ballantion "javelin" (from balletai enantion "thrown
against someone") for standard akon.

Alexarchus of Macedon, the brother of King Cassander of Macedon, was the founder of the city of
Ouranopolis. Athenaeus recounts a story told by Heracleides of Lembos that Alexarchus
"introduced a peculiar vocabulary, referring to a rooster as a "dawn-crier", a barber as a "mortal-
shaver", a drachma as "worked silver", ... and a herald as an aputēs [from ēputa "loud-voiced"].
"He [Alexarchus] once wrote something ... to the public authorities in Casandreia ... As for what this
letter says, in my opinion not even the Pythian god could make sense of it."[18]

While the mechanisms of grammar suggested by classical philosophers were designed to explain
existing languages (Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit), they were not used to construct new grammars.
Roughly contemporary to Plato, in his descriptive grammar of Sanskrit, Pāṇini constructed a set of
rules for explaining language, so that the text of his grammar may be considered a mixture of
natural and constructed language.

Early constructed languages

Page 68r of the Voynich manuscript.

This three-page foldout from the
manuscript includes a chart that
appears astronomical.

A legend recorded in the seventh-century Irish work Auraicept na n-Éces claims that Fénius Farsaid
visited Shinar after the confusion of tongues, and he and his scholars studied the various languages
for ten years, taking the best features of each to create in Bérla tóbaide ("the selected language"),
which he named Goídelc—the Irish language. This appears to be the first mention of the concept of
a constructed language in literature.

The earliest non-natural languages were considered less "constructed" than "super-natural",
mystical, or divinely inspired. The Lingua Ignota, recorded in the 12th century by St. Hildegard of
Bingen, is an example, and apparently the first entirely artificial language.[14] It is a form of private
mystical cant (see also Enochian). An important example from Middle-Eastern culture is Balaibalan,
invented in the 16th century.[2] Kabbalistic grammatical speculation was directed at recovering the
original language spoken by Adam and Eve in Paradise, lost in the confusion of tongues. The first
Christian project for an ideal language is outlined in Dante Alighieri's De vulgari eloquentia, where he
searches for the ideal Italian vernacular suited for literature. Ramon Llull's Ars Magna was a project
of a perfect language with which the infidels could be convinced of the truth of the Christian faith. It
was basically an application of combinatorics on a given set of concepts.[19] During the
Renaissance, Lullian and Kabbalistic ideas were drawn upon in a magical context, resulting in
cryptographic applications.
Perfecting language

Renaissance interest in Ancient Egypt, notably the discovery of the Hieroglyphica of Horapollo, and
first encounters with the Chinese script directed efforts towards a perfect written language.
Johannes Trithemius, in Steganographia and Polygraphia, attempted to show how all languages can
be reduced to one. In the 17th century, interest in magical languages was continued by the
Rosicrucians and alchemists (like John Dee and his Enochian). Jakob Boehme in 1623 spoke of a
"natural language" (Natursprache) of the senses.

Musical languages from the Renaissance were often tied up with mysticism, magic and alchemy,
sometimes also referred to as the language of the birds. A non-mystic musical language was
Solresol.

17th and 18th century: advent of philosophical languages

The 17th century saw the rise of projects for "philosophical" or "a priori" languages, such as:

Francis Lodwick's A Common Writing (1647) and The Groundwork or Foundation laid (or So
Intended) for the Framing of a New Perfect Language and a Universal Common Writing (1652)

Sir Thomas Urquhart's Ekskybalauron (1651) and Logopandecteision[20] (1652)

George Dalgarno's Ars signorum, 1661

John Wilkins' An Essay towards a Real Character, and a Philosophical Language, 1668

These early taxonomic conlangs produced systems of hierarchical classification that were intended
to result in both spoken and written expression. Leibniz had a similar purpose for his lingua
generalis of 1678, aiming at a lexicon of characters upon which the user might perform calculations
that would yield true propositions automatically, as a side-effect developing binary calculus. These
projects were not only occupied with reducing or modelling grammar, but also with the arrangement
of all human knowledge into "characters" or hierarchies, an idea that with the Enlightenment would
ultimately lead to the Encyclopédie. Many of these 17th–18th centuries conlangs were pasigraphies,
or purely written languages with no spoken form or a spoken form that would vary greatly according
to the native language of the reader.[21]

Leibniz and the encyclopedists realized that it is impossible to organize human knowledge
unequivocally in a tree diagram, and consequently to construct an a priori language based on such a
classification of concepts. Under the entry Charactère, D'Alembert critically reviewed the projects of
philosophical languages of the preceding century. After the Encyclopédie, projects for a priori
languages moved more and more to the lunatic fringe. Individual authors, typically unaware of the
history of the idea, continued to propose taxonomic philosophical languages until the early 20th
century (e.g. Ro), but most recent engineered languages have had more modest goals; some are
limited to a specific field, like mathematical formalism or calculus (e.g. Lincos and programming
languages), others are designed for eliminating syntactical ambiguity (e.g., Loglan and Lojban) or
maximizing conciseness (e.g., Ithkuil[14]).

19th and 20th centuries: auxiliary languages

Already in the Encyclopédie attention began to focus on a posteriori auxiliary languages. Joachim
Faiguet de Villeneuve in the article on Langue wrote a short proposition of a "laconic" or regularized
grammar of French. During the 19th century, a bewildering variety of such International Auxiliary
Languages (IALs) were proposed, so that Louis Couturat and Léopold Leau in Histoire de la langue
universelle (1903) reviewed 38 projects.

The first of these that made any international impact was Volapük, proposed in 1879 by Johann
Martin Schleyer; within a decade, 283 Volapükist clubs were counted all over the globe. However,
disagreements between Schleyer and some prominent users of the language led to schism, and by
the mid-1890s it fell into obscurity, making way for Esperanto, proposed in 1887 by L. L. Zamenhof,
and its descendants. Interlingua, the most recent auxlang to gain a significant number of speakers,
emerged in 1951, when the International Auxiliary Language Association published its Interlingua–
English Dictionary and an accompanying grammar. The success of Esperanto did not stop others
from trying to construct new auxiliary languages, such as Leslie Jones' Eurolengo, which mixes
elements of English and Spanish.

Loglan (1955) and its descendants constitute a pragmatic return to the aims of the a priori
languages, tempered by the requirement of usability of an auxiliary language. Thus far, these
modern a priori languages have garnered only small groups of speakers.

Robot Interaction Language (2010) is a spoken language that is optimized for communication
between machines and humans. The major goals of ROILA are that it should be easily learnable by
the human user, and optimized for efficient recognition by computer speech recognition algorithms.

Artlangs

Artists may use language as a source of creativity in art, poetry, or calligraphy, or as a metaphor to
address themes as cultural diversity and the vulnerability of the individual in a globalized world.
Some people prefer however to take pleasure in constructing, crafting a language by a conscious
decision for reasons of literary enjoyment or aesthetic reasons without any claim of usefulness.
Such artistic languages begin to appear in Early Modern literature (in Pantagruel, and in Utopian
contexts), but they only seem to gain notability as serious projects beginning in the 20th century.[2] A
Princess of Mars (1912) by Edgar Rice Burroughs was possibly the first fiction of that century to
feature a constructed language. J. R. R. Tolkien developed families of related fictional languages
and discussed artistic languages publicly, giving a lecture entitled "A Secret Vice" in 1931 at a
congress. (Orwell's Newspeak is considered a satire of an international auxiliary language rather
than an artistic language proper.)

By the beginning of the first decade of the 21st century, it had become common for science fiction
and fantasy works set in other worlds to feature constructed languages, or more commonly, an
extremely limited but defined vocabulary which suggests the existence of a complete language, or
whatever portions of the language are needed for the story. Constructed languages are a regular
part of the genre, appearing in Star Wars, Star Trek, The Lord of the Rings (Elvish), Stargate SG-1,
Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Ar Tonelico (Hymmnos),[22][23] Game of Thrones (Dothraki language and
Valyrian languages), The Expanse, Avatar, Dune, and the Myst series of computer adventure games.

Ownership of constructed languages

The matter of whether or not a constructed language can be owned or protected by intellectual
property laws, or if it would even be possible to enforce those laws, is contentious.

In a 2015 lawsuit, CBS and Paramount Pictures challenged a fan film project called Axanar, stating
the project infringed upon their intellectual property, which included the Klingon language, among
other creative elements. During the controversy, Marc Okrand, the language's original designer
expressed doubt as to whether Paramount's claims of ownership were valid.[24][25]

David J. Peterson, a linguist who created multiple well-known constructed languages including the
Valyrian languages and Dothraki, advocated a similar opinion, saying that "Theoretically, anyone can
publish anything using any language I created, and, in my opinion, neither I nor anyone else should
be able to do anything about it."[26]

However, Peterson also expressed concern that the respective rights-holders—regardless of

whether or not their ownership of the rights is legitimate—would be likely to sue individuals who
publish material in said languages, especially if the author might profit from said material.

Furthermore, comprehensive learning material for such constructed languages as High Valyrian and
Klingon has been published and made freely accessible on the language-learning platform Duolingo
—but those courses are licensed by the respective copyright holders.[26] Because only a few such
disputes have occurred thus far, the legal consensus on ownership of languages remains uncertain.

The Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre claims ownership of palawa kani, an attempted composite
reconstruction of up to a dozen extinct Tasmanian indigenous languages, and has asked Wikipedia
to remove its article on the project. However, there is no current legal backing for the claim.[27]

Modern conlang organizations

Various papers on constructed languages were published from the 1970s through the 1990s, such
as Glossopoeic Quarterly, Taboo Jadoo, and The Journal of Planned Languages.[28] The Conlang
Mailing List was founded in 1991, and later split off an AUXLANG mailing list dedicated to
international auxiliary languages. In the early to mid-1990s a few conlang-related zines were
published as email or websites, such as Vortpunoj[29] and Model Languages. The Conlang mailing
list has developed a community of conlangers with its own customs, such as translation challenges
and translation relays,[30] and its own terminology. Sarah Higley reports from results of her surveys
that the demographics of the Conlang list are primarily men from North America and western
Europe, with a smaller number from Oceania, Asia, the Middle East, and South America, with an age
range from thirteen to over sixty; the number of women participating has increased over time.

Later online communities include the Zompist Bulletin Board (ZBB; since 2001) and the Conlanger
Bulletin Board. Discussion on these forums includes presentation of members' conlangs and
feedback from other members, discussion of natural languages, whether particular conlang
features have natural language precedents, and how interesting features of natural languages can
be repurposed for conlangs, posting of interesting short texts as translation challenges, and meta-
discussion about the philosophy of conlanging, conlangers' purposes, and whether conlanging is an
art or a hobby.[2] Another 2001 survey by Patrick Jarrett showed an average age of 30.65, with the
average time since starting to invent languages 11.83 years.[31] A more recent thread on the ZBB
showed that many conlangers spend a relatively small amount of time on any one conlang, moving
from one project to another; about a third spend years on developing the same language.[32]

Conlang creation

Most modern conlangers create conlangs as a hobby, for a fictional work, or for personal fulfillment.
Conlangers typically create languages by defining their conlang's phonology, syntax, grammar, and
other properties. Doing so requires at least a rudimentary understanding of linguistics.[33]
See also

List of constructed languages Constructed languages

portal
Interlinguistics

Aboriginal constructed languages: Damin, Eskayan

Idioglossia

Idiolect

Cant (language)

ISO, SIL, and BCP language codes for constructed languages

Language construction
Artificial script

Langmaker

Language Construction Kit

Language game

Language regulator

List of language inventors

Language modelling and translation

Knowledge representation

Language translation

Metalanguage

Universal grammar

Mystical languages
Glossolalia

Language of the birds

 Spontaneous emergence of grammar
Artificial language

June and Jennifer Gibbons

Nicaraguan Sign Language

Origin of language

Pidgin

Poto and Cabengo

Linguistic determinism

Linguistic relativity

Pasigraphy

Universal language

In the Land of Invented Languages

Notes

1. Klaus Schubert, Designed Languages for Communicative Needs within and between Language
Communities, in: Planned languages and language planning (https://www.onb.ac.at/fileadmin/
user_upload/PDF_Download/ESP_abstracts.pdf) Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/202
30425213737/https://www.onb.ac.at/fileadmin/user_upload/PDF_Download/ESP_abstracts.p
df) 25 April 2023 at the Wayback Machine (PDF), Austrian National Library, 2019

2. Sarah L. Higley: Hildegard of Bingen's Unknown Language. Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.

3. "Hungarian Central Statistical Office" (http://www.ksh.hu/nepszamlalas/tables_regional_00) .

www.ksh.hu. Retrieved 18 August 2019.

4. "18. Demográfiai adatok – Központi Statisztikai Hivatal" (https://web.archive.org/web/201806

17000434/http://www.nepszamlalas2001.hu/hun/kotetek/18/tables/load2_39_1.html) .
www.nepszamlalas2001.hu. Archived from the original (http://www.nepszamlalas2001.hu/hun/
kotetek/18/tables/load2_39_1.html) on 17 June 2018. Retrieved 10 March 2013.

5. "Kiom da esperantistoj en Ruslando? Ne malpli ol 992 – La Ondo de Esperanto" (http://sezonoj.

ru/2011/12/censo/) . 18 December 2011.

6. "The Process of Inventing Fictional Languages" (https://www.boisestate.edu/presidents-writin

g-awards/the-process-of-inventing-fictional-languages/) .
 7. François Rabelais, Œuvres complètes, III, 19 (Paris: Seuil, 1973). Also cited in Claude Piron, Le
Défi des Langues (L'Harmattan, 1994) ISBN 2-7384-2432-5.

8. Peterson, David (2015). The Art of Language Invention (1st ed.). Penguin Books. pp. 21–22.
ISBN 978-0143126461.

9. The "Conlang Triangle" (http://www.carolandray.plus.com/Glosso/Glossopoeia.html) by

Raymond Brown. Accessed 8 August 2008

10. Derian, James Der (1 August 1999). "Hollywood at War: The Sequel" (https://www.wired.com/1
999/08/hollywood-at-war-the-sequel/) . Wired – via www.wired.com.

11. Hybridity versus Revivability: Multiple Causation, Forms and Patterns (http://www.zuckermann.
org/pdf/Hybridity_versus_Revivability.pdf) , Ghil'ad Zuckermann, Journal of Language
Contact, Varia 2, pp. 40–67 (2009).

12. Let my people know! (http://fr.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1242212397385&pagename=JP

ost/JPArticle/ShowFull) Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20110916161700/http://fr.jp
ost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1242212397385&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull)
16 September 2011 at the Wayback Machine, Ghil'ad Zuckermann, Jerusalem Post, 18 May
2009.

13. Fundamenta Krestomatio, ed. L. L. Zamenhof, 1903; 18th edition with footnotes by Gaston
Waringhien, UEA 1992.

14. Joshua Foer, "John Quijada and Ithkuil, the Language He Invented" (http://www.newyorker.co
m/reporting/2012/12/24/121224fa_fact_foer) , The New Yorker, 24 December 2012.

15. "My hypothesis was that if I constructed a language designed specifically to provide a more
adequate mechanism for expressing women's perceptions, women would (a) embrace it and
begin using it, or (b) embrace the idea but not the language, say "Elgin, you've got it all wrong!"
and construct some other "women's language" to replace it." Glatzer, Jenna (2007). "Interview
With Suzette Haden Elgin" (https://web.archive.org/web/20070612005757/http://www.absolut
ewrite.com/novels/suzette_haden_elgin.htm) . Archived from the original (http://www.absolut
ewrite.com/novels/suzette_haden_elgin.htm) on 12 June 2007. Retrieved 20 March 2007.

16. Garber, Megan (16 April 2013). "The First SAT Tested Students Using a Fake Language" (http
s://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/04/the-first-sat-tested-students-using-a-fa
ke-language/275046/) . The Atlantic. Retrieved 21 June 2021.

17. "Artificial language tests" (https://whatsinabrain.wordpress.com/2013/08/26/artificial-languag

e-tests/) . What's in a Brain. 26 August 2013. Retrieved 21 June 2021.

18. Athenaeus of Naucratis. Deipnosophistae. Book III.

19. Eco, Umberto (1997). The search for the perfect language. London: Fontana. p. 53.
ISBN 9780006863786.

20. "Logopandecteision" (http://penelope.uchicago.edu/urquhart/index.html) . uchicago.edu.

21. Leopold Einstein, "Al la historio de la Provoj de Lingvoj Tutmondaj de Leibnitz ĝis la Nuna
Tempo", 1884. Reprinted in Fundamenta Krestomatio, UEA 1992 [1903].

22. game.salburg.com http://game.salburg.com/hymmnoserver/ (http://game.salburg.com/hymm

noserver/) . Retrieved 3 July 2024. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)

23. "Hymmnoserver - Main" (https://hymmnoserver.uguu.ca/) . hymmnoserver.uguu.ca. Retrieved

3 July 2024.

24. Bhana, Yusuf, Can you copyright a language? (https://www.translatemedia.com/us/blog-usa/c

an-copyright-language) Translate Media, 6 June 2019

25. Gardner, Eriq, Crowdfunded 'Star Trek' Movie Draws Lawsuit from Paramount, CBS (https://ww
w.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/crowdfunded-star-trek-movie-draws-851474) Hollywood
Reporter, 30 December 2015

26. Owen, Becky,Can you copyright a fictional language? (https://www.cla.co.uk/blog/further-educ

ation/fictional-language-copyright) Copyright Licensing Agency, 26 September 2019

27. Robertson, Adi (13 August 2014). "Can you own a language?" (https://www.theverge.com/201
4/8/13/5998273/who-owns-a-language-wikipedia-palawa-kani-raises-old-debate) . The Verge.
Retrieved 25 February 2021.

28. "How did you find out that there were other conlangers?" (http://archives.conlang.info/ge/bhae
lvhua/vhurtaethuan.html) Conlang list posting by And Rosta, 14 October 2007

29. Archives of Vortpunoj (http://revo.bierfaristo.com/vortpunoj.html) at Steve Brewer's website

30. Audience, Uglossia, and Conlang: Inventing Languages on the Internet (http://journal.media-cul
ture.org.au/0003/languages.php) by Sarah L. Higley. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture
3.1 (2000). (Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20050616085932/http://journal.media-cult
ure.org.au/0003/languages.php) 16 June 2005 at the Wayback Machine, media-
culture.org.au site sometimes has problems.)

31. "Update mailing list statistics—FINAL" (http://archives.conlang.info/bhe/gherque/chivirchein.ht

ml) , Conlang list posting by Patrick Jarrett, 13 September 2001
32. "Average life of a conlang" (http://www.spinnoff.com/zbb/viewtopic.php?t=28831) Archived
(https://web.archive.org/web/20110614035040/http://www.spinnoff.com/zbb/viewtopic.php?
t=28831) 14 June 2011 at the Wayback Machine thread on Zompist Bulletin Board, 15 August
2008; accessed 26 August 2008.
"Average life of a conlang" (http://archives.conlang.info/wu/seifi/phirqondal.html) thread on
Conlang mailing list, 27 August 2008 (should be archived more persistently than the ZBB
thread)

33. www.researchgate.net
http://web.archive.org/web/20241119023000/https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Baraat-
Faqeabdulla/publication/378315077_Exploring_the_Purposes_Behind_the_Creation_of_Conlan
gs/links/65d4745f1141586f3f513535/Exploring-the-Purposes-Behind-the-Creation-of-
Conlangs.pdf (http://web.archive.org/web/20241119023000/https://www.researchgate.net/pr
ofile/Baraat-Faqeabdulla/publication/378315077_Exploring_the_Purposes_Behind_the_Creatio
n_of_Conlangs/links/65d4745f1141586f3f513535/Exploring-the-Purposes-Behind-the-Creatio
n-of-Conlangs.pdf) . Archived from the original (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/37
8315077) on 19 November 2024. Retrieved 21 December 2024. {{cite web}}: Missing or
empty |title= (help)

a. Artificial languages are informally called conlangs (constructed languages), and the study of
artificial languages and related matters is interlinguistics.

b. Esperanto is the world's most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language.

References

Eco, Umberto (1995). The search for the perfect language (https://archive.org/details/searchforpe
rfect00ecou) . Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-17465-6.

Comrie, Bernard (1990). The World's Major Languages (https://archive.org/details/rosettaproject_

swh_misc-1) . Oxford [Oxfordshire]: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-506511-5.

Couturat, Louis (1907). Les nouvelles langues internationales. Paris: Hachette. With Léopold Leau.
Republished 2001, Olms.

Couturat, Louis (1910). Étude sur la dérivation dans la langue internationales. Paris: Delagrave. 100
p.

Libert, Alan (2000). A priori artificial languages (Languages of the world). Lincom Europa. ISBN 3-
89586-667-9.
 Okrent, Arika (2009). In the Land of Invented Languages: Esperanto Rock Stars, Klingon Poets,
Loglan Lovers, and the Mad Dreamers Who Tried to Build A Perfect Language (https://archiv
e.org/details/inlandofinvented00okre) . Spiegel & Grau. pp. 352 (https://archive.org/detai
ls/inlandofinvented00okre/page/n359) . ISBN 978-0-385-52788-0.

Peterson, David (2015). The Art of Language Invention (1st ed.). Penguin Books. p. 22. ISBN 978-
0143126461.

"Babel's modern architects" (https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2007-aug-24-sci-conlang

24-story.html) , by Amber Dance. The Los Angeles Times, 24 August 2007 (Originally
published as "In their own words -- literally")

External links

Language Creation Society (http://conlang.org/) , a nonprofit Library resources about

dedicated to all forms of language creation. Constructed language

Conlang Atlas of Language Structures (http://cals.conlang.or Resources in your library (https://

ftl.toolforge.org/cgi-bin/ftl?st=wp
g/) Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/2008061820373 &su=Constructed+language)
3/http://cals.conlang.org/) 18 June 2008 at the Wayback Resources in other libraries (http
s://ftl.toolforge.org/cgi-bin/ftl?st
Machine, a typological database of conlangs, based on the =wp&su=Constructed+language&
World Atlas of Language Structures. library=0CHOOSE0)

Blueprints For Babel (https://web.archive.org/web/20120321094315/http://www.homunculus.co

m/babel/) , focusing on international auxiliary languages.

ConWorkShop (https://conworkshop.com/) , a conlanging tools website, with documentation for

over 5000 constructed languages.

Garrett's Links to Logical Languages (http://minyeva.alkaline.org/links.htm)

Department of Planned Languages Esperanto Museum (https://web.archive.org/web/201208220

80103/http://www.onb.ac.at/ev/esperanto_museum.htm) of the Austrian National Library.

The Conlanger's Library (http://library.conlang.org)

Henrik Theiling's (Con)Language Resources (http://www.conlang.info/)

Jörg Rhiemeier's Conlang Page (http://www.joerg-rhiemeier.de/Conlang/)

Create a sentence most people understand, by using common words between languages. (http://
www.ezglot.com/meta-language.php)

r/conlangs (https://www.reddit.com/r/conlangs) , a Reddit community for conlangers.