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Nov 27th 2012
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Best Conlang of All Time

A conlang is a language which was created by an individual or group.

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1

Lojban

Created by: The Logical Language Group
Conlang type: Engineered language

Lojban (pronounced locally: [ˈloʒban] ( listen)) is a constructed, syntactically unambiguous human language based on predicate logic, succeeding the project of Loglan. The name "Lojban" is a portmanteau of loj and ban, which are short forms of logji (logic) and bangu (language), respectively. Development of the language began in 1987 by The Logical Language Group (LLG), who intended to realize Loglan's purposes as well as further complement the language by making it more usable, and freely available (as indicated by its official full English name "Lojban: a realization of Loglan"). After a long initial period of debating and testing, the baseline was completed in 1998 with the publication of The Complete Lojban Language. In an interview in 2010 with the New York Times, Arika Okrent, the author of In the Land of Invented Languages, stated: "The constructed language with the most complete grammar is probably Lojban – a language created to reflect the principles of logic." The main sources of its basic vocabulary were the six (at the time [i.e. 1987]) most widely spoken languages: Mandarin, English, Hindi, Spanish, Russian, and Arabic, chosen to reduce the unfamiliarity or strangeness

6 comments

7.94

33 votes

2

Ithkuil

Ithkuil is a constructed language marked by outstanding grammatical complexity, expressed with a rich phonemic inventory or through an original, graphically structured, system of writing. The language’s author, John Quijada, presents Ithkuil as a cross between an a priori philosophical and a logical language designed to express deeper levels of human cognition overtly and clearly, particularly in regard to human categorization, yet briefly. It also strives to minimize the ambiguities and semantic vagueness found in natural human languages. The many examples from the original grammar book show that a message, like a meaningful phrase or a sentence, can usually be expressed in Ithkuil with fewer sounds, or lexically distinct speech-elements, than in natural human languages. J. Quijada deems his creation too complex and strictly regular a language to have developed “naturally”, but nonetheless a language suited for human conversation. No person is hitherto known to be able to speak Ithkuil fluently; Quijada, for one, does not. In 2004 — and again in 2009 with its offshoot, Ilaksh — Ithkuil was featured in the Russian-language popular science and IT-technology magazine Computerra. In

0 comments

7.78

18 votes

3

Toki Pona

Toki Pona is a constructed language, first published online in mid-2001. It was designed by translator and linguist Sonja Elen Kisa of Toronto. Toki Pona is a minimal language. Like a pidgin, it focuses on simple concepts and elements that are relatively universal among cultures. Kisa designed Toki Pona to express maximal meaning with minimal complexity. The language has 14 phonemes and 123 root words. It is not designed as an international auxiliary language but is instead inspired by Taoist philosophy, among other things. The language is designed to shape the thought processes of its users, in the style of the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis in Zen-like fashion. This goal, together with Toki Pona's deliberately restricted vocabulary, has led some to feel that the language, whose name literally means "simple language", "good language", or "goodspeak", resembles George Orwell's fictional language Newspeak. Sonja Elen Kisa is a translator (English, French and Esperanto) and linguist living in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. In addition to designing Toki Pona, Kisa has translated parts of the Tao Te Ching into English and Esperanto. Kisa officially uses letters of the Latin alphabet to represent

3 comments

5.91

22 votes

4

Interlingua Language

Interlingua ( /ɪntərˈlɪŋɡwə/; ISO 639 language codes ia, ina) is an international auxiliary language (IAL), developed between 1937 and 1951 by the International Auxiliary Language Association (IALA). It ranks among the top three most widely used IALs (after Esperanto and perhaps Ido), and is the most widely used naturalistic IAL: in other words, its vocabulary, grammar and other characteristics are largely derived from natural languages. Interlingua was developed to combine a simple, mostly regular grammar with a vocabulary common to the widest possible range of languages, making it unusually easy to learn, at least for those whose native languages were sources of Interlingua's vocabulary and grammar. Conversely, it is used as a rapid introduction to many natural languages. Interlingua literature maintains that (written) Interlingua is comprehensible to the hundreds of millions of people who speak a Romance language, though it is actively spoken by only a few hundred. The name Interlingua comes from the Latin words inter, meaning between, and lingua, meaning tongue or language. These morphemes are identical in Interlingua. Thus, Interlingua would be "between language", or

6 comments

7.79

14 votes

5

Basic English

Created by: Charles Kay Ogden

Basic English, also known as Simple English, is an English-based controlled language created (in essence as a simplified subset of English) by linguist and philosopher Charles Kay Ogden as an international auxiliary language, and as an aid for teaching English as a Second Language. It was presented in Ogden's book Basic English: A General Introduction with Rules and Grammar (1930). Capitalised, BASIC is sometimes taken as an acronym that stands for British American Scientific International Commercial. Ogden's Basic, and the concept of a simplified English, gained its greatest publicity just after the Allied victory in the Second World War as a means for world peace. Although Basic English was not built into a program, similar simplifications have been devised for various international uses. Ogden's associate I. A. Richards promoted its use in schools in China. More recently, it has influenced the creation of Voice of America's Special English for news broadcasting, and Simplified English, another English-based controlled language designed to write technical manuals. What survives today of Ogden's Basic English is the basic 850-word list used as the beginner's vocabulary of the

2 comments

6.69

13 votes

6

Loglan

Created by: James Cooke Brown

Loglan is a constructed language originally designed for linguistic research, particularly for investigating the Sapir–Whorf Hypothesis. The language was developed beginning in 1955 by Dr James Cooke Brown with the goal of making a language so different from natural languages that people learning it would think in a different way if the hypothesis were true. Loglan is the first among, and the main inspiration for, the languages known as logical languages, which also includes Lojban and Ceqli. Brown founded The Loglan Institute (TLI) to develop the language and other applications of it. He always considered the language an incomplete research project, and although he released many papers about its design, he continued to claim legal restrictions on its use. Because of this, a group of his followers later formed the Logical Language Group to create the language Lojban along the same principles, but with the intention to make it freely available and encourage its use as a real language. Supporters of Lojban use the term Loglan as a generic term to refer to both their own language, and Brown's Loglan, referred to as "TLI Loglan" when in need of disambiguation. Although the

2 comments

7.55

11 votes

7

Arahau

Arahau (IPA: [araˈxau̯]) is an a priori constructed language created by Russian writer Ivan Karasev in 2006. The Arahau language is polysynthetic and typologically active. This is unlike most constructed languages but not atypical of engineered languages. Each vowel designates a noun, and consonants designate grammatic formants. This system often lets Arahau produce compact speech. Arahau has been found to have similarities with Basque and Nakh-Dagestanian languages. Arahau is a minimal language. It has 26 phonemes (not including diphthongs and triphthongs) and about 100 main root words. Grammar is minimally inflected. The valency of a verb and word order determine case, because it is an active-stative language. Auxiliary formants mark constructions such as questions, negative polarity, and grammatical aspects. Arahau has a system of noun classes. They are marked by vowels (a – the humans, u – the animals, i – the plants, o – the names etc.). Arahau is inspired by natural philosophy and dualism. There are exactly two grammatical genders, tenses (realis and irrealis), grammatical numbers, personal pronouns (near and far), grammatical cases (translative case and possessive), parts of

4 comments

6.91

11 votes

8

Afrihili

Afrihili (Ni Afrihili Oluga 'the Afrihili language') is a constructed language designed in 1970 by Ghanaian historian K. A. Kumi Attobrah (Kumi Atɔbra) to be used as a lingua franca in all of Africa. The name of the language is a combination of Africa and Swahili. The author, a native of Akrokerri (Akrokɛri) in Ghana, originally conceived of the idea in 1967 while on a sea voyage from Dover to Calais. His intention was that "it would promote unity and understanding among the different peoples of the continent, reduce costs in printing due to translations and promote trade". It is meant to be easy for Africans to learn. Afrihili draws its phonology, morphology and syntax from various African languages, particularly Swahili and Akan. The lexicon covers various African languages, as well as words from many other sources "so Africanized that they do not appear foreign", although no specific etymologies are indicated by the author. However, the semantics is quite English, with many calques of English expressions, perhaps due to the strong English influence on written Swahili and Akan. For example, mu is 'in', to is 'to', and muto is 'into'; similarly, kupitia is 'through' (as in

0 comments

6.67

9 votes

9

Láadan

Created by: Suzette Haden Elgin

Láadan is a constructed language created by Suzette Haden Elgin in 1982 to test the Sapir–Whorf Hypothesis, specifically to determine if development of a language aimed at expressing the views of women would shape a culture; a subsidiary hypothesis was that Western natural languages may be better suited for expressing the views of men than women. The language was included in her science fiction Native Tongue series. Láadan contains a number of words that are used to make unambiguous statements that include how one feels about what one is saying. According to Elgin, this is designed to counter male-centered language's limitations on women, who are forced to respond "I know I said that, but I meant this". Unusually for constructed languages, Láadan is a tonal language. It utilises two distinct tones: The word "Láadan" has three syllables: "lá-" with the short vowel /a/ plus high tone; "-a" with the short vowel /a/ and no tone; and "-dan". Láadan does not allow any double [i.e., long] phonemes. Whenever two identical short vowels would occur side by side in a single morpheme, one of them has to be marked for high tone. When adding an affix would result in two identical vowels side by

0 comments

7.25

8 votes

10

Adûnaic

Created by: J. R. R. Tolkien

Adûnaic ("language of the west") is a fictional language in the fantasy works of J. R. R. Tolkien. One of the languages of Arda in Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium, it was spoken by the Men of Númenor during the Second Age. Adûnaic derived from the closely related Bëorian and Hadorian dialects of Taliska, the language spoken by the first and third houses of the Edain when they first entered Beleriand during the First Age (the language(s) of the second house, the Haladin, seems to have had little or no influence on Adûnaic whatsoever, despite the apparent presence of both the Haladin and the Drúedain in Númenor prior to its downfall). This language seems to have primarily been a creole of the Dwarvish Khuzdul and some Avarin dialects, and it is almost wholly unclear which parts (if any) of its vocabulary and structure were purely "Mannish" in origin, though the answer is probably very little (it is stated that Felagund was able to quickly master Taliska purely by determining the various changes undergone by its Avarin component from Primitive Quendian). Once the Edain settled in Beleriand, they eagerly learned Sindarin from its Grey Elven inhabitants, but retained their own

0 comments

6.50

8 votes

11

Blissymbols

Blissymbols or Blissymbolics was conceived as an ideographic writing system called Semantography consisting of several hundred basic symbols, each representing a concept, which can be composed together to generate new symbols that represent new concepts. Blissymbols differ from most of the world's major writing systems in that the characters do not correspond at all to the sounds of any spoken language. Blissymbols were invented by Charles K. Bliss (1897–1985), born Karl Kasiel Blitz in the Austro-Hungarian city of Czernowitz (at present the Ukrainian city of Chernivtsi), which had a mixture of different nationalities that “hated each other, mainly because they spoke and thought in different languages.” Bliss graduated as a chemical engineer at the Vienna University of Technology, and joined an electronics company as a research chemist. As the German Army invaded Austria in 1938, he was sent to the concentration camps of Dachau and Buchenwald. His German wife Claire managed to get him released, and they finally became exiles in Shanghai, where Bliss had a cousin. Bliss devised Blissymbols while a refugee at the Shanghai Ghetto and Sydney, from 1942 to 1949. He wanted to create an

2 comments

6.13

8 votes

12

Tutonish

Created by: Elias Molee

Tutonish (also called Teutonish, Teutonik, Allteutonish, Altutonish, Alteutonik, Nu Teutonish, Neuteutonish) is a constructed language created by Elias Molee. He worked on it for several years before publishing it for the first time in 1902. He reformed it twice, first in 1911 and under the name Allteutonish and then in 1915 under the name Neuteutonish. It was proposed as an "Anglo-German unifying language", for English and Germanic languages speaking areas, not as an international language in the full sense of the word. In creating it, Molee was clearly influenced by Giuseppe Peano but chose to create a language for Aryan people based on Germanic roots instead of Romance ones. However, he created an "inter-romance" version of his language to be used among Romance speaking people. Louis Couturat and Léopold Leau wrote, in their Histoire de la langue universelle, not very enthusiastically about Tutonish: Without criticizing the project of Monsieur Molee, he must permit as to note that he is inspired by motives absolutely opposite to human and civilization scopes of international language and to neutrality postulated in it. Tutonish had a simple phonetic pronunciation, a simple

0 comments

7.00

7 votes

13

Proto-Esperanto

Created by: L. L. Zamenhof

Proto-Esperanto (or pra-Esperanto in the language itself) is the modern term for any of the stages in the evolution of L. L. Zamenhof's language project, prior to the publication of his Unua Libro in 1887. As a child, Zamenhof had the idea to introduce an international auxiliary language for communication between different nationalities. He originally wanted to revive some form of simplified Latin or Greek, but as he grew older he came to believe that it would be better to create a new language for his purpose. During his teenage years he worked on a language project until he thought it ready for public demonstration. On December 17, 1878 (about one year before the first publication of Volapük), Zamenhof celebrated his birthday and the birth of the language with some friends, who liked the project. Zamenhof himself called his language Lingwe Uniwersala ("world language"). W is used for v. Otherwise, all modern Esperanto letters are attested apart from ĉ, ĝ, ĥ, ĵ, ŝ, ŭ. Known verb forms are present -à (commonly reported as -á), imperative -ó, infinitive -are. Nouns were marked by -e in the singular and -es in the plural; the article was singular la and plural las. It appears that

1 comments

7.67

6 votes

14

Occidental language

Created by: Edgar de Wahl

The language Occidental, later Interlingue, is a planned language created by the Balto-German naval officer and teacher Edgar de Wahl and published in 1922. Occidental is devised so that many of its derived word forms reflect the similar forms common to a number of Western European languages, primarily those in the Romance family. This was done through application of de Wahl's rule which is a set of rules for converting verb infinitives into derived nouns and adjectives. The result is a language easy to understand at first sight for individuals acquainted with several Western European languages. Coupled with a simplified grammar, this made Occidental exceptionally popular in Europe during the 15 years before World War II, and it is believed that it was at its height the fourth most popular planned language, after Volapük, Esperanto and perhaps Ido in order of appearance. But some have believed that its intentional emphasis on European forms coupled with a Eurocentric philosophy espoused by several of its leading lights hindered its spread elsewhere. Still, Occidental gained adherents in many nations including Asian nations. Before WWII it had grown to become the second largest

0 comments

7.17

6 votes

15

Quenya

Created by: J. R. R. Tolkien

Quenya (pronounced [ˈkʷwɛnja]) is a fictional language devised by J. R. R. Tolkien, and used in his Secondary world, often called Middle-earth. Quenya is one of the many Elvish languages spoken by the immortal Elves, called Quendi in Quenya. The tongue actually called Quenya was in origin the speech of two clans of Elves living in Eldamar ("Elvenhome"), the Noldor and the Vanyar. Quenya translates as simply "language", or in contrast to other tongues that the Elves met later in their long history "elf-language". In the Second Age the Wise of Númenor learned the Quenya tongue. In the Third Age, (the time of the setting of The Lord of the Rings) Quenya was no longer a living language for the Noldor of Middle-earth. Exilic Quenya was learned at an early age by all Elves of Noldorin origin, and it continued to be used in spoken and written form, but their mother-tongue was another Elven-tongue, Sindarin. Tolkien began with devising the language at around 1910 and re-structured the grammar four times until Quenya reached its final state. The vocabulary however remained relatively stable throughout the creation process. Also the name of the language itself was repeatedly changed by

0 comments

6.33

6 votes

16

Pasilingua

Created by: Paul Steiner

Pasilingua is an international auxiliary language proposed by Paul Steiner, first published in Neuwied in 1885 (although some sources claim that the year was 1886) in his book Three World Language Systems (German: Drei Weltsprach-Systeme). For a time, Pasilingua was regarded as a serious competition to Volapük, but never got much support. However, Frederick Bodmer, lauded the project and its author for its inclusion of pidgin elements; it was quoted by Louis Couturat and Leopold Leau, in their Histoire de la langue universelle, and in books of various other interlinguists at the beginning of the 20th century. The language was based on English, with influences from French and German. Its radicals had natural appearance, without much deformation, but the derivation was not natural, as it was possible to radically change the appearance of word; however, word families were formed regularly. In spite of its name, the language is not a pasigraphy because it is not an a priori language, but a posteriori/natural one, almost a euroclone. The alphabet has 31 letters: There are also two digraphs: ch and sch. The words are pronounced like in German. There are no strong syllables, much like in

0 comments

7.00

5 votes

17

Ido

Created by: Louis de Beaufront

Ido ( /ˈiːdoʊ/) is a language created to be a universal second language for speakers of diverse backgrounds. Ido was specifically designed to be grammatically, orthographically, and lexicographically regular, and above all easy to learn and use. In this sense, Ido is classified as a constructed international auxiliary language. Ido was created in 1907 out of a desire to reform perceived flaws in Esperanto, a language that had been created for the same purpose 20 years earlier. The name of the language traces its origin to the Esperanto word ido, meaning "offspring", since the language is a "descendant" of Esperanto. After its inception, Ido gained support from some in the Esperanto community, but following the sudden death in 1914 of one of its most influential proponents, Louis Couturat, it declined in popularity. There were two reasons for this: first, the emergence of further schisms arising from competing reform projects; and second, a general lack of awareness of Ido as a candidate for an international language. These obstacles weakened the movement and it was not until the rise of the Internet that it began to regain momentum. Ido uses the same 26 letters as the English

0 comments

5.83

6 votes

18

Lingua Franca Nova

Created by: C. George Boeree

Lingua Franca Nova (abbreviated LFN) is an auxiliary constructed language created by Dr.C. George Boeree of Shippensburg University, Pennsylvania. Its vocabulary is based on the Romance languages French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Catalan. The grammar is highly reduced and similar to the Romance creoles. The language has phonemic spelling, using 22 letters of either the Latin or Cyrillic scripts. Boeree began working on LFN in 1965, with the goal to create a simple, creole-like international auxiliary language. He was inspired by the Mediterranean Lingua Franca, a pidgin used in the Mediterranean in centuries past, and by creoles such as Papiamento, Haitian Creole, and Bislama. He used French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Catalan as the basis for his new language. LFN was first presented on the Internet in 1998. A Yahoo! Group was formed in 2002 by Bjorn Madsen and today has more than 250 members. Group members have contributed significantly to the further evolution of the language. Stefan Fisahn created a wiki for the language in 2005. In 2007, Igor Vasiljevic began a Facebook page, which now has over 70 members. LFN was given an ISO 639-3 designation (lfn) by SIL in

1 comments

6.80

5 votes

19

Sona language

Created by: Kenneth Searight

Sona is a worldlang created by Kenneth Searight and described in a book he published in 1935. The word Sona in the language itself means "auxiliary neutral thing", but the name was also chosen to echo "sonority" or "sound". Searight created Sona as a response to the Eurocentricity of other artificial auxiliary languages of his time, such as Esperanto and Ido. At the same time, Searight intended his language to be more practical than most a priori languages like Solresol or Ro, which were intended to be unbiased by any particular group of natural languages. Thus, Sona sacrificed familiarity of grammar and lexicon for some measure of "universality", while at the same time preserving basic notions common to grammars around the world such as compounding as a method of word formation. Searight used inspiration from many diverse languages, including English, Arabic, Turkish, Chinese and Japanese, to create his eclectic yet regular and logical language. Sona is an agglutinative language with a strong tendency towards being an isolating language. The language has 375 radicals or root words—based on the terms in Roget's original thesaurus. Ideas and sentences are formed by juxtaposing the

1 comments

8.00

4 votes

20

Earth Language

Earth Language(EL) is a visual language created by Yoshiko McFarland (born 1941). Words are conveyed through a series of 90 symbols or hand gestures, it cannot be spoken. The author believes that traditional language alone inhibits communication while visual language is a fuller, more natural way to communicate. Earth Language is intended to be a universal form of communication. The basis of the language is "fundamental ideograms" which depict basic concepts. These fundamental ideograms are combined into "complex ideograms" to convey more complicated concepts. Earth Language strives to be as simple as possible. The conveyance of ideas takes priority to all other aspects of language such as politeness. The individual has a great deal of freedom with regard to syntax. The eleven "grammatical bases," symbols conveying different attributes of grammar, as well as the use of brackets, and the shape, order and spacing of the symbols shows all grammatical aspects.

0 comments

6.60

5 votes

21

Nuwaubic

Nuwaubic (sometimes “Nubic”, “Meroitic”, “Nuwaupic”, “Nuwaupik”, or “Napata”), is a constructed language and alphabet used by the Nuwaubian students of Malachi Z. York. One source says: But another source insists that the language is not of recent invention: York wrote: York has also taught that there are revealing etymologies of English words, often at odds with scholarly consensus. For instance:

0 comments

5.50

6 votes

22

Teonaht

Created by: Sally Caves

Teonaht /ˈteɪ.oʊnɑːθ/, winner of the 2007 Smiley Award, is a constructed language that has been developed since 1962 by science fiction writer and University of Rochester English professor Sarah Higley, under the pseudonym of Sally Caves. It is spoken in the fantasy setting of the Teonim, a race of polydactyl humans who have a cultural history of worshiping catlike deities. Teonaht uses the object–subject–verb (OSV) word order, which is rare in natural languages. An interesting feature of Teonaht is that the end of the sentence is the place of greatest emphasis, as what is mentioned last is uppermost in the mind. The language has a "Law of Detachment" whereby suffixes can be moved to the beginnings of words for emphasis and even attach onto other words such as pronouns. Teonaht is often cited as an example of the genre in articles on the world of Internet-hosted amateur conlanging.

0 comments

6.75

4 votes

23

Entish

Created by: J. R. R. Tolkien

Entish is a constructed language from the fictional works of J.R.R. Tolkien. It is the language spoken by the Ents in Middle-earth. Ents are not hasty creatures; they take their time. Even their language is "unhasty". In fact, their language appears to be based on an ancient form of Common Eldarin, later enriched by Quenya and Sindarin, although it includes many unique 'tree-ish' additions. There are actually two different languages: Old Entish and "New Entish". Originally, the Ents had no "language" of their own. However the first Elves encountered the first Ents in the primeval forests of Middle-earth, not long after the dawn of both of their races. Apparently recognizing the sentience of Ents and the more "awake" trees, the Elves taught them the concept of communicating using sounds ("They always wished to talk to everything, the old Elves did" as Treebeard noted of the event). Having been cured of their "dumbness" by the Elves, the Ents developed a language of their own, described as long and sonorous, somewhat like a woodwind instrument; it was a tonal language. It is unknown if a non-Ent could even pronounce Old Entish correctly: it was filled with many subtle vowel shades

0 comments

8.00

3 votes

24

Lingua sistemfrater

Frater (lingua sistemfrater), an a posteriori international auxiliary language, published in Frater (Lingua sistemfrater). The simplest International Language Ever Constructed, in 1957 by the Vietnamese linguist Phạm Xuân Thái. The grammar can be compared to Indonesian language grammar. Pham Xuan Thai gave it more than 6,000 words for the usage of a very extensive vocabulary. This language uses 18 letters: "a, e, i, o, u" "b, d, f, g, j, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, t" - help for best pronunciation: "j" is pronounced as"z", "e" as "ei", and "o" as "ou". All the other letters have their normal pronunciation according to the International Phonetic Alphabet.

1 comments

9.50

2 votes

25

Ro

Ro is an a priori constructed language created by Rev. Edward Powell Foster beginning in 1904. In Ro, words are constructed using a category system. For example, all words starting with "bofo-" signify colors; the word for red is "bofoc", and yellow is "bofof". Foster did not simply try to design a better language in general, but to optimize his language for one design criterion: recognizability of unknown words. Foster wrote about Ro: After working on the language for about two years, Foster published the first booklet about Ro in 1906. The publication of Ro periodicals was supported by several American sponsors, especially from the Marietta, Ohio area, including Melvil Dewey, inventor of the Dewey Decimal Classification (another attempt to categorize human knowledge), Vice President Charles G. Dawes, George White, who mentioned Ro in the Congressional Record, and Alice Vanderbilt Morris of IALA. Several more books about Ro by Foster and his wife appeared over the years, as late as 1932. A common criticism of Ro is that it can be difficult to hear the difference between two words; usually one consonant makes the word different in meaning, but still similar enough that the intended

0 comments

9.50

2 votes

26

Talossan language

The Talossan language (El Glheþ Talossan) is a constructed language created by R. Ben Madison in 1980 for the micronation he founded, the Kingdom of Talossa. The Association of Talossan Language Organisations (ATLO) maintains talossan.com, a Website describing the language for new learners, providing language information, research, and online translation to and from English. Talossan is perhaps one of the best-known examples of the micronational language genre of conlang. The language is spoken and used in the Kingdom of Talossa (El Regipäts Talossan), a "constitutional monarchy" with its own parliament and a bicameral legislature, founded by Madison on December 26, 1979. Talossan is also one of the best-known artistic languages on the Internet. It garners perennial interest and respect from online conlangers and conlang aficionados. Of particular interest to them is its large vocabulary—with over 28,000 words in its official dictionary, it is one of the most detailed fictional languages ever invented. The language is overseen by the Comità per l'Útzil del Glheþ (CÚG; the Committee for the Use of the Language), a group formed in the Kingdom of Talossa by Madison in the 1980s. This

0 comments

9.50

2 votes

27

Barmoodan

Barmoodan is a constructed language created by the "Water poet", John Taylor. Taylor claims to have translated work in Barmoodan into the fictional Utopian language. In the TV series Hustle, Ash in dialogue with Albert Stroller made a reference to "Barmood" and "John Taylor".

0 comments

6.50

4 votes

28

Esperanto II

Esperanto II was a reform of Esperanto proposed by René de Saussure in 1937, the last of a long series of such proposals beginning with a 1907 response to Ido later called Antido 1. Esperanto II was one of several languages investigated by the International Auxiliary Language Association, the linguistic research body that eventually standardized and presented Interlingua. The orthography and phonology were changed to eliminate diacritics and a few of the more marginal sounds: J becomes Y, Ĵ and Ĝ conflate to J, Ŭ becomes W, Ĉ becomes CH, Ŝ becomes SH, KV becomes Q, KZ and KS become X, EJ becomes E. Several of the grammatical inflections were changed. The accusative is in -u, which replaces the final vowel of nouns, pronouns, and correlatives (ju for ĝin, tu for tion), and for the plural -n is added to both nouns and pronouns (lin "they", lina "their"). Neither suffix affects adjectives, which do not agree with their noun. The correlative series tiu, ĉiu becomes ta, cha when modifying a noun. The indefinite suffix -aŭ is replaced with adverbial -e, and the inchoative -iĝ- becomes -ev-. A large number of small grammatical words are also replaced, such as ey for kaj "and", be for ĉe

0 comments

6.50

4 votes

29

Black Speech

Created by: J. R. R. Tolkien

The Black Speech is a fictional language created by J. R. R. Tolkien. One of the languages of Arda in Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium, it was spoken in the realm of Mordor. Tolkien describes the language as being created by Sauron as an artificial language to be the sole language of all the servants of Mordor, thereby replacing the many different varieties of Orkish and other languages used by his servants. Tolkien describes the language as existing in two forms, the ancient "pure" forms used by Sauron himself, the Nazgûl, and the Olog-hai, and the more "debased" form used by the soldiery of the Barad-dûr at the end of the Third Age. For Black Speech, as for all the languages invented by Tolkien, we must distinguish two timelines of evolution: From a fan, Tolkien received a goblet with the Ring inscription on it in Black Speech. Because the Black Speech in general is an accursed language, and the Ring inscription in particular is a vile spell, Tolkien never drank out of it, and used it only as an ashtray. The Black Speech is one of the more fragmentary languages in the novels. Unlike Elvish, Tolkien did not write songs or poems in the Black Speech, apart from the One Ring

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9.00

2 votes

30

Chorukor

Created by: Václav Havel

Chorukor is a fictional artificial language featuring in Czech playwright Václav Havel's 1966 play The Memorandum (or The Memo). The play concerns the events that unfold when Ptydepe is introduced as the new official language of an unspecified organization. At the end of the play, Ptydepe is tentatively replaced by Chorukor. From Scene 11: PERINA: Of course. In Chorukor, Monday is ilopagar, Tuesday ilopager, Wednesday ilopagur, Thursday ilopagir, Friday ilopageur, Saturday ilopagoor. How do you think Sunday is in Chorukor? Hmm? (Only Kalous moves) So Kalous! KALOUS: (standing up) Ilopagor. (he sits down) PERINA: Correct, Kalous! Good point! Isn't it easy? .

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9.00

2 votes

31

Arcaicam Esperantom

Arcaicam Esperantom ("Archaic Esperanto") is a constructed language created to act as a fictional 'Old Esperanto,' in the vein of languages such as Old English or the use of Latin citations in modern texts. It was created by Manuel Halvelik as part of a range of stylistic variants including Gavaro (a slang), Popido (a patois) and a scientific vocabulary closer to Greco-Latin roots. The idea of an "old Esperanto" was proposed by the Hungarian poet Kalman Kalocsay who in 1931 included a translation of the Funeral Sermon and Prayer, the first Hungarian text (12th century), with hypothetic forms as if Esperanto were a Romance language deriving from Vulgar Latin. Ex: The modern Esperanto verb esti (to be), present tense: The Arcaicam Esperantom verb estir (to be), present tense: The other verb tenses behave the same way, as does the conditional mood: The imperative mood behaves differently to that pattern: (Note: Ali-, which in modern Esperanto is not actually a correlative despite its use in that fashion by some, becomes in Arkaika Esperanto as altri- a full-fledged correlative.)

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7.00

3 votes

32

Bolak

Created by: Léon Bollack

Bolak is a constructed language that was invented by Léon Bollack. The name of the language means both "blue language" and "ingenious creation" in the language itself. Bollack wrote three books on this language. In 1899, the first work on this language, "La Langue Bleue Bolak: langue internationale pratique", was published. In 1900, he wrote "Abridged Grammar of the Blue Language". In 1902, "Premier vocabulaire de la langue bleue Bolak" was written by Bollack Bollack caught the attention of H.G. Wells, who wrote in A Modern Utopia: The language of Utopia will no doubt be one and indivisible; all mankind will, in the measure of their individual differences in quality, be brought into the same phase, into a common resonance of thought, but the language they will speak will still be a living tongue, an animated system of imperfections, which every individual man will infinitesimally modify. Through the universal freedom of exchange and movement, the developing change in its general spirit will be a world-wide change; that is the quality of its universality. I fancy it will be a coalesced language, a synthesis of many. Such a language as English is a coalesced language; it is a

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7.00

3 votes

33

Kotava

Kotava is a proposed international auxiliary language (IAL) that focuses especially on the principle of cultural neutrality. The name means "the language of one and all," and the Kotava community has adopted the slogan "a project humanistic and universal, utopian and realistic." Kotava was invented by Staren Fetcey, who began the project in 1975, on the basis of her study of previous IAL projects. The language was first made available to the public in 1978, and two major revisions were made in 1988 and 1993. Since then, the language has stabilized, with a lexicon of more than 17,000 basic roots. In 2005, a committee of seven members was established with the responsibility of guiding the future evolution of the language. The overall goal was to create a potential IAL that was not based on a particular cultural substrate. To do this, a number of subgoals were established: As an a priori constructed language, Kotava is not related to any other language, natural or constructed. The word order is very free, but current practice leans toward Object-Subject-Verb (OSV). Kotava is written with the Latin alphabet, but doesn't use the letter Q. It uses no diacritics except for an acute

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10.00

1 votes

34

Volapük

Created by: Johann Martin Schleyer

Volapük (/ˈvɒləpʊk/; [volaˈpyk]), also Volapuk, is a constructed language, created in 1879–1880 by Johann Martin Schleyer, a Roman Catholic priest in Baden, Germany. Schleyer felt that God had told him in a dream to create an international language. Volapük conventions took place in 1884 (Friedrichshafen), 1887 (Munich) and 1889 (Paris). The first two conventions used German, and the last conference used only Volapük. In 1889, there were an estimated 283 clubs, 25 periodicals in or about Volapük, and 316 textbooks in 25 languages; at that time the language claimed nearly a million adherents. Volapük was largely displaced in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, specifically by Esperanto, Ido and Interlingua. Note: ä, ö and ü do not have alternative forms such as the ae, oe and ue of German. There are no diphthongs; each vowel letter is pronounced separately. The author Alfred A. Post mentions in his Comprehensive Volapük Grammar some additional letters created by Schleyer: Polysyllabic words are always stressed on the final vowel; for example, neai "never" is pronounced [ne.a.ˈi]. (However, the question clitic "-li" does not affect the stress of the word it attaches to.) Where

0 comments

5.75

4 votes

35

Adjuvilo

Adjuvilo is a language created in 1910 by Claudius Colas under the pseudonym of "Profesoro V. Esperema". Although it was a full language, it may not have been created to be spoken. Many believe that as an Esperantist, Colas created Adjuvilo to help create dissent in the then-growing Ido movement. Colas himself called his language simplified Ido and proposed several reforms to Ido. Colas created a nearly complete grammar, but did not create a new vocabulary. Adjuvilo uses mainly the vocabulary of Ido with modifications according to the grammatical changes of Ido. Colas in some cases reestablishes the Esperanto forms of words and even constructed some new words like sulo for "sun" (Ido//Esperanto: suno) and dago for "day" (Ido: dio, Esperanto: tago). Adjuvilo uses the same phonology and orthography as Ido. The only modification is that always the stress is always on the penultimate syllable like in Esperanto, whereas in Ido in the infinitive of the verbs the last syllable is stressed. All in all the changes to Ido were so great that Adjuvilo in fact is a new constructed language. A sample of Adjuvilo, the often-translated Pater Noster: Patro nosa, qua estan en cielos, santa esten tua

0 comments

6.33

3 votes

36

Glosa

Glosa is an international auxiliary language based on a previous draft auxiliary called Interglossa. As an isolating language, there are no inflections, so that words always remain in their dictionary form, no matter what function they have in the sentence. Consequently, grammatical functions, when not clear from the context, are taken over by a small number of operator words and by the use of word order (syntax). Glosa is based on the draft auxiliary language Interglossa devised by the scientist Lancelot Hogben in the empty hours of fire-watching in Aberdeen during World War II. Interglossa was published in 1943 as a draft of an auxiliary. Ron Clark came across the handbook of Interglossa: a draft of an auxiliary about 1960. Then he met Professor Hogben with the aim of developing the language. They worked to refine it, in order to make it more easily usable in all possible forms of communication. Wendy Ashby joined the project in 1972. When Hogben died in 1975, most changes had already been discussed. Hogben and Clark had agreed that the language should have a phonetic spelling (that is: each letter representing a single sound). This principle implied that the Greek CH, TH and PH

0 comments

6.33

3 votes

37

Spokil

Spokil is a constructed language, created by the Frenchman Adolphe Nicolas. During the 1880s, the most popular international auxiliary language was undeniably Volapük. However, after a brief period of overwhelming success, rivalry on the part of the more practical and less complicated Esperanto (published in 1887) led to a rapid decline of the Volapük movement. Many who had previously supported Volapük switched to the Esperanto camp, while others tried their best to improve or reform Volapük itself. Partially due to the inflexible attitude of Johann Martin Schleyer, the creator of Volapük, himself, this led to several schisms in the Volapük movement. As a result, a number of so-called "Volapükids" emerged, most notably Idiom Neutral, first published in 1902, and Spokil. Spokil was created by the French ship doctor from La Bourboule, Adolphe Charles Antoine Marie Nicolas (1833-?). A former partisan of Volapük, he started working on Spokil in 1890 (some sources mention 1887 instead). In 1904, he published a book about it: Spokil. Language internationale. Grammaire, exercise, les deux dictionnaires. At a conference in Paris, held in June 1907, Nicolas was allowed to defend his

0 comments

6.33

3 votes

38

Baronh

Created by: Hiroyuki Morioka

Baronh is a fictional language created by Japanese science fiction author Morioka Hiroyuki and used in Crest of the Stars and Banner of the Stars. The name Baronh means "language of the Abh". The Baronh language is derived from the ancient Japanese language, spoken until the beginning of the ninth century and recorded in Kojiki, Man'yōshū and other ancient documents. It is not precisely the ancient language itself, but a reconstructed one which is named Takamagahara language after the mythological heaven in Kojiki. In Crest of the Stars, Japanese revolutionists seeking to remove foreign influence from the Japanese language created their own "purified" version, which removed borrowed words and expressions and revived ancient ones. It was these revolutionists who established the colony that created the Abh, giving them their language. After the Abh were freed from slavery, their language quickly, in a few generations, changed into the form seen in Morioka's works of fiction. Having not been allowed to write as slaves, the Abh previously had no writing system, and that is the biggest reason why this change proceeded so swiftly. In order to write Baronh, an alphabet called Ath, which

0 comments

7.50

2 votes

39

Mondial

Mondial is an international auxiliary language created by Dr. Helge Heimer, a Swede, in the 1940s. A well-developed project, it received favourable reviews from several academic linguists but achieved little practical success. Grammars and dictionaries were published in Swedish, French, English, Italian, and German. The tonic accent in Mondial in general falls on the penultimate syllable in words that end in a vowel or s: amico, idea, il amara, amicos, ideas, doctores. on the last syllable in nouns that end with a consonant other than s: doctor, general, american. A diphthong counts as one syllable: patria, vidua, patrias, viduas, il amaria. Exceptions to this show the placing of the tonic accent with an accent: veritá, café. Verbs conjugate as follows, using savar (to know) as an example: Infinitive: -ar (savar, to know) Present participle: -ante (savante, knowing) Past participle: -ate (savate, knew) Present: -a (yo sava, I know) Imperfect: -avi (yo savavi, I knew) Simple future: -ara (yo savara, I will know) Present conditional: -aria (yo savaria, I would know) Imperative: -a (sava!, know!) Imperative plural: -amo (savamo!, let us know!) Verbs do not conjugate by person: yo, tu,

0 comments

7.50

2 votes

40

Sindarin

Created by: J. R. R. Tolkien

Sindarin is a fictional language devised by J. R. R. Tolkien, and used in his secondary world, often called Middle-earth. Sindarin is one of the many languages spoken by the immortal Elves, called the Eledhrim [ˈɛlɛðrim] or Edhellim [ɛˈðɛllim] in Sindarin. Called in English "Grey-elvish" or "Grey-elven", it was the language of the Sindarin Elves of Beleriand. These were Elves of the Third Clan who remained behind in Beleriand after the Great Journey. Their language became estranged from that of their kin who sailed over sea. Sindarin derives from an earlier form of language called Common Telerin which itself had evolved from Common Eldarin, the tongue of the Eldar before their divisions, e.g. those Elves who decided to follow the Vala Oromë and undertook the Great March to Valinor. Even before that the Eldar Elves spoke the original speech of all Elves, or Primitive Quendian. In the Third Age (the setting of The Lord of the Rings), Sindarin was the language most commonly spoken by most Elves in the Western part of Middle-earth. Sindarin is the language usually referred to as the elf-tongue or elven-tongue in The Lord of the Rings. When the Quenya-speaking Noldor returned to

0 comments

7.50

2 votes

41

Europanto Language

Created by: Diego Marani

Europanto is a macaronic language concept with a fluid vocabulary from multiple European languages of the user's choice or need. It was conceived in 1996 by Diego Marani (a journalist, author and translator for the European Council of Ministers in Brussels) based on the common practice of word-borrowing usage of many EU Languages. Marani used it in response to the perceived dominance of the English language; it is an emulation of the effect that non-native speakers struggling to learn a language typically add words and phrases from their native language to express their meanings clearly. The main concept of Europanto is that there are no fixed rules — merely a set of suggestions. This means that anybody can start to speak Europanto immediately; on the other hand, it is the speaker's responsibility to draw on an assumed common vocabulary and grammar to communicate. Marani wrote regular newspaper columns about the language and published a novel using it. As of 2005, he no longer actively promotes it. The language's name "europanto" is a portmanteau of Europa (the word for Europe in some European languages) and the Greek root πάντ- ("pant-"; in English "all", "whole") and bears an

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6.00

3 votes

42

Ptydepe

Created by: Václav Havel

Ptydepe is a fictional artificial language featuring in Czech playwright Václav Havel's 1966 play The Memorandum (or The Memo). The play concerns the events that unfold when Ptydepe is introduced as the new official language of an unspecified organization. In Czech, the word has become widely used in the meaning of incomprehensible bureaucratic jargon, or newspeak intending to hide its true meaning. Ptydepe was constructed along strictly scientific lines, with none of the messiness and ambiguity of natural languages. Havel's younger brother, computer scientist Ivan M. Havel, helped in its formulation. In order to be able to express precisely all the subtle and easily-misunderstood nuances of natural language, Ptydepe has a large, non-expandable vocabulary. Another problem of natural language that Ptydepe was intended to eliminate is the frequent similarity of unrelated words, or homonyms. To entirely avoid the possibilities for confusion that arise with homonyms and similar unrelated words, Ptydepe was created according to the postulate that all words must be formed from the least probable combinations of letters. Specifically, it makes use of the so-called "sixty percent

0 comments

6.00

3 votes

43

Rohirric

Created by: J. R. R. Tolkien

In the fictional world of Middle-earth by J. R. R. Tolkien, Rohirric (also Rohirian and Rohanese, see below) is the language of the Rohirrim of Rohan. In the novels it is always represented by Old English because Tolkien saw the relationship between Rohirric and the Common Speech to be the same as that of Old English and Modern English, which was used to represent Westron. Only a few actual Rohirric words are given by Tolkien: kûd-dûkan, an old word meaning "hole-dweller" which led to kuduk, the name the Hobbits had for themselves. Even these terms were translated in the book: "hobbit" is said to derive from the Old English word holbytla, or hole-builder. The only other Rohirric given is the element "lô–"/"loh–" corresponding to Anglo-Saxon "éo", horse, and the derived names Lôgrad for Horse-Mark, and Lohtûr for Éothéod, horse-people, or horse-land. Coincidentally, the Rohirric word for horse is an exact homonym of the Hungarian word for horse, ló. All names beginning with Éo– are actually names beginning with Lô– or Loh–, but the real forms of Éomer, Éowyn etc. are not given. Only one proper name is given, that of Théoden: the actual form was Tûrac, which shows that Rohirric had

0 comments

6.00

3 votes

44

Kalaba-X

Created by: Kenneth L. Pike

Kalaba-X is a simple constructed language created by the American linguist Kenneth L. Pike to help with the teaching of translation techniques. Each sentence in Kalaba-X has a fixed structure, consisting of three sentence parts: verb, object, subject, or more exactly, predicate (affirmation or assertion of a general status fact or occurring event), object (that indicates or restricts where the action applies or takes place, or allows qualifying it more precisely), subject (any triggering condition under which the fact can occur, and without which the predicate would not have occurred). Under such definition, the grammatical structure of other languages can be more easily compared between each other, using Kalaba-X as a formal intermediate language for studying the language semantic (for example, this theoretical model does not define a grammatical difference between a noun and a verb, or between a verb and an adjective, as it is found in most European languages, because most nouns or adjectives of European languages can also be a predicate by themselves). Each of these three parts, which are linked semantically rather than grammatically, can be modified. By focusing on the semantic

0 comments

7.00

2 votes

45

Solresol

Created by: François Sudre

Solresol is a constructed language devised by François Sudre, beginning in 1827. His major book on it, Langue musicale universelle, was published after his death in 1866, though he had already been publicizing it for some years. Solresol enjoyed a brief spell of popularity, reaching its pinnacle with Boleslas Gajewski's 1902 posthumous publication of Grammaire du Solresol. The teaching of sign languages to the deaf was discouraged between 1880 and 1991 in France, contributing to Solresol's descent into obscurity. After a few years of popularity, Solresol nearly vanished in the face of more successful languages, such as Volapük and Esperanto. There is still a small community of Solresol enthusiasts scattered across the world, better able to communicate with one another now more than before thanks to the Internet. Solresol words are made up of from one to five syllables or notes. Each of these may be one of only seven basic phonemes, which may in turn be accented or lengthened. There is another phoneme, silence, which is used to separate words: words cannot be run together as they are in English. The phonemes can be represented in a number of different ways – as the seven musical

1 comments

5.67

3 votes

46

Universalglot

Universalglot is an a posteriori international auxiliary language published by the French linguist Jean Pirro in 1868 in Tentative d'une langue universelle, Enseignement, grammaire, vocabulaire. Predating Volapük by a decade and Esperanto by nearly 20 years, Universalglot has been called the first "complete auxiliary-language system based on the common elements in national languages". In his book describing his own language project Novial, Otto Jespersen praised the language, writing that it is "one to which I constantly recur with the greatest admiration, because it embodies principles which were not recognized till much later". Pirro gave it more than 7,000 basic words and numerous prefixes, enabling the development of a very extensible vocabulary. This language uses 26 letters: The letters whose pronunciation differs from their pronunciation in English are: Nouns (substantives) are invariable except for the feminine form, which ends in "in". Adjectives are completely invariable E.g. (singular): El old man, el old manin. E.g. 2 (plural): Li old man, Li old manin. All words can be used as nouns with the help of an article. Only articles and pronouns have separate singular and

0 comments

5.67

3 votes

47

Westron

Created by: J. R. R. Tolkien

Westron, or the Common Speech, is a fictional language in the fantasy works of J. R. R. Tolkien. Westron is the closest thing to a lingua franca in Middle-earth, at least at the time during which The Lord of the Rings is set. "Westron" is an invented English word, derived from West. It is not a word from the language itself. The Westron speech is derived from contact between the Adûnaic tongue of Númenor, and the languages of the western coastlands of the continent of Middle-earth, when the Númenóreans began to establish trade outposts and forts there. When the Edain, forefathers of the Númenóreans (the Dunedain), first entered Beleriand in the First Age, they spoke two different languages, of which Taliska was the predecessor of Adûnaic. Of the Three Houses of the Edain, the House of Haleth spoke Haladin, while the House of Bëor and House of Hador both spoke Taliska. The Bëorian dialect of Taliska was slightly different from the Hadorian dialect (though not an outright separate language), but in any case, the House of Bëor was practically destroyed after the Dagor Bragollach, about a century and a half before the end of the First Age. The few surviving women and children of the

0 comments

5.67

3 votes

48

Novial

Novial [nov- ("new") + IAL, International Auxiliary Language] is a constructed international auxiliary language (IAL) intended to facilitate international communication and friendship, without displacing anyone's native language. It was devised by Professor Otto Jespersen, a Danish linguist who was previously involved in the Ido movement, and subsequently in the development of Interlingua. Its vocabulary is based largely on the Germanic and Romance languages and its grammar is influenced by English. Novial was first introduced in Jespersen's book An International Language in 1928. It was updated in his dictionary Novial Lexike in 1930, and further modifications were proposed in the 1930s, but the language became dormant with Jespersen's death in 1943. In the 1990s, with the revival of interest in constructed languages brought on by the Internet, some people rediscovered Novial. Novial was first described in Jespersen’s book An International Language (1928). Part One of the book discusses the need for an IAL, the disadvantages of ethnic languages for that purpose, and common objections to constructed IALs. He also provides a critical overview of the history of constructed IALs with

0 comments

6.50

2 votes

49

Klingon language

Created by: Marc Okrand

The Klingon language (tlhIngan Hol, pronounced /ˈt͡ɬɪŋɑn xol/) is the constructed language spoken by the fictional Klingons in the Star Trek universe. Deliberately designed by Marc Okrand to be "alien", it has a number of typologically uncommon features. The language's basic sound, along with a few words, was first devised by actor James Doohan ("Scotty") for Star Trek: The Motion Picture. That film marked the first time the language had been heard on screen. In all previous appearances, Klingons spoke in English. Klingon was subsequently developed by Okrand into a full-fledged language. Klingon is sometimes referred to as Klingonese (most notably in the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "The Trouble With Tribbles", where it was actually pronounced by a Klingon character as "Klingonee" /klɪŋɡoni/) but, among the Klingon-speaking community, this is often understood to refer to another Klingon language called Klingonaase that was introduced in John M. Ford's 1988 Star Trek novel The Final Reflection, and appears in other Star Trek novels by Ford. A shorthand version of Klingonaase, and later with the same term adopted by tlhIngan Hol itself, is called "battle language", or

0 comments

5.33

3 votes

50

Neo

Created by: Arturo Alfandari

Neo is an artificially constructed international auxiliary language created by Arturo Alfandari, a Belgian diplomat of Italian descent. The language combines features of Esperanto, Ido, Novial and Volapük. The root base of the language and grammar (in contrast to that of Esperanto and Ido) are closely related to that of the English language. The first draft was published in 1937 by Arturo Alfandari but attracted wider 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 grammar, learning course of 44 lectures, translations of literary works (poetry and prose), original Neo literature, scientific and technical texts, idioms, detailed bidirectional French and English dictionaries. The total volume of the publications was 1304 pages, with dictionaries numbering some 75 000 words. Such a degree of details was unprecedented among constructed languages of the time. The language stands in the tradition of international auxiliary languages such as 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

0 comments

5.33

3 votes

51

Taliska

Created by: J. R. R. Tolkien

Taliska is a constructed language devised by J. R. R. Tolkien. It is one of the many fictional languages set in his secondary world, often called Middle-earth. Taliska was based on the Gothic language. Gothic was an early interest of Tolkien. A grammar and a lexicon of Taliska are known to exist, but as of 2011 they have not been published. In Middle-earth, Taliska, when first devised, was the language spoken by Men of the houses of Bëor and Hador. Adûnaic, the language of Númenor, later displaced Taliska. During the writing of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien toyed with the idea of making Taliska the primordial tongue of the people of Rohan who spoke Old English in his translated setting of The Lord of the Rings.

0 comments

6.00

2 votes

52

Babm

Babm (pronounced [bɔʔɑbɔmu]) is an international auxiliary language created by the Japanese philosopher Rikichi [Fuishiki] Okamoto (1885–1963). Okamoto first published the language in a 1962 book, but the language has not caught on even within the constructed language community, and does not have any known current speakers. The language uses the Latin script as an abjad: each letter marks an entire syllable rather than a single phoneme by omitting the vowels. To readers used to the Latin script, this creates a rather oddly compacted script with far more consonant letters than vowel letters. The language has in common with some 17th century artificial languages an over-riding concern with Taxonomy, and providing a universally consistent set of names for chemicals, etc.; the author's "scientific" preoccupation is a contrast to the socio-political mandate of Esperanto, although the 1962 book is certainly not lacking in statements about world peace. [Babm:] V pajio ci htaj, lrid cga coig pegayx pe bamb ak cop pbagt. [English:] I am reading this book, which is very interestingly written in Babm by a predominant scholar. [Babm:] Dedh cjis beg kobp. [English:] Time causes youth to be

0 comments

7.00

1 votes

53

Valarin

Created by: J. R. R. Tolkien

Valarin is a fictional language in the fantasy works of J. R. R. Tolkien. One of the languages of Arda in Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium, Valarin is the language spoken by the Valar or gods. As spiritual immortal beings the Valar have the ability to communicate through thought, and strictly speaking they had no need for a spoken language, but it appears that it was adopted as part of their assumption of physical, humanlike forms. Valarin was extremely alien to the ears of the Elves, sometimes to the point of genuine displeasure, and very few of them ever learned the language, only adopting some of the Valarin words into their own Quenya. The Valar knew Quenya, and used that to converse with the Elves, or with each other if Elves were present. Valarin seemed to use long words; for example, the Valarin word for Telperion, Ibrîniðilpathânezel, is eight syllables long. At the same time the language contained an unusually high number of distinct sounds. The Vanyar adopted more words from Valarin into their dialect Quendya than the Noldor, as they lived closer to the Valar. Some of the Elven names of the Valar—such as Manwë, Ulmo, and Oromë—were supposed to be modified (and

0 comments

7.00

1 votes

54

Poliespo

Poliespo (Polisinteza Esperanto) is an extension of Esperanto using Cherokee words, created by Billy Ray Waldon (also known as Nvwtohiyada Idehesdi Sequoyah). Nvwtohiyada believed that certain languages contained (to use his term) "lightning words," or phrases that speed up or clarify thought. Poliespo was an attempt to combine these 'lightning words' into one language. Most of Poliespo comes from Cherokee, English, Esperanto, and Spanish, the languages that Nvwtohiyada could speak. The philosophy behind the language is reminiscent of sound symbolism or phonosemantics, and therefore radically differs from the principles of Esperanto. Alphabet: a, â, á, ấ, b, b̆, c, ĉ, d, e, ê, f, g, ĝ, h, ĥ, i, ĭ, ĭ:, ĭ́, î, î:, î́, j, ĵ, k, k̆, l, m, m̆, n, n̆, o, ô, p, pʷ (actually, an overstruck ʷ), s, ŝ, t, t̑, ť, u, û, ŭ, v, z, z̑, z̆, q, q́, q̑, q̑́, w, ẃ, ŵ, ŵ́, x, x́, y, 2, 2́. The sound values of these are not well explained. It appears that the vowels a, e, i, o, u are as in Esperanto. A circumflex vowel is nasal. Ĭ is [ɪ] as in English 'ship', î is nasal ĭ. The vowel q sounds "like the ir of English 'girl'". W is "like the sound in awful, law", and ŵ is nasal w. X is schwa; its nasal

0 comments

5.50

2 votes

55

Atlantean language

Created by: Marc Okrand

The Atlantean language is a constructed language created by Marc Okrand for Disney's film Atlantis: The Lost Empire. The language was intended as a possible "mother language" and was therefore crafted to include a vast Indo-European word stock with its very own grammar, which is at times described as highly agglutinative, inspired in Sumerian and North American languages. The decision of this language being a possible "mother language" was actually a decision made by the script-writers of the movie, and not by Marc Okrand himself, who followed this presumption upon its creation. The Atlantean language (Dig Adlantisag) is a historically constructed, artistic language put together by Marc Okrand for Disney’s 2001 film Atlantis: The Lost Empire and associated media, The Atlantean language is therefore based both on historic reconstructions or realities as well as on the elaborate fantasy/science fiction of the Atlantis: The Lost Empire mythos. Here are the fictional bases upon which the Atlantean language was created: Atlantean is the “Tower of Babel language”, the “root dialect” from which all languages descended. It has existed without change since sometime before 100,000 B.C.,

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56

Gargish

Created by: Herman Miller

Gargish is the fictional language used by the gargoyle race in the Ultima computer game series. It is also the language used in magic spellcasting within the game. The language is remarkably complex for one that arose out of a game. However, the vocabulary is prohibitively small, limiting its use. The Gargish language has its own alphabet, although it can also be written in the Latin alphabet. The language is very flexible. The difference between noun, verb, and adjective is expressed through intonations and gestures. Because of this, written Gargish uses suffixes to denote part of speech, grammatical tense, and grammatical aspect. In some cases, these suffixes are also used as independent words. Gargoyles avoid using pronouns or verb tense unless it is crucial to comprehension; therefore the language is often spoken in the infinitive. Note that this the same language is used for the mantras of Virtue, and for the words of power for magic. For instance, "Kal" means "invoke", and "An" is a word of negation.

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57

Noxilo language

Noxilo (Japanese: ノシロ語 [noɕiɽoɡo]) is an international auxiliary language, created by Mizuta Sentaro (水田扇太郎 mizuta sentarō). In 1997 he published a book outlining the language, and presented it on his website. He claims it was created to address the alleged problems of several constructed languages, including; being based mostly on European languages, racism, and sexism. However, speakers may use as many words from their native language as they wish, making Noxilo potentially unintelligible to anyone who does not speak their language. A good illustration of the many origins of the words lie in the numbers. Below is a chart that displays a number, its pronunciation, and origin. There are two forms of the Noxilo script: one using Latin letters, and one derived from Latin letters. In the Latin form of the alphabet uppercase and lowercase letters are treated as separate letters: Uppercase letters are syllables unless a vowel follows; lowercase (there are only two) are simple consonants. The original script is similar to kana in that voiced consonants are derived from their unvoiced homologues (by adding a stroke), and there is a special letter for a syllable-final nasal. Sentences in

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58

Idiom Neutral

Created by: Waldemar Rosenberger

Idiom Neutral is an international auxiliary language, published in 1902 by the International Academy of the Universal Language (Akademi Internasional de Lingu Universal) under the leadership of Waldemar Rosenberger, a St. Petersburg engineer. The Academy had its origin as the Kadem bevünetik volapüka (literally 'International Academy of the World Language') at a congress in Munich in August 1887, was set up to conserve and perfect the auxiliary language Volapük. Under Rosenberger, who became the Academy’s director in 1892, the group began to make considerable changes in the grammar and vocabulary of Volapük, changing its nature into an entirely different language. The vocabulary was almost completely replaced by words more closely resembling those used in Western European languages, and a number of grammatical forms unfamiliar to Western Europeans were discarded. It was understood that the changes effectively resulted in the creation of a new language, which was named “Idiom Neutral” (which means “the neutral idiom” or “the neutral language”). The name of the Academy was changed to Akademi Internasional de Lingu Universal in 1898 and the circulars of the Academy were written in the

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4.50

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59

AUI

aUI, The Language of Space, is a proposed international language created during the 1950s by W. John Weilgart, PhD (March 9, 1913 - January 26, 1981), a philologist and psychoanalyst originally from Vienna, Austria. Weilgart's motivation for inventing the language was to create a form of communication based on what he proposed to be universal, basic elements of human thought and expression, that presented meaning in a straightforward and logical manner. aUI was not only taught by Weilgart, but also utilized as part of his psychotherapy work. As aUI is not based on languages that existed at the time of its design, it is classified as "a priori" and has been classified a philosophical language due to the underlying principles of the language. As a young man, Weilgart observed how Hitler's alliterative slogans (examples below), shouted threateningly over loudspeakers and radio into the despairing masses, had the power to focus frustration and hatred onto a scapegoat race. The influence of the (Nationalsocialist) Nazi propaganda machine was pervasive, targeting every level of German society, and based on millennia-old European history of anti-semitism. Language was intentionally

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4.00

1 votes

60

Na'vi language

Created by: Paul Frommer
Conlang type: Fictional language

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61

Khuzdul

Created by: J. R. R. Tolkien

Khuzdul is a constructed language devised by J. R. R. Tolkien. It is one of the many fictional languages set in his Secondary world, often called Middle-earth. It was the secret language of the dwarves. Tolkien noted some similarities between Dwarves and Jews: both were "at once natives and aliens in their habitations, speaking the languages of the country, but with an accent due to their own private tongue…". Tolkien also commented of the Dwarves that "their words are Semitic obviously, constructed to be Semitic." Tolkien based Dwarvish language on the Semitic languages. Like these, Khuzdul has triconsonantal roots: kh-z-d, b-n-d, z-g-l. Also other similarities to Hebrew in phonology and morphology have been observed. Although only a very limited vocabulary is known, Tolkien mentioned that he had developed the language to a certain extension. It is unknown whether such writings still exist. In the fictional setting of Middle-earth, little is known of Khuzdul (once written Khuzdûl), for the Dwarves kept it secret, except for place names and a few phrases such as their battle-cry: Baruk Khazâd! Khazâd ai-mênu! meaning Axes of the Dwarves! The Dwarves are upon you!. This secrecy

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62

Mundolinco

Mundolinco is a constructed language created by the Dutch author J. Braakman in 1888. It is notable for apparently being the first Esperantido, i.e. the first Esperanto derivative. Major changes from Esperanto include combining the adjective and adverb with the grammatical ending -e (where Esperanto uses -a for adjectives and -e for adverbs), changes to the verb conjugations, an increase in the number of Latin roots, and new affixes such as the superlative suffix -osim- where Esperanto uses the particle plej. It seems there was no accusative or adjectival agreement. Numerals 1–10: un, du, tres, cvarto, cvinto, siso, septo, octo, nono, desem. There are no diacritics in the alphabet.

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Joël Landais 10th of March 2015

Why isn't Uropi listed among the conlangs ?

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