Portal:Constructed languages
Constructed languages portal
A planned or constructed language — known colloquially or informally as a conlang — is a language whose phonology, grammar, and/or vocabulary have been consciously devised by an individual or group, instead of having evolved naturally. There are many possible reasons to create a constructed language: to ease human communication (see international auxiliary language and code); to bring fiction or an associated constructed world to life; linguistic experimentation; artistic creation; and language games.
The expression planned language is sometimes used to mean international auxiliary languages and other languages intended for actual use in human communication. Some prefer it to the more common terms "constructed", as that term may have pejorative connotations in some languages. Outside the Esperanto community, the term language planning means the prescriptions given to a natural language to standardize it; in this regard, even "natural languages" may be artificial in some respects. In the case of prescriptive grammars, where wholly artificial rules exist, the line is difficult to draw. The term "glossopoeia," coined by J. R. R. Tolkien, is also used to mean language construction, particularly construction of artistic languages.
Language of the month (February)
Quenya (pronounced [ˈkʷɛnja]) 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 Tolkien from Elfin and Qenya to the eventual Quenya. The Finnish language has been a major source of inspiration but Tolkien also knew about Latin, Greek and ancient Germanic languages when he began constructing Quenya. Another notable feature of Tolkien's Elvish language was his development of a complex internal history of characters to speak that language in their own fictional universe since he felt an aesthetic need to provide a historical background for the language itself. Find out more...
Did you know...
...that Volapük, a constructed language which once attracted thousands, now has, at most, 30 speakers?
...that Volapük nevertheless has its own Wikipedia, the Vükiped?
...that during the mid 19th century The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints briefly advocated the use by its members of the Deseret alphabet in place of the Latin one?
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