Portal:Constructed languages

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Introduction

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

A constructed language (shortened to conlang) 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.

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, 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.

Conlang speakers are rare. For example, the Hungarian census of 2011 found 8,397 speakers of Esperanto, and the census of 2001 found 10 of Romanid, two each of Interlingua and Ido and one each of Idiom Neutral and Mundolinco. 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. (Full article...)

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Esperanto (/ˌɛspəˈræntoʊ/ or /-ˈrɑː-/; listen^ⓘ) is a constructed international auxiliary language. With an estimated two million speakers worldwide, it is the most widely spoken constructed language in the world. The Polish-Jewish ophthalmologist L. L. Zamenhof published the first book detailing Esperanto, Unua Libro, in Warsaw on July 26 [O.S. July 14] 1887. The name of Esperanto derives from Doktoro Esperanto (Esperanto translates as "one who hopes"), the pseudonym under which Zamenhof published Unua Libro. Zamenhof had three goals, as he wrote in Unua Libro:

"To render the study of the language so easy as to make its acquisition mere play to the learner."
"To enable the learner to make direct use of his knowledge with persons of any nationality, whether the language be universally accepted or not; in other words, the language is to be directly a means of international communication."
"To find some means of overcoming the natural indifference of mankind, and disposing them, in the quickest manner possible, and en masse, to learn and use the proposed language as a living one, and not only in last extremities, and with the key at hand."

According to the database Ethnologue (published by the Summer Institute of Linguistics), up to two million people worldwide, to varying degrees, speak Esperanto, including about 1000 to 2000 native speakers who learned Esperanto from birth. Find out more...

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Did you know...

...that J.R.R. Tolkien originally created his Middle-earth merely as a background for his constructed languages?
...that the earliest known constructed language, Lingua Ignota, was created by Hildegard of Bingen, who also acquired fame as a mystic, visionary, and composer of music?
...that Ill Bethisad is an alternate history project that features dozens of constructed languages?

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Several articles about constructed languages have been deleted for lack of verifiability, independent resources or notability. If you think one of the following subjects meets Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, don't hesitate dig it up from the graveyard, but don't forget to add proper references: