An artificial or constructed language (known colloquially as a conlang among aficionados), is a language whose vocabulary and grammar are specifically devised by an individual or small group, rather than having naturally evolved as part of a culture as with natural languages. Some are designed for use in human communication (usually to function as international auxiliary languages), but others are created for use in fiction, linguistic experimentation, secrecy (codes), or for the experience of doing so. Conlangers differ on whether linguistic creation of the latter kind is to be considered an art or a hobby. These languages are sometimes associated with constructed worlds.

The synonym planned language is sometimes used when referring to international auxiliary languages, and by those who may object to the more common term "artificial". Speakers of Esperanto, for example, have argued that "Esperanto is an artificial language like an automobile is an artificial horse". However, the term planned language is rarely used outside the Esperanto community.

Overview

Constructed languages are often divided into a priori languages, in which much of the grammar and vocabulary is created from scratch (using the author's imagination or automatic computational means), and a posteriori languages, where the grammar and vocabulary are derived from one or more natural languages.

Fictional and experimental languages can also be naturalistic, in the sense that they are meant to sound natural and, if derived a posteriori, they try to follow natural rules of phonological, lexical and grammatical change. Since these languages are not usually intended for easy learning or communication, a naturalistic fictional language tends to be more difficult and complex, not less (because it tries to mimic common behaviours of natural languages such as irregular verbs and nouns, complicated phonological rules, etc.).

In light of the above, most constructed languages can broadly be divided as follows:

• auxiliary languages (auxlangs) - those devised for international communication
• artistic languages (artlangs) - those devised to create aesthetic pleasure
• logical languages (loglangs) - those devised for the purpose of experimentation in logic or philosophy

A constructed language can have "native" speakers, if children learn it at an early age from parents who have learned the language. Esperanto has a considerable number of native speakers, variously estimated to be between 200 and 2000. A member of the Klingon Language Institute, d'Armond Speers, attempted to raise his son as a native (bilingual with English) Klingon speaker, but found that at that time the Klingon vocabulary was not quite large enough to express the large number of objects normally found in the home, such as "table" or "bottle".

Proponents of particular constructed languages often have many reasons for using them. Among these, the famous but disputed Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is often cited; this claims that the language one speaks influences the way in which one thinks. Thus, a "better" language should allow the speaker to reach some elevated level of intelligence, or to encompass more diverse points of view.

See also

• artificial script
• conlanger
• knowledge representation
• language academy
• Language Construction Kit
• language game
• language translation
• ontology
• Loglan
• Lojban

External links

Communities

• The CONLANG Mailing List Archives
• LiveJournal Conlangs community
• Zompist Bulletin Board - a highly active online forum devoted to conlangs (and conworlds in general)
• KutjaraWiki - a wiki, running on MediaWiki, managed by the denizens of the Zompist BBoard
• ArtLangs.com :: The ArtLangs Community - A forum and site on conlanging and conworlding

How to

• The Language Construction Kit
• How to Create a Language by Pablo David Flores , inspired by the Language Construction Kit; covers some overlooked topics
  • Cómo crear un lenguaje - Spanish language version
• Langmaker: ConLangs and neologisms forum

Link collections

• Invaluable Conlang Links
• Conlang Profiles at Langmaker.com - over 1,000 languages listed, frequently updated
• The Conlang Yellow Pages
• Blueprints For Babel
• Garrett's Links to Logical Languages

Collections of constructed language resource links

• Some Internet resources relating to constructed languages
• More Internet resources relating to constructed languages

References

• Alan Libert , A Priori Artificial Languages. Lincom Europa , Munich, 2000. ISBN 3-89586-667-9