List of constructed languages

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The following list of notable constructed languages is divided into auxiliary, ritual, engineered, and artistic (including fictional) languages, and their respective subgenres. All entries on this list have further information on separate Wikipedia articles.

Auxiliary languages[]

International auxiliary languages are languages constructed to provide easy, fast, and/or improved communication among all human beings, or a significant portion, without necessarily replacing native languages.

Name ISO Origin Creator Description
Solresol 1827 François Sudre Based on pitch levels sounded with their solfege syllables (a "musical language") although no knowledge of music is required to learn it.
Communicationssprache 1839 Joseph Schipfer Based on French.
Universalglot 1868 Jean Pirro An early a posteriori language, predating even Volapük.
Volapük vo, vol 1879–1880 Johann Martin Schleyer First to generate international interest in IALs.
Esperanto eo, epo 1887 L. L. Zamenhof The most popular auxiliary language ever invented, including, possibly, up to two million speakers, the highest ever for a constructed language and the only one to date to have its own native speakers (approximately 1,000).[1]
Spokil 1887 or 1890 An a priori language by a former Volapük advocate.
Mundolinco 1888 The first Esperantido.
Bolak, "Blue Language" 1899 Léon Bollack Prospered fairly well in its initial years; now almost forgotten.
Idiom Neutral 1902 Waldemar Rosenberger A naturalistic IAL by a former advocate of Volapük.
Latino sine Flexione la-peano 1903 Giuseppe Peano "Latin without inflection", it replaced Idiom Neutral in 1908.
Ro 1904 Rev. Edward Powell Foster An a priori language using categories of knowledge.
Ido io, ido 1907 A group of reformist Esperanto speakers The most successful offspring of Esperanto.
Adjuvilo 1910 Claudius Colas An Esperantido some believe was created to cause dissent among Idoists.
Interlingue ie, ile 1922 Edgar de Wahl A sophisticated naturalistic IAL, also known as Occidental.
Novial nov 1928 Otto Jespersen Another sophisticated naturalistic IAL by a famous Danish linguist.
Sona 1935 Kenneth Searight Agglutinative language with universal vocabulary. Its 360 radicals can be combined to form new words.
Esperanto II 1937 René de Saussure Last of linguist Saussure's many Esperantidos.
Mondial 1940s Naturalistic European language.
Interglossa igs 1943 Lancelot Hogben It has a strong Greco-Latin vocabulary.
Blissymbols zbl 1949 Charles Bliss An ideographic writing system, with its own grammar and syntax.
Interlingua ia, ina 1951 International Auxiliary Language Association A major effort to systematize the international scientific vocabulary. It aims to be immediately comprehensible by Romance language speakers and to some extent English speakers.
Intal 1956 An effort to unite the most common systems of constructed languages.
Romanid 1956 A zonal constructed language based on the Romance languages.
Lingua sistemfrater 1957 Greco-Latin vocabulary with southeast Asian grammar.
Neo neu 1961 Arturo Alfandari A very terse Esperantido.
Babm 1962 Notable for using Latin letters as a syllabary.
Guosa 1965 Made for use in West Africa.
Arcaicam Esperantom eo-arkaika 1969 'Archaic Esperanto', developed to produce an archaic effect in Esperanto literature.
Afrihili afh 1970 A pan-African language.
Eurolengo 1972 Combines elements of English and Spanish.
Glosa 1975 Ronald Clark and Wendy Ashby An evolution of Interglossa.
Kotava avk 1978 Staren Fetcey A sophisticated a priori IAL focused on cultural neutrality.
Uropi 1986 Joël Landais Based on the common Indo-European roots and the common grammatical points of the IE languages.
Poliespo 1990s? Nvwtohiyada Idehesdi Sequoyah Esperanto grammar with significant Cherokee vocabulary.
Romániço 1991 Anonymous Vocabulary is derived from common Romance roots.
Europanto 1996 Diego Marani A "linguistic jest" by a European diplomat.
Unish 1996 Vocabulary from fifteen representative languages.
Lingua Franca Nova lfn 1998 C. George Boeree and others Romance vocabulary with creole-like grammar.
Slovio 1999 Mark Hučko A constructed language based on the Slavic languages and Esperanto grammar.
Slovianski 2006 Ondrej Rečnik, Gabriel Svoboda, Jan van Steenbergen, Igor Polyakov A naturalistic language based on the Slavic languages.
Sambahsa-Mundialect 2007 Olivier Simon Mixture of simplified Proto-Indo-European and other languages.
Neoslavonic 2009 Vojtěch Merunka A modernized form of Old Church Slavonic.
Lingwa de planeta 2010 Dmitri Ivanov Worldlang based on Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Hindi, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.
Interslavic 2011-2017 Jan van Steenbergen, A Pan-Slavic zonal constructed language, the result of the merger of Slovianski and Neoslavonic.

Controlled languages[]

Controlled natural languages are natural languages that have been altered to make them simpler, easier to use, or more acceptable in certain circumstances, such as for use by people who do not speak the original language well. The following projects are examples of controlled English:

Name Origin Creator Comments
Basic English 1925 Charles Kay Ogden Seek to limit the language to a given list of common-use words and terms in order to make it simpler to foreign learners or other people who may have difficulties.
Special English 1959 Voice of America
Globish 2004 Jean-Paul Nerrière
E-Prime 1940s D. David Bourland Jr. Eliminates the verb to be with the intent of making writing more expressive and accurate.
Simplified Technical English 1983 European Association of Aerospace Industries Seeks to largely reduce the complexity and ambiguity of technical texts such as manuals.
Parallel English 1998 Madhukar Gogate A constructed language, which is based on, but independent of, English.
Plain English Various Proposes a more direct, short, clear language by avoiding many idioms, jargon and foreign words.

Visual languages[]

Visual languages use symbols or movements in place of the spoken word. Constructed sign languages also fall in this category.

Name ISO Origin Creator Comments
Blissymbols zbl 1949 Charles K. Bliss Based on an ideographic writing system.
Gestuno ils 1970s Jasin Maloku International sign language.


Ritual languages[]

These are languages in actual religious use by their communities or congregations.

Name ISO Origin Creator Comments
Eskayan esy c. 1920–1940 Mariano Datahan Grammatically based on the Boholano dialect of Cebuano.
Medefaidrin 1930s Obɛri Ɔkaimɛ church Used by this Nigerian Christian church; said to be of sacred origin.
Damin unknown the Lardil people Created by native speakers of Lardil; only click language outside Africa.

Engineered languages[]

Engineered languages are devised to test a hypothesis or experiment with innovative linguistic features. They may fall into one or more of three categories: philosophical, experimental and logical.

Name ISO Origin Creator Description
Logopandecteision 1653 Sir Thomas Urquhart Suggestions toward a taxonomic language of great complexity.
Unnamed language 1668 John Wilkins Detailed suggestions for a symbolic language capable of philosophical precision.
Isotype 1925–1934 Otto Neurath et al. A pictographic language.
Loglan 1955 James Cooke Brown Created to test the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis; the inspiration for Lojban.
aUI 1962 W. John Weilgart Each phoneme is also a morpheme and a sememe, so that a single word can express a complex idea.
Ithkuil 1978–2011 John Quijada Complex language designed to express deeper meanings briefly and clearly.
Láadan ldn 1982 Suzette Haden Elgin A tonal language oriented towards women; created to test if natural languages are biased towards men.
Lojban jbo 1987 Logical Language Group Logical and syntactically unambiguous language; successor of Loglan.
Toki Pona 2001 Sonja Lang Minimalist language with small vocabulary which reflects Taoist philosophy.[citation needed]
Kēlen 2009 Sylvia Sotomayor An alien language that attempts to eliminate verbs, which would violate a universal feature among natural human languages.

Others[]

Name Origin Creator Description
Lincos 1960 Hans Freudenthal Designed to be understandable by any possible intelligent extraterrestrial life, for use in interstellar radio transmissions.
Attempto Controlled English 1995 University of Zurich A controlled natural language that is also a knowledge representation language.[2]
Mänti 2006 Daniel Tammet An invented language that uses some Finnic words and grammar.

Artistic/fictional languages[]

Languages used in fiction[]

Comic books[]

Name Work Origin Creator Description
Syldavian The Adventures of Tintin, mostly in King Ottokar's Sceptre 1938–39 Hergé Fictional West Germanic language of Syldavia, a Balkan kingdom.
Bordurian The Adventures of Tintin, mostly in The Calculus Affair 1954–56 Hergé Language of Borduria, a country bordering Syldavia.
Interlac Legion of Superheroes 1973 Cary Bates Common language in the 30th century.

Constructed by J. R. R. Tolkien[]

Further information: Languages constructed by J. R. R. Tolkien

Tolkien's most prominent languages are:

Film[]

See also: Languages in Star Wars
Name Work Origin Creator Description
Klingon Star Trek 1979–present Marc Okrand
Tenctonese Alien Nation film and television series 1988 Van Ling, Kenneth Johnson
Atlantean Atlantis: The Lost Empire 2001 Marc Okrand
Ku The Interpreter 2005 Said el-Gheithy Fictional African language.
Na'vi Avatar 2009 Paul Frommer Spoken by the Na'vi.
Barsoomian John Carter 2012 Paul Frommer, Edgar Rice Burroughs Language of the Martians.
Kiliki Baahubali 2015 Madhan Karky Spoken by the Kalakeyas.[3]
Interslavic The Painted Bird 2019 Jan van Steenbergen & Unspecified Slavic language spoken by the village people.[4]
Beama Alpha 2016 Upper Paleolithic, 20ka

Games[]

Name Work Origin Creator Description
Tsolyani Empire of the Petal Throne 1940s M. A. R. Barker Language of the world of Tékumel as described in this roleplaying game.
Gargish Ultima series 1981–2013 Language of the gargoyle race.
D'ni Myst series 1993–2005 Cyan Worlds Language spoken by the subterranean D'ni people.
Hymmnos Ar tonelico 2006–2010 Language of Ar Ciel, used in dialogues and lyrics of the songs and as a decorative element.[5]

Internet-based[]

Name Origin Creator Description
Teonaht 1962 Sally Caves Language of the Teonim, a race of polydactyl humans who have a cultural history of worshiping catlike deities.
Verdurian and others 1995 Mark Rosenfelder Spoken in the country Verduria of planet Almea.
Dritok 2007 Don Boozer Spoken by the Drushek, a large-eared, long-tailed race without vocal cords that lives in the continent Kryslan.

Music[]

Name Origin Creator Description
Kobaïan 1970s Christian Vander Used by French rock group Magma.
Loxian 2005 Roma Ryan Used on Enya's 2005 album Amarantine and 2015 album Dark Sky Island.
Moss 2009 Jackson Moore A language with a musical phonology, modeled on pidgins.

Television[]

Name Work Origin Creator Description
Vulcan Star Trek: The Original Series 1966–69 Further developed by fans as Golic Vulcan.
Pakuni Land of the Lost television series and film 1974 The language of the Pakuni.
Goa'uld Stargate SG-1 1997–2007 A galactic lingua franca which supposedly influenced Ancient Egyptian.
Enchanta Encantadia and Etheria television series 2005 Suzette Doctolero Spoken by the denizens of Encantadia, known as Encantado(s)/Encantada(s) or Diwata (fairies).
The Valyrian languages and Dothraki Game of Thrones 2011–2019 David J. Peterson
Trigedasleng The 100 2014–2020 David J. Peterson
Romulan Star Trek: Picard 2019

Other literature[]

Name Work Origin Creator Description
Spocanian 1962 Rolandt Tweehuysen Language of Spocania.
Utopian Utopia 1516 Thomas More, Peter Gillis Constructed language created for the residents of More's fictional nation of Utopia; one of the first attempts at a constructed language.
Zaum 1913 Velimir Khlebnikov, Aleksei Kruchonykh et al. Poetic tongue elaborated by these Russian Futurists as a "transrational" and "most universal" language "of songs, incantations, and curses."
Newspeak Nineteen Eighty-Four 1949 George Orwell A form of controlled English created by an authoritarian government to gradually reduce the capability of human thought, thus preventing rebellion.
Nadsat slang A Clockwork Orange 1962 Anthony Burgess A register of Russian-influenced English used by teenagers.
Lapine Watership Down 1972 Richard Adams Spoken by rabbits.
Láadan (ldn) Native Tongue and sequels 1984 Suzette Haden Elgin Spoken by women.
Baronh Seikai no Monshō (Crest of the Stars) and others 1996 Morioka Hiroyuki Language of Abh in and others.

Alternative languages[]

Some experimental languages were developed to observe hypotheses of alternative linguistic interactions which could have led to very different modern languages. The following two examples were created for Ill Bethisad, an alternate history project.

Name Origin Creator Description
Brithenig 1996 Andrew Smith A Romance language that replaced native Celtic languages in Great Britain instead of the Germanic Anglo-Saxon.
Wenedyk
(Venedic) 		2002 Jan van Steenbergen Polish as a Romance language. A language with Polish phonetics and orthography but with Romance instead of Slavic vocabulary.

Micronational languages[]

Personal languages[]

Name Origin Creator Description
Lingua Ignota 12th century Hildegard of Bingen Latin-influenced mystical language.
Balaibalan c. 14th to 16th century Muhyî-i Gülşenî Language with mostly a priori vocabulary and written in Arabic script; influenced by Persian, Turkish and Arabic.
Enochian late 16th century John Dee, Edward Kelley Purported Angelic language, possibly used in magic and occultism.
Vendergood early 20th century William James Sidis Based mainly on Latin and Greek, with influence from German, English and Romance languages. Contains eight moods, including Sidis's own strongeable, and has a base twelve number system.

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ Robert Phillipson. English-Only Europe? 2003. p. 172: "several thousand children worldwide are growing up (in over 2000 families) with Esperanto as one of their mother tongues"
  2. ^ Schwitter, Rolf. "Controlled natural languages for knowledge representation." Proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on Computational Linguistics: Posters. Association for Computational Linguistics, 2010.
  3. ^ Cinema, Telugu. "Welcome to new language 'Kilikili' from Baahubali". SaddaHaq. Retrieved 2017-06-11.
  4. ^ Helena Williams & Marie-Louise Gumuchian, "The Painted Bird" tells "timeless" story of survival in dark times. Yahoo! News, 3 September 2019.
  5. ^ http://game.salburg.com/hymmnoserver/

Further reading[]

External links[]

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