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
International auxiliary languages (IAL) 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] |
| Mundolinco | 1888 | J. Braakman | 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. | |
| Timerio | 1921 | Tiemer | A language where each concept is replaced with a number, intended to be used as a means for automatic translation. | |
| 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 | Dr. Helge Heimer | 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 | Erich Weferling | An effort to unite the most common systems of constructed languages. | |
| Lingua sistemfrater | 1957 | Pham Xuan Thai | Greco-Latin vocabulary with southeast Asian grammar. | |
| Neo | neu | 1961 | Arturo Alfandari | A very terse Esperantido. |
| Babm | 1962 | Rikichi Okamoto | Notable for using Latin letters as a syllabary. | |
| Unilingua (now Mirad) | 1966 (revised 1967 and 2022) | Noubar Agopoff | A priori ontological vocabulary. Every letter has semantic or functional meaning. | |
| Arcaicam Esperantom | eo-arkaika | 1969 | Manuel Halvelik | 'Archaic Esperanto', developed to produce an archaic effect in Esperanto literature. |
| Eurolengo | 1972 | Leslie Jones | 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? | Billy Ray Waldon | 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 | Language Research Institute, Sejong University | Vocabulary from fifteen representative languages. | |
| Lingua Franca Nova | lfn | 1998 | C. George Boeree and others | Romance vocabulary with creole-like grammar. |
| Sambahsa-Mundialect | 2007 | Olivier Simon | Mixture of simplified Proto-Indo-European and other languages. | |
| Lingwa de planeta | 2010 | Dmitri Ivanov | Worldlang based on Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Hindi, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. |
Zonal auxiliary languages
Zonal auxiliary languages are languages created with the purpose of facilitating communication between speakers of a certain group of related languages. Unlike international auxiliary languages for global uses, they are intended to serve a limited linguistic or geographic area. Examples include Pan-Slavic languages, Pan-Romance languages and Pan-Germanic languages.
| Name | ISO | Origin | Creator | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ruski jezik | 1666 | Juraj Križanić | The first known example of an artificially created Pan-Slavic language. | |
| Tutonish | 1901 | Elias Molee | The first Pan-Germanic language, later reformed under names like nu teutonish, alteutonik, etc. | |
| Romanid | 1956 | Zoltán Magyar | A zonal auxiliary language based on the Romance languages. | |
| Guosa | 1965 | Alexander Igbinéwéká | A zonal auxiliary language for West Africa derived primarily from Hausa, Yoruba, and Igbo. | |
| Afrihili | afh | 1970 | K. A. Kumi Attobrah | A pan-African language. |
| Runyakitara | early 1990s | A standardized language based on four closely related languages of western Uganda. | ||
| Palawa kani | 1992 | Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre | Based on reconstructed vocabulary from the limited accounts of the various Tasmanian languages once spoken by the eastern Aboriginal Tasmanians. | |
| Slovio | 1999 | Mark Hučko | A constructed language based on the Slavic languages and Esperanto grammar. | |
| Romance Neolatino | 2006 | Jordi Cassany Bates and others | A Pan-Romance language | |
| Slovianski | 2006 | Ondrej Rečnik, Gabriel Svoboda, Jan van Steenbergen, Igor Polyakov | A naturalistic language based on the Slavic languages. | |
| Neoslavonic | 2009 | Vojtěch Merunka | A modernized form of Old Church Slavonic. | |
| Budinos | 2009 | Aleksey Andreyevitch Arzamazov | A zonal auxiliary language based on the Finno-Ugric languages. | |
| Interslavic | 2011–2017 | Jan van Steenbergen, Vojtěch Merunka | A Pan-Slavic zonal auxiliary 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. |
| International Sign | ils | 1970s | Jasin Maloku | International auxiliary sign language. Also known as Gestuno. |
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 | dmf | 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 | 1978–2023 | 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 | tok | 2001 | Sonja Lang | Minimalist language with 120-137+ words, with over 700 speakers.[2][3] |
| 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.[4] |
| 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
Tolkien's most prominent languages are:
| Language | ISO | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Sindarin | sjn | an Elvish language, largely inspired by Welsh. |
| Quenya | qya | an Elvish language, largely inspired by Finnish, Latin, and Ancient Greek. |
| Khuzdul | a Dwarvish language, largely inspired by the Semitic languages. |
Film
| Name | Work | Origin | Creator | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Klingon | Star Trek | 1979–present | Marc Okrand | Language of the Klingon alien species. |
| Atlantean | Atlantis: The Lost Empire | 2001 | Marc Okrand | Language of the citizens of the mythical city of Atlantis. |
| Ku | The Interpreter | 2005 | Said el-Gheithy | Fictional African language. |
| Naʼvi | Avatar | 2009 | Paul Frommer | Spoken by the Naʼvi. |
| Barsoomian | John Carter | 2012 | Paul Frommer, Edgar Rice Burroughs | Language of the Martians. |
| Kiliki | Baahubali | 2015 | Madhan Karky | Spoken by the Kalakeyas.[5] |
| Beama | Alpha | 2016 | Christine Schreyer | Upper Paleolithic, 20ka |
| Interslavic | The Painted Bird | 2019 | Jan van Steenbergen & Vojtěch Merunka | Unspecified Slavic language spoken by the village people.[6] |
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 | Akira Tsuchiya | Language of Ar Ciel, used in dialogues and lyrics of the songs and as a decorative element.[7] |
| Wenja | Far Cry Primal | 2016 | Andrew Byrd, Brenna Byrd | Three dialects (Wenja, Udam, Izila) used in all dialogs and by NPCs. Engineered as an archaic version of PIE.[8] |
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 | 1966–1969 | 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 | |
| Belter Creole | The Expanse | 2014 | Nick Farmer | Spoken by Belters, inhabitants of the asteroid belt and outer planets of the Solar System.[9] |
| Romulan | Star Trek: Picard | 2019 | Trent Pehrson |
Other literature
| Name | Work | Origin | Creator | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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. |
| Spocanian | 1962 | Rolandt Tweehuysen | Language of Spocania. | |
| 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 | ISO | Origin | Creator | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brithenig | bzt | 1996 | Andrew Smith | A Romance language that replaced native Celtic languages in Great Britain instead of the Germanic Anglo-Saxon. A scenario where British Latin survived and developed further into a modern language. |
| 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. |
Personal languages
| Name | ISO | Origin | Creator | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lingua Ignota | 12th century | Hildegard of Bingen | Latin-influenced mystical language. | |
| Balaibalan | zba | 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. | |
| Talossan | tzl | 1980 | R. Ben Madison | Used for the Talossa micronation |
Constructed languages in Wikipedia
There is a version of Wikipedia in each of the following nine constructed languages. Eight of these languages are ILAs (international auxiliary languages), while Lojban is an engineered language. Until 2005, there were also versions of Wikipedia in the constructed languages Toki Pona and Klingon, but these have been deleted.[10]
| Name | ISO/Link | Origin | Users | Nr. of Active Editors | Nr. of Articles |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Esperanto | eo | 1887 | 100,000 – 2,000,000 | 312 | 352,762 |
| Volapük | vo | 1880 | ? | 22 | 36,607 |
| Ido | io | 1907 | c. 1000 | 51 | 47,676 |
| Interlingua | ia | 1951 | c. 1000 | 31 | 29,559 |
| Kotava | avk | 1978 | ? | 16 | 29,157 |
| Interlingue | ie | 1922 | ? | 39 | 12,623 |
| Lingua Franca Nova | lfn | 1998 | ? | 24 | 4,260 |
| Novial | nov | 1928 | ? | 10 | 1,636 |
| Lojban | jbo | 1987 | ? | 15 | 1,333 |
See also
References
Further reading
- Adams, Michael, ed. (2011). From Elvish to Klingon: Exploring Invented Languages. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780192807090. OCLC 713186702.
- Okrent, Arika (2009). In the Land of Invented Languages: Esperanto Rock Stars, Klingon Poets, Loglan Lovers, and the Mad Dreamers Who Tried to Build a Perfect Language. New York: Spiegel & Grau. ISBN 9780385527880. OCLC 321034148.
- Reprinted as: ——— (2010). In the Land of Invented Languages: Adventures in Linguistic Creativity, Madness, and Genius. New York: Spiegel & Grau. ISBN 9780812980899. OCLC 436030223.
- Peterson, David J. (2015). The Art of Language Invention: From Horse-Lords to Dark Elves, the Words Behind World-Building. New York: Penguin Books. ISBN 9780143126461. OCLC 900623553.
- Rosenfelder, Mark (2010). The Language Construction Kit. Chicago: Yonagu Books. ISBN 9780984470006. OCLC 639971902.
- Rosenfelder, Mark (2012). Advanced Language Construction. Chicago: Yonagu Books. ISBN 9781478267539. OCLC 855786940. The sequel to The Language Construction Kit.
External links
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