Constructed language

A constructed language is a language--such as Esperanto, Klingon, and Dothraki--that

has been consciously created by an individual or group. A person who creates a language is
known as a conlanger. The term constructed language was coined by linguist Otto
Jespersen in An International Language, 1928. Also known as a conlang, planned
language, glossopoeia, artificial language, auxiliary language, and ideal language.

The grammar, phonology, and vocabulary of a constructed (or planned) language may be

derived from one or more natural languages or created from scratch.

In terms of the number of speakers of a constructed language, the most successful is

Esperanto, created in the late-19th century by Polish ophthalmologist L. L. Zamenhof. The
idea behind the creation of Esperanto was to create a worldwide second language to
facilitate easier international communications and to exist as a linguistic, rather than
cultural, political, or racial, entity.

According to the Guinness Book of World Records (2006), the "world's

largest fictional language" is Klingon (the constructed language spoken by the Klingons in
the Star Trek movies, books, and television programs). In more recent years, Game of
Thrones famously created a fictional constructed language of its own, Dothraki, for the
television adaptation of George RR Martin's fantasy novels.

See Examples and Observations below. Also see:

 Anti-Language
 Basic English
 Lingua Franca
 What Is Language?
 Where Does Language Come From?

Examples and Observations

 "A standard international language should not only be simple, regular, and logical,
but also rich and creative. Richness is a difficult and subjective concept. . . . The
supposed inferiority of a constructed language to a national one on the score of
richness of connotation is, of course, no criticism of the idea of a constructed
language. All that the criticism means is that the constructed language has not been
in long-continued use."
(Edward Sapir, "The Function of an International Auxiliary Language." Psyche, 1931)
 "The traditional hypothesis has been that because a constructed language is the
language of no nation or ethnic group, it would be free of the political problems that
all natural languages bring with them. Esperanto materials frequently claim
(incorrectly) that this is true of Esperanto. A distinction is usually made between
auxiliary languages (auxlangs), designed with international communication as a
deliberate goal, and 'conlangs,' usually constructed for other purposes. (The Elvish
languages showcased by Tolkein in his epic Lord of the Rings and the Klingon
language constructed by linguist Mark Okrand for the Star Trek television series are
conlangs rather than auxlangs.)"
(Suzette Haden Elgin, The Language Imperative. Basic Books, 2000)
 Attitudes Toward Esperanto
- "As of 2004, the number of speakers of Esperanto is unknown, but variously
 estimated as between one or two hundred thousand and several million. . . .
"It must be emphasized that Esperanto is a real language, both spoken and written,
successfully used as a means of communication between people who have no other
common language. . . .
"The traditional aim of the Esperanto movement is the adoption of Esperanto as
the L2 [second language] for all mankind."
(J.C. Wells, "Esperanto." Concise Encyclopedia of Languages of the World, ed. by
Keith Brown and Sarah Ogilvie. Elsevier, 2009)
- "There is little doubt that, foremost among constructed languages though it is,
Esperanto has not--particularly in recent times--captured a sufficient amount of
general attention to become the functioning worldwide auxiliary its proponents wish.
One rough distinction seems to be between those who, while not necessarily wholly
unsympathetic to the idea of constructed languages, nevertheless perceive fatal
flaws, and those who see Esperantists (and other constructed-language apologists)
more or less as cranks and faddists."
(John Edwards and Lynn MacPherson, "View of Constructed Languages, With
Special Reference to Esperanto: An Experimental Study." Esperanto,
Interlinguistics, and Planned Language, ed. by Humphrey Tonkin. University Press
of America, 1997)
 The Klingon Language
- "Klingon is a constructed language tied to a fictional context, rather than a
constructed language like Esperanto . . . or a reconstructed one like Modern
Hebrew . . . intended for use among speakers in everyday circumstances. . . .
"Klingon is a language devised for the Klingons, a fictional race of humanoids
sometimes allied with but more often in conflict with members of the United
Federation of Planets in Star Trek movies, television programmes, video games, and
novels."
(Michael Adams, From Elvish to Klingon: Exploring Invented Languages. Oxford
University Press, 2011)
- "[T]he first thing to say about the Klingon language is that it is a language. It
has nouns and verbs, the nouns distributed syntactically as subjects and objects. Its
particular distribution of constituents is extremely rare but not unheard of on
Earth."
(David Samuels, "Alien Tongues." E.T. Culture: Anthropology in Outerspaces, ed.
by Debbora Battaglia. Duke University Press, 2005)
 The Dothraki Language Created for HBO’s Game Of Thrones
"My goal, from the very beginning, was to create a language that looked and felt like
the small number of snippets present in the books. There wasn’t much to work with
(about 30 words, most of them names--and male names, at that), but there was
enough to suggest the beginnings of a grammar (for example, there is strong
evidence of noun-adjective order, as opposed to the adjective-noun order found in
English). . . .
"After I settled on a sound system, I extrapolated a morphological system. Some
elements had to be maintained (for example, in the books, we see 'dothraki' for the
people [plural], 'Vaes Dothrak' for the Dothraki city, and 'dothrae' meaning 'rides.'
This suggests that /-k/, /-i/ and /-e/ are somehow involved in the paradigm for
the stem 'dothra-'), but for the most part, I was free to run wild. After I had a fairly
stable morphology (verbal paradigm, case paradigm, and derivational morphology,
in particular), I set to work on the best part: creating vocabulary."
(David J. Peterson, interviewed by Dave Banks in "Creating Language for
HBO’s Game Of Thrones." GeekDad blog at Wired.com, Aug. 25, 2010)
Historically, languages evolve and form over time. From pronunciation and spelling to meaning
and use, the languages we use have been developed over centuries.

Just take the romance languages for example. They have all evolved from Latin and each share a
variety of similarities. Even the Celtic languages like Gaelic, Welsh or Manx share similar
pronunciations and patterns.

But what about the languages that haven’t evolved and were just invented? Well, they’re known as
constructed languages! 

If you’re confused about how a language can be constructed, worry not. Our article will talk you
through:

 What a constructed language is

 How they are constructed

 Examples of languages which have been manually created either for real life or fictional use.  

What Is A Constructed Language?

A constructed language (or “con-lan”) is essentially a language that has been consciously created
for an intended purpose.

The creator of a constructed language is called a “conlanger”, a term coined by 20th century
linguist Otto Jeperson. 

A constructed language can also be referred to as a planned, artificial or auxiliary language. 

Constructed languages fall into 1 of 3 categories:

 Auxiliary (auxlangs): created to improve communication within a community. 

 Engineers (engelangs): devised as an experiment, often to show the difficulty of creation, adoption

and/or adaptation.

 Artistic (artlangs): invented by writers or authors in a bid to add depth to a fictional world.

Conlangers often know which category they fall into prior to construction, as they typically set out
to create a language for a reason – rather than for fun (it’s too time consuming!) 

 How To Construct A Language:

Constructed languages are often based on a pre-existing language. They take inspiration from the
grammar, vocabulary and phonology. Constructed languages can be inspired by one or more
natural languages.

In the case of some fictional languages, they are formed completely from scratch, taking very little
inspiration from existing languages. 

If you fancy starting your own language, linguists suggest beginning with the sound system.
Starting with how you want the language to sound will help you to create a variety of words which
all work in conjunction with each other. They won’t sound out of place and you will be able to
visualise them being spoken.

Additionally, 20th century linguist, Edward Sapir, once said:

“A standard international language should not only be simple, regular, and logical, but also rich
and creative.” 

 How To Learn A Constructed Language:

They may be created in a different way, but the way in which you learn a constructed language is
much the same as learning any new, natural language. 

At Global Language Services we have explored a variety of ways in which to learn a new
language. Explore some of our suggestions below:

Real Life Examples Of Constructed Languages

These are examples of languages that have been manually constructed and used in the real
world.

Esperanto

One of the most popular examples of a constructed language is Esperanto. This is an auxiliary
language that was invented by Polish doctor, Ludovic Zamenhof, in the 19th century.

It’s a simple, easy to learn language that was created in the name of unity and individualism.
Zamenhof believed that all languages already in existence had strong political underpinnings.
Believing that natural languages are inherently entrenched in negative history, he set out to
construct a new language in a bid to offer humankind a new beginning. And it worked! 

Today there are an estimated 2 million speakers of Esperanto across the globe. It has simple
vocabulary and grammar, with much of the phrasing inspired by the Romance languages – making
it easy to learn and understand.

 Solresol

Solresol is a language constructed by Jean-François Sudre. It was originally named “la Langue
musicale universelle”, translating to the international music language. 

This language was created using seven syllables which were borrowed from the foundations of
music – do, re, me, fa, so, la, and ti. A fitting choice since Sudre was a violinist by trade! 

Solresol was the first constructed language to be taken seriously, especially as the logic was
sound. Sudre made the language simple and easy to understand in the hope that it would
encourage international communication. 

However, it failed to become widely popular. Nevertheless, it is still commendable for being the
first and only language in the world to be musically based. 

 Fictional Examples of a Constructed Language: 

As we’ve mentioned, some languages are constructed for fictional purposes in novels, television
and movies. In fact, you could argue that fictional, or artistic construction is much more common
than an auxiliary or engineered language. 

 Dothraki

One of the most common, and impressive, fictional languages is Dothraki. Constructed for HBO’s
Game of Thrones series which was based on George R.R. Martin’s novels. 

Taking inspiration from Greek, Anglo-Saxon and Gothic languages – as well as The Lord of the
Rings franchise – the Dothraki language was constructed by Martin and completed by David J.
Peterson. 
A language created with its users in mind, Dothraki has 14 words for “horse” but no words for toilet
or thank you – words the Dothraki tribe just don’t need.

We have an entire post dedicated to how the Dothraki language was created and how impressive
it is. Dothraki is a perfect example of how a language can add depth to a fictional world, and if
you’ve seen Game of Thrones you’ll understand just how much depth! 

 Elvish

A result of J.R.R Tolkein’s genius, Elvish is a constructed language used within the fantasy world
of The Lord of the Rings. 

A famous and intricate language that began in the early 1900’s when Tolkein penned the iconic
novels. Based on Welsh and Finnish, Elvish is used within Middle Earth and split into two dialects,
Quenya and Sindarin.

It has enough phrases to form a basic conversation but not for a fluent language as it’s
incomplete. Fans of the franchise have made attempts to extend the language and create their
own poetry, fiction and conversations from it. 

 Klingon

A language constructed to intentionally sound alien, Klingon was developed for the globally adored
Star Trek franchise.

Full of harsh, throaty sounds, Klingon was designed to not only emphasise the alien nature of
Klingons but their aggressive, violent natures. 

Although incomprehensible, Klingon still manages to be constructed with nouns and verbs.
Complete with its own functional alphabet, fans of the franchise are able to become fluent in the
humanoid language – Duolingo even has a course! 

 Minionese

Whether you’re a fan or not, Minions are everywhere. The little yellow men from Despicable Me
have taken the world by storm – they even ended up with their own film!
Providing nonsensical comedy into the films, Minions may sound like they’re talking gobbledygook
but they are actually speaking Minionese. 

It’s a fully constructed language that was hugely inspired by Spanish, Italian and Chinese, and
there are actually some noticeable patterns within their speech. This makes it even funnier to the
audience who hear gibberish but understand every fourth word.

Conclusion

We also think there are some honourable mentions to be made for the constructed languages
used in other franchises. Like Na’Vi in Avatar, and the huge variety of constructed words within the
world of Harry Potter – leading to it having its own dictionary. 

For more on how languages come to be, check out our posts on neologisms and the origin of
words!