Constructed language
A constructed language, also called an artificial language or conlang, is a language that has been wholly or partially built, planned or designed by humans from the study of natural languages ―programming languages are formal languages and are not considered constructed languages because they are not languages; historical evolution is not considered a constructed language either, and therefore, not consciously planned from any natural language.
The motivations that drive the emergence of these non-natural languages are basically two:
- Rationalize human communication by perfected languages in areas where natural languages are ambiguous, plagued by exceptions, disagreements with logic, irregular, etc. After this goal there are tongues built like the parjban, structured on the logic of preaching. This rationalization also includes the search for auxiliary languages suitable for international communication, such as Esperanto and interlingua. Sometimes the cultural neutrality of the auxiliary languages is pursued, as is the case of the parjban.
- aesthetic, artistic or playful motives. In this section languages such as the simlish of the Sims, developed by J. R. Tolkien for their epic sagas of literary fiction, such as the quenya, the sindarin or the Na'vi language, created by the American linguist Paul Frommer as the vernacular language of the Na'vi race in the universe of the film, are registered. Avatar (from 2009).
Classification of Constructed Languages
Most constructed languages can be divided into three groups:
- Artistic or fictional languages, created for aesthetic or entertainment purposes.
- Auxiliary languages, which seek communication between people.
- Experimental languages, which can be philosophical or logical.
A more detailed classification includes several factors, such as its intended use, its purpose of creation, and the origin of the vocabulary and grammar.[citation required]
For its intended use
Constructed languages can be divided into two large groups according to their intended use: auxiliary languages and artistic languages. The former seek to be a means of real communication between human beings, while the latter are spoken by fictitious characters arising from the imagination or work of the author of the language, without pretending that they are spoken by real people.
These purposes can be subdivided:
- To be spoken by real human beings (auxiliary)
- Languages proper auxiliary or auxilenguas (auxlangs as Anglicism)
- Area auxiliary languages (e.g. interslavo, folkspraak)
- Universal auxiliary languages (e.g. Esperanto, interlingua, volapük)
- Pilot languages
- Logical languages (e.g., lojban and loglan)
- Philosophical languages (e.g. toki pona, láadan)
- Private languages
- Criptolenguas (e.g., ignota or enoquian lynch)
- Artistic languages
- Languages created for aesthetic, artistic, etc.
- fictional languages
- Human fictional languages (e.g., sindarin, klingon, na'vi)
- Languages proper auxiliary or auxilenguas (auxlangs as Anglicism)
For its purpose of creation
Inventing a language can have utilitarian or creative purposes. Among the utilitarian purposes are the purpose of universal communication, the exploration of forms of communication, secret languages, the setting of a fictional scenario, etc. Among creative purposes, those embedded within a larger creation (for example, Middle-earth languages such as J. R. R. Tolkien's Quenya) or those that exist per se.
A number of other fictional languages were created by amateur linguists, which has served both as entertainment and as a way to understand certain aspects of linguistic theory.
Although auxiliary languages usually have a utilitarian purpose and fictional languages usually have a creative purpose, this relationship is far from being unequivocal, since an auxiliary language can come from the creative intention of the author.
One difference between the Klingon language, created by Marc Okrand for the Star Trek universe, and Sindarin, created by J. R. R. Tolkien for the Middle-earth universe, is that the first one has a utilitarian purpose, since the producers wanted an original and different language for the Klingons, while Tolkien invented their languages, characteristics of Middle-earth, to set their languages, as described in his letter The secret vice. This does not detract from the possible artistic quality of Okrand's work nor does it minimize the creativity that he developed in his work.
In the Eurovision Song Contest, an artificial language has been used three times. Twice, Belgium used them (in 2003 and 2008) although in a different “language”, never having a developed vocabulary and only used in the song, questioning any specific meaning or translation into any language. The same thing happened with the Netherlands in 2006.
Auxiliary languages start from a problem, which can be solved by a language designed for that purpose, while fictional languages arise from the concern of their creator.
By its origin
Artificial languages are usually divided into two types, depending on the origin of their vocabulary or grammar: a priori languages and a posteriori languages. An a priori language is one whose grammar and/or vocabulary are created or invented without reference to any natural language. An a posteriori language is one whose grammar and vocabulary are derived from one or more existing languages.[citation required]
Examples of a priori artificial languages
Lojban is a language with a priori grammar and vocabulary, because although its basic morphemes come from common or combined elements of the five most widely spoken languages (Chinese, English, Spanish, Hindi and Arabic), they are reconstructed according to the phonetic and grammatical rules that are prescribed. This, coupled with the fact that his grammar seeks to resemble symbolic logic, is entirely a priori.
Sotos Ochando's universal language is also an a priori language, as are various attempts at philosophical languages, such as those by John Wilkins (Essay towards a Real Character, and a Philosophical Language, by 1668) and George Dalgarno (Ars Signorum, of 1661).
Some international auxiliary languages have been constructed "a priori". This is the case of solresol, created in 1862 by the French François Sudre, and kotava, created in 1978 by Staren Fetcey.
Examples of a posteriori languages
Languages a posteriori can be classified as schematic and naturalistic. Schematics are those that take the basic elements of the language from natural languages and are regularized according to a predetermined scheme. They are naturalists when they try not to be very different from natural languages, especially in their vocabulary, but something similar to facilitate their quick understanding, even sacrificing part of regularity.
The vocabulary selection process can be more or less systematic. IALA Interlingua uses a systematic selection process based on four core languages and two control languages. Every word common to at least three of the basic languages is adopted: Spanish, French, English and Italian and if it is only common to two of these languages, take German and Russian as control to decide which word to adopt.
Esperanto is also an a posteriori language despite not having a mechanical system for selecting vocabulary and containing several invented or a priori elements.
Perciscan is a language created in 2013 with the aim of serving as a means of communication between Romance-speaking countries without the need to use English.
Among fictional and fictional languages, there are also two types of a posteriori languages.
An example of the first group is Tolkien, who defined a family of languages starting from a mother language (a priori) and deriving daughter languages using derivation processes similar to natural ones. These derived languages are therefore a posteriori. This derivation process has been applied to existing languages to create "future languages" or fictional languages, such as Brithenig, which would be the language spoken in the West of England if Latin had survived to the present day.
An example of the other type of a posteriori fictional languages is the resource used in Star Wars, which consists of using elements of grammar and vocabulary from little-known indigenous languages, to later combine them in forms little recognizable.
A special type of a posteriori languages are controlled languages, which are adaptations of natural languages seeking a simple grammar and reduced vocabulary to allow more people, who are not native speakers of the base language, to be able to read or read with little study. listen to texts in the controlled language, such as basic English. Another example is Anglo-Rom, a recently invented language whose vocabulary is built from the roots of Latin and which is governed by only 19 rules.
Linguistic features
Natural languages are usually classified according to phylogenetic and typological criteria.
The first of these, phylogenetic, does not generally apply to artificial languages, as they are deliberate human creations and these languages do not derive from any common ancestor or protolanguage, but sometimes artificial languages are very deliberately created as evolutions of a constructed ancestor, and in that case the phylogenetic criterion or comparative method could be applied.
The second, the typological criterion, on the contrary, is always perfectly applicable to all artificial languages. In this sense, constructed languages are practically as varied as natural languages, although in many of them the typological features of European and Indo-European languages have predominated, such as Volapük (1879), Esperanto (1887), Latin Sine flex (1903), etc. Other successful constructed languages such as Klingon, one of whose creators, Marc Okrand, worked on the Mutsun language, an indigenous Californian language of the Uti family, appear to have features reminiscent of that indigenous language.