Conlangs

Adam-Man Tongue

Only information is in the Bibliography of Planned Languages. [1903]

Adûnaic

The language of Númenor, the lost continent of Atlantis. [1946]

Alwato

Only information is in the Bibliography of Planned Languages. [1871]

Americai Speak

This is a simplification of American English, with phonetic spelling and simplified grammar. Plurals of nouns and pronouns are regular (e.g., man, mans), comparison of adjectives and adverbs is regular (e.g., good, gooder, goodest), adjectives are formed from nouns by adding -i (e.g., sun, suni; America, Americai) and verbs are regular. [1937]

Amtorian

[1938]

Animalic

Animalic, a simple language made by Tolkien's cousins, was the first of someone else's constructed languages that he was exposed to, and it inspired Nevbosh. [1905]

Ape (Mangani)

Mangani is the language of the Great Apes that raise Tarzan. Besides being in the novels and films, the language has even shown up on McDonald's Happy Meal packages (marketing the Disney Tarzan movie). [1912]

aUI

aUI is a philosophical a priori language based on a set of (31) proposed universal semantic primitives, each designated with a simple ideograph, from which words from any culture can be created. Mini-definitions of a word's essential meaning, analogous to chemical formulas, are composed from these elements of meaning. aUI for the first time overcomes the arbitrary nature of existing languages and incorporates an inherently meaningful relationship between Word, Meaning, and Reality, between Sound, Symbol, and Meaning. [1950]

Bala-i-balan

Bala-i-balan was invented by an Islamic schismatic named Muheddin in the 1500s (exact date unknown), making it one of the oldest artificial languages. Its lexicon borrows words from Turkish, Arabic and Persian; its grammar is based on Turkish but with Arabic syntax. It was written using the Arabic script. [1550]

Barsoomian

The language of Edgar Rice Burrough's Martian series (A Princess Of Mars, The Gods Of Mars, Warlord Of Mars, etc.) added greatly to the verisimilitude of Barsoom and inspired many constructed language designers. [1900]

Basic English

Basic English (Basic is an acronym for "British American Scientific International Commercial") was designed as a subset of English. Any Basic English text is also a valid English text, but Basic English has just 850 core words (not counting inflectional forms); extensions to the lexicon are permitted for specific subject domains. The Bible and other texts have been translated into Basic English. For a time, Ogden hoped Basic English would be used for teaching English as a second language, but because Basic English permits the full complexity of English grammar, this was not practical. [1930]

Blaia Zimondal

Only information is in the Bibliography of Planned Languages. [1884]

Blissymbolics

Included in Bibliography of Planned Languages. [1949]

Bolak

An international auxiliary language created and funded by Leon Bollack that caught the attention of H.G. Wells. Monsieur Bollack later supported Ido. [1899]

Bopal

Only information is in the Bibliography of Planned Languages. [1887]

Clavis Convenientiae Linguarum

Doesn't have an official name. [1661]

Cosmian

Qôsmianî (or Cosmian, as its author called it in English) is an international auxiliary language created by Wilbur M. Law Beatty, and published in 1922... [it is] one of the funniest and most endearingly quirky proposals for an international language ever published, and it most definitely deserves to have a presence on the web. These Qôsmianî pages are my tribute to Beatty's warped genius. [1922]

Dalgarno's Universal Language

Doesn't have an official name. [1661]

Dutton Speedwords

This language was invented as a shorthand system, as well as a language, and emphasizes extremely short words. It is now being promoted as Rap Lin Rie by Bob Petry. [1943]

Elvish

Elvish is the common term for the family of languages created by J.R.R. Tolkien in The Lord of the Rings and other works. The movies and books primarily feature Quenya and Sindarin. Other Elvish languages include Avarin, Doriathrin, Ilkorin, Nandorin, Primitive Elvish, Qenya (precursor to Quenya), Telerin and Valarin. [1915]

Entish

The language of the Ents of Middle Earth. "It is a lovely language, but it takes a very long time to say anything in it." [1945]

Esperanto

Esperanto is the most successful constructed language ever, with perhaps a million speakers in the world (estimates vary from 100,000 to 15 million), concentrated in Europe but also with pockets of speakers in Japan and China. Esperanto has more books, periodicals and radio broadcasts using it than any other auxiliary language. It is a classic and required study for anyone serious about constructed languages. It has spawned more offspring than any other constructed language, with many reform projects, the most prominent of which is Ido. [1887]

Geoglot

Only information is in the Bibliography of Planned Languages. [1916]

Hieroglyfic

Included in Bibliography of Planned Languages. [1768]

Ido

With a name meaning "derived from" in Esperanto, Ido is a modification of Esperanto. [1907]

Ilkorin

Possibly a language family within North Sindarin, a leading dialect of North Sindarin or a separate Eldarin language altogether. [1917]

Interglossa

Hogben published a draft form of the language, which he called Interglossa, in 1943. It survives today as Glosa. [1943]

Interlingua

Developed by an organization that was originally founded in New York in 1924 to choose one constructed language to support as an auxiliary, the International Auxiliary Language Association eventually created its own language, with a grammar derived from the Romance languages and a vocabulary drawn from western European languages. Not to be confused with Latino Sine Flexione, which was later called Interlingua. (Before IALA/Interlingua, the Academia pro Interlingua had a language with the same name; they later gave Gode permission to use the name after the IALA had informally adopted it.) [1951]

International Sign Language (ISL)

ISL (AKA Gestuno) is an international sign language created by members of the international Deaf community. "Gestuno is to Deaf as Esperanto is to Hearing." [1950]

Isotype

Included in Bibliography of Planned Languages. [1936]

Khuzdul

The secret language of the Dwarves. Oh, Balin, we hardly knew ye. [1940]

Klaatu's Language

The language of Klaatu was used in the 1951 classic movie, The Day The Earth Stood Still, one of the first movies to ever include a constructed language. The language consists of about 50 words derived from Terran languages, and the phrase "Klaatu barada necto" has become something of a catch-phrase among science-fiction fans, often alluded to in other works (e.g., the Klaatu Nebula in Galaxy Quest). [1951]

Kosmal Idioma

Only information is in the Bibliography of Planned Languages. [1893]

Langue Nouvelle

The earliest example of a modern international auxiliary language. (Earlier international auxiliary languages had been philosophical or categorizing languages.) [1765]

Langue Universelle

Only information is in the Bibliography of Planned Languages. [1855]

Latino Sine Flexione

Peano felt that - while the Latin vocabulary is known to many people through its descendant languages and scientific borrowings - its inflexional system and syntax were too complex. By stripping Latin of its "ponderous burden of inflexions", Peano hoped to design the ideal auxiliary language. Latino Sine Flexione's vocabulary consists of all Latin words (including Latin borrowings of Greek terms) and the growing collection of common "international" words. Peano originally called the language Latino sine Flexione ("Latin without inflections") then changed the name to Interlingua. Since the IALA's Interlingua is now more well known, Peano's language is usually referred to by its original name. [1903]

Leibniz's Characteristica Universalis

Leibniz wrote, "If one could find the characters or symbols to express all our thoughts as cleanly and exactly as arithmetics expresses numbers, or as analytic geometry expresses lines, one could do the same as one can do with arithmetics and geometry, as much as they are subject to reasoning. This is because all investigations that depend on reasoning would take place through the transposition of these characters, and by a kind of calculus." [1677]

Lengua Universal

Only information is in the Bibliography of Planned Languages. [1851]

Lengua Universal

Only information is in the Bibliography of Planned Languages. [1888]

Lingua Ignota

Dating back to the 1100s, Lingua Ignota ("Unknown Language") is considered to be the first constructed language ever invented (or the first that we have record of). [1150]

Lingualumina

Only information is in the Bibliography of Planned Languages. [1875]

Lips Kith

Scarisbrick published the language in Lips Kith, a world language, Trowbridge: Lansdown, 1919 (141 p.). It's a mix of naturalism and schematicism, as illustrated by the Paternoster and the first ten numbers: Koor Pater, wes-amun per-an wolk-alon, ko-te nom mak-Es-u tek-sak..., tun, twi, tri, pes, pen, sek, sep, nok, nik, tek. [1919]

Logopandectesion

Only information is in the Bibliography of Planned Languages. [1651]

Magistri Linguio

Paul Bartlett has been a tireless documenter of past IAL projects and has carefully typed and formatted The Master Language, a language proposal published in 1907. Magistri Linguio (its name translated to its vocabulary) is based on Latin, the long-time IAL of Europe. The language uses a modified Latin vocabulary with English word order in place of the Latin declensional system. Houghton did not actually develop a dictionary, instead specifying how existing Latin words would be transformed to their Magistri Linguio forms. An interesting project for someone would be to actually adapt the Latin lexicon to provide a dictionary for the language. [1907]

Malacandrian

This language is somewhat of a lingua franca on Malacandra (our Mars) in Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis. [1938]

Naffarin

The first of Tolkien's constructed languages for which we have any information, though even that is sparse. But it already foreshadows Quenya. [1905]

Nevbosh

Tolkien made some modest contributions to his cousin's language, Nevbosh ("New Nonsense"). Next up: Naffarin. [1905]

Novial

Novial (an acronym for New International Auxiliary Language) was designed primarily from two other languages, Ido and Occidental. [1928]

Occidental

An international language using a Romance vocabulary, intended almost solely for Western speakers. The language is so naturalistic that Don Harlow says, "a linguist unfamiliar with it might be forgiven for assuming it to be a minor Romance dialect that had grown up after the collapse of Rome." Inspired by Mundo-Lingue, Occidental itself served as an inspiration for Novial. [1922]

Oz

Like Ro, Oz is an a priori philosophical language, with a vocabulary derived not from natural languages but from a classification structure. The vocabulary was to be based on Roget's Thesaurus, but does not seem to have been worked out in its entirety. See Roxhai for an independent attempt at this type of language design. [1932]

Pan-kel

Only information is in the Bibliography of Planned Languages. [1907]

Panovese Kal

An artificial modification of the Limburgian dialect of Kortessen. [1900]

Pasilalion

Included in Bibliography of Planned Languages. [1864]

Pasilogia

Only information is in the Bibliography of Planned Languages. [1846]

Perio

Only information is in the Bibliography of Planned Languages. [1904]

Primitive Elvish

Begun as Proto-Elfin in 1915 by J.R.R. Tolkien, Primitive Elvish is the language that over time (in his fictional world) evolved into his many other Elvish languages. Primitive Elvish is divided into two stages: Primitive Quendian and Common Eldarin (the language of the Eldar as distinct from the Avari). [1915]

Projet d'une langue universelle presente a la convention nationale

Only information is in the Bibliography of Planned Languages. [1795]

Qenya

In 1915, Tolkien began his first attempt at a High-Elven language: Qenya. It is almost an entirely different language than Quenya as used in The Lord of the Rings (which, after all, was not published until almost 40 years later). [1915]

Quenya

Descended from Primitive Elvish, Quenya is the chief of Tolkien's Elvish languages, used mainly in The Lord of The Rings and The Silmarillion. The beauty of Quenya has inspired many to take up the hobby of model languages. Unfortunately, it was never a primary goal of Tolkien's to finish the design of Quenya, and his death left the vocabulary and grammar incomplete. This incompleteness has dampened the fires of enthusiasm for many who would have liked to have learned the language. At present there exists no single authoritative reference to the meta-history (the history of the creation of the fictional history) of Quenya. This gap will be filled eventually, when some unknown among us rises to the challenge of analyzing the editorial efforts of Tolkien's son, who has prepared a series of volumes relating the history of Tolkien's invention of Middle Earth. [Since I first wrote that in 1995, Helge Kåre Fauskanger has come close to achieving this.] [1917]

Ro

Like Solresol, Ro is a pasigraphy (an a priori philosophical language), with a vocabulary derived not from natural languages but from a classification structure. You can roughly guess the sense of a word by recognizing its initial letters; for instance, in Ro, bo- is the category of "sense-affecting matter", and color words (falling under this category) begin with bofo-: bofoc means "red", bofod means "orange" and bofof means "yellow". Unfortunately, if you make a typo in Ro, you've probably just spelled another word, and your spell checker is not going to catch the mistake... [1906]

Solresol

The cleverest philosophical language, the earliest constructed language to be successful and the most likely to be learned by Julie Andrews. Solresol is based on the musical scale and has just seven syllables: do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si. [1830]

Sona

[1935]

Speedtalk

In his science-fiction story Gulf, supermen of the future used a language called Speedtalk. This "verbal shorthand" assigned every word a unique phoneme, so that resultant sentences were as short as a few English words. Use of the language enabled the superman to think more quickly and to experience more in less time. [1940]

Speedwords

[1936]

Spelin

Only information is in the Bibliography of Planned Languages. [1889]

Spokil

Only information is in the Bibliography of Planned Languages. [1904]

Syldavian

Invented by the Belgian comic artist Herge for the Tintin series, Syldavian is used as background in two of the books, notably King Ottokar's Sceptre. Rosenfelder has created a 200-word dictionary and has translated the sample texts, and developed a grammar to explain them, based on Dutch grammar, commenting, "As in restoring a fresco, a bit of invention was needed to form a coherent picture." Although the language of a fictional East European country, Sylavian is based on Dutch, but with a Slavic-sounding orthography and some French and German borrowings. This site has been written up in Le Monde and Il Corriere del Sera, and is mentioned on the website of the Fondation Herge. [1937]

Tlön languages

The Tlön languages are imaginary languages even within the fictional context of Borge's short story, where the languages have been invented for an invented planet. [1940]

Transcendent Algebra

Included in Bibliography of Planned Languages. [1921]

Tutonish

Molee designed Tutonish as an "Anglo-German union tongue" and actually intended for it to be not just an international auxiliary language but the new mother tongue of the Germanic-speaking peoples, supplanting their native languages. Tutonish has a phonetic spelling, a simplified grammar and a vocabulary drawn primarily from German and English. (See Folkspraak for a modern, ongoing effort at designing a pan-Germanic language.) [1902]

Universal

The most characteristic feature of Universal is its use of inversion to create antonyms: mega `big, great' -> gema `small' donu `give' -> nodu `receive' za `the' -> az `a(n)' tela `far, distant' -> leta `near, close' Indeed, this is so characteristic that "one of its creators suggested in jest that it should be called Inversal". [1923]

Universal Character

Included in Bibliography of Planned Languages. [1657]

Universal Cipher Language

Included in Bibliography of Planned Languages. [1874]

Universalglot

Universalglot, proposed in 1868 by Jean Pirro (1831-1886), a teacher in Lotharingen, seemed one of the most natural and agreeable: Ma senior! I sende evos un gramatik e un verb-bibel de un nuov glot nomed universal glot. In futur I scripterai evos semper in dit glot. However, this quite well designed project did not achieve any practical importance. -- Ulrich Matthias [1868]

Volapük

With a name meaning "world speech", Volapük became something of a fad in the late nineteenth century and was the second international auxiliary language to win thousands of adherents (after Solresol); it was the precursor to Esperanto in popularity. It has a vocabulary based primarily on English and German roots that have been somewhat simplified for ease of pronunciation and morphological analysis. Its grammar was difficult enough that enthusiasts were rarely able to actually learn to speak the language. The language was successfully reformed in the 1930s. If Esperanto is the GUI (Graphical User Interface) of auxiliary languages, than Volapük is the DOS of the field. The language is primarily of interest now for historical reasons. [1880]

Volapük Revised

[1931]

Völkerverkehrssprache

Only information is in the Bibliography of Planned Languages. [1902]

Von Morath Pasigraphy

Included in Bibliography of Planned Languages. [1797]

Wilkins' Analytical Language

Doesn't have an official name. [1668]

Up to Conlang Index

79 languages listed.
Updated on January 10, 2005 at 3:36 PM (GMT-5).