Constructed Language Guides
Learn about Constructed Human Languages. A strange world that very few people ever hear of! I define constructed languages as any language that was created intentionally, as opposed to natural languages. This site only deals with human languages, i.e. languages made for humans to speak or read, in reality, fiction, or tests.
I am just learning about constructed languages. Probably the most thorough site on constructed languages is langmaker.com. They have a top ten constructed languages. You really should be reading that site, and not mine.
There doesn't appear to be much consensus on the category name, nor the definition. A natural language evolved without intent, similar to the theory of species evolution. There isn't a natural correlary for constructed languages. I have found works that refer to them as: model languages, constructed languages, artificial languages, and invented languages. I chose the term constructed.
This is something interesting from the Esperanto FAQ. I will get rid of it as my own content increases.
11. WHAT ABOUT OTHER "ARTIFICIAL" LANGUAGES LIKE LOGLAN, IDO, ETC.?
People create languages for a variety of purposes. J.R.R. Tolkien's
languages of Sindarin and Quenya, for example, were created partly as a
recreation, and partly to fulfil a literary purpose. Many languages have
been created as international languages; only Esperanto has continued to
grow and prosper after the death of its originator.
Many of the people who have attempted to promulgate international
languages more "perfect" (i.e., more "international", more "logical", or
whatever) than Esperanto have failed to understand that -- given a
certain minimum standard of internationality, aesthetic quality, and
ease of learning -- further tinkering not only fails to substantially
improve the product, but interferes with the establishment of a large
community of speakers. A language like, say, Interlingua might be (by
some individual's criteria) "better" than Esperanto, but in order for it
to be worth uprooting the established world of Esperanto and creating an
equivalently widespread world community of Interlingua speakers, it
would have to be visibly and profoundly an improvement over Esperanto of
prodigious proportions. No international language project has yet
produced such an obviously ideal language.
In the net community, one of the best known planned language projects is
James Cooke Brown's Loglan (and its revised offshoot Lojban). While some
enthusiasts do see Loglan and Lojban as competitors to Esperanto, the
languages were conceived not as a tool to facilitate better
communication, but as a linguistic experiment, to test the Whorf
hypothesis that a language shapes (or limits) the thoughts of its
speakers. They are thus deliberately designed to bear little resemblance
to existing human languages. While Loglan and Lojban are unlikely (and,
by design, perhaps unsuited) to succeed as international languages, both
are interesting projects in their own right.
The address to write for Loglan information is:
The Loglan Institute
3009 Peters Way
San Diego CA 92117
USA
tel. (619) 270-1691
E-mail: loglan@compuserve.com
For Lojban, contact:
Bob LeChevalier, President
The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane
Fairfax VA 22031-1303
USA
tel. (703) 385-0273 (day/evenings)
E-mail: lojban@lojban.org
http://xiron.pc.helsinki.fi/lojban/
http://www.lojban.org/
Those interested in Mark Okrand's "Klingon" language can join a mailing
list; to subscribe, send a message to:
listserv@kli.org
consisting of the body line:
subscribe tlhingan-hol Your_Real_Name
There is a general "constructed language" (Conlang) mailing list; to
subscribe, send a message to:
listserv@brownvm.brown.edu
consisting of the body line (not subject):
subscribe conlang
There is also an "auxiliary language" (Auxlang) mailing list. The
difference between this list and Conlang is that Auxlang deals more
particularly with languages designed to enhance international
communication, such as Esperanto. To subscribe, send a message to:
listserv@brownvm.brown.edu
consisting of the body line (not subject):
subscribe auxlang
Finally, fans of Tolkien's language creations can join a
Tolkien-language mailing list. To subscribe, send a message to:
tolklang-server@dcs.ed.ac.uk
with the following subject line or body line (either will do):
subscribe tolklang Your_Real_Name
As for our own Esperanto newsgroup, many readers are interested in other
planned languages, and discussion of these can often be informative and
interesting. But politeness dictates that "Esperanto-bashing" in an
Esperanto forum is inappropriate and should be avoided.
From a questions list from www.esperanto.org
But a modified,simplified version of Latin such as Interlingua would be more European . . . Wouldn't it?
If you're talking about the abortion created by Alexander Gode in the late forties, forget it. I mean, a constructed language that conserves three conjugations???
If you're referring to one of the names under which the "Latino Sine Flexione" of the Italian mathematician Peano was known -- this is a different kettle of fish. This is Latin as she should have been, shorn of all those complicated declensions, conjugations, and incomprehensible ablative constructions, but -- at least in terms of its vocabulary -- remaining essentially Latin! I don't know whether anybody, or how many, ever spoke this language, but, if you are interested, it would certainly be a better candidate for revival than Gode's Interlingua, Hogben's Interglossa (nowadays resurrected as Glosa), or any of a thousand other stillborn language projects. Some of you university types in Europe should be able to find examples -- I seem to remember reading that one volume in Peano's collected works was written entirely in the language.
That's the end of the excerpt. I'm just sticking this link to Zoinx right here til I get more organized.
| 
