Constructed & Invented Languages

LINKS and WHATNOT
1.) Lingua Ignota - Hildegard von Bingen!
en.wikipedia.or...
en.wikipedia.or...
2.) "linguistic artifacts" -- We need more of these.
3.) Human languages disappearing:
www.ethnologue....
4.) Conlangs as model langs:
www.psychologyt...
5.) See also, Ian Watson - "The Embedding" for a fictional look at what language can and can't do with the human brain.
www.amazon.com/...
6.) Writing tablet, "Phonecian inscriptions" found online.
Codes & Naming Languages
7.) Shavian, a way of writing English, invented by George Bernard Shaw: www.omniglot.co...
8.) Lapine, in Richard Adams's "Watership Down"
en.wikipedia.or...
9.) Languages of Frank Herbert's "Dune" series:
dune.wikia.com/...
10.) Harry Potter magical language:
www.languagerea...
11.) "Quest for Fire"-- go see this movie. The Neanderthal language was created by Anthony Burgess, who also created Nadsat for "A Clockwork Orange". The Sapiens' language was apparently a hodgepodge of Cree/Inuit words.
en.wikipedia.or...)
Full Langs
12.) Klingon: www.kli.org/
13.) Dothraki: www.dothraki.org/
14.) Sindarin... for all of Tolkien's languages, start here:
tolkiengateway....
or go buy this book:
www.amazon.com/...
15.) Láadan
www.laadanlangu...
16.) Esperanto
The World Esperanto Association: www.uea.org/
or, I personally like: Lernu! en.lernu.net/
17.) Ido
18.) Novial
For both Ido & Novial, start here:
en.wikipedia.or...
Underdeveloped Langs
19.) SolReSol
If the site is still up, see: mozai.com/writi...
20.) Khuzdûl, Entish (see #14, above)
21.) Clan of the Cave Bear. Apparently, the language of the novel is not manual, but totally vocal. I guess I need to read the books.
AuxLangs
22.) I'm not anti-German by any means. Love the language, love the people, just got back from Berlin. But there is an easily accessed history there... Anti-German WWI Propoganda posters:
www.learnnc.org...
23.) Esperanto (see #16, above)
24.) SolReSol (see #19, above)
--SolReSol video created by Evan Wilson for my LIN 312 class at UT, Fall 2005. You can see the full video here: dsbigham.net/te...
Philosophical Langs
25.) Loglan: www.loglan.org/
26.) some links about BASIC:
www.dmoz.org/Co...
27.) Python: www.python.org/
Art Langs
28.) Klingon (see #12)
29.) Dothraki (see #13)
30.) Quenya, Sindarin (see #14)
31.) Láadan (see #15)
Personal Langs
32.) Lingua Ignota (see #1, above)
33.) Voynich Manuscript is another good example of a likely personal lang / code:
en.wikipedia.or...

[@Parso77]

Really enjoyed your “defence”. I’ve often said that it is the quirks and imperfections which *make* Esperanto, because they give us an idea of the limitations of which you speak.

[@aboubacarsissoko4342]

Man, you're being profusely heplful for some of us .....appreciate your style very much. I hope to see more videos from you. .... (y)

[@nvdawahyaify]

I have been working on a language for about four years now. It is phoneticly based of cherokee with elaments of inuktitut. It is called Tsata' Kalik. Sadly i have lost most of the material i had on it. Sample words: Kalik - us, our, ours, we. Tsata - sound, word, language. Alun - moon. Ya - man, male, he. Wa - wolf. Alona- spirit. Alphabet: A- as in father E- as in get I- as in police O- as in note U- as in rule V- like u in sun but nazalized D, g, h, k, l, m, n, qu, s, t, w, y

[@alekahayashi4631]

Too bad you lost some of your informations on it, looks pretty interesting ^^

[@WmAnnis]

Congrats on saying "Láadan" correctly! Poor, poor, Volapük.

[@johnny45irish]

This is awesome! I really like your format. Keep it up! :)

[@Kleo3392]

That Solresol bit was fire. I can imagine myself jamming to that.

[@AnvilandScribe]

Nice video my friend. in regards to conlangs, I post most of my conlang related art and writing on tumblr under the name dachiikardak .

[@cmasp64]

I enjoyed your discussion on the different invented languages. I am currently interested in learning one Espranto/Ido. I know the two are different and was hoping you might consider doing a short discussion on the difference between the two. There is almost nothing on Ido.

[@Freshbott2]

I've come up with an idea for a language where stressed consonants (sounding like double consonants in Finnish) at the beginning or end of a word are used to denote nominative and accusative and using verb position to denote tense. The subjects and objects can be flexible while verb first, verb second, and verb third are past, current and future tense respectively. Certain consonants would be changed to fricatives etc. to be able to lengthen them. If you applied it to written English it would look like this for example: The Ggrass eat the cowss - The cows eat/are eating the grass. Or Eat the cowss the ggrass - The cows ate the grass. The ccows the grasss eat - The grass will eat the cows (just to show how the cases work). Does anyone know if there any real languages that use features like this? I thought it's kind of cool to use something I've never heard of before. It shows how varied language can be.

[@ВераБаранова-д4ю]

These were the most interesting 8 minutes of my day. Thank you for the video!!!

[@anonb4632]

If you learn Volapük, you'll struggle to find anyone to speak to, but if you learn Loglan/Lojban, you won't find anyone you want to speak tom

[@lockattack93]

I'm working on a few artistic languages right now that I'm doing my best to not base off of anything in particular. The main one is Kitlin, which in the process of making, I accidentally made multiple languages by constantly changing everything. To be honest, I started it in the first place specifically to avoid doing schoolwork. It does have a written English form, but it has it's own alphabet as well, which has a few similarities to Tengwar. Sí lin-á, anglos-ák. (This is the language written in [the Latin alphabet]). I plan on using it as a baseline to make a bunch of others.

[@Jaclyn_Lizzi]

I find the constructed languages that were created for a purpose (like Esperanto, for example) interesting, but even more interesting are the ones that were made just for books or stories that the fans have added to and learned to make the story more real. People be crazy, I suppose :)

[@lolabOa18]

This is so interesting! Please keep up with these great videos. I think that sometimes I do think and speak in my own language which is a rare mix between Spanish, english, french and a bit of german. The good thing is that my closest friends have sort of the same experience their own so there ain't much problem understanding each other, which is actually great. I may give you our greatest example of this: "Je ne peux pas vivir this way."

[@pokemon3335]

Karina Mejia Picie nice

[@akelgb]

I am creating a conlang in Excel, It will unite the world.

[@cescolin]

So, how is that going?

[@debeastdueeast]

@@cescolin The world has achieved unity, so they probably did complete their language.

[@MatthewMcVeagh]

Will it unite the world by making everyone prefer LibreOffice Calc?

[@joeesperanto678]

I want to learn it too! I want to unite the world! 😭😭😭

[@MatthewMcVeagh]

Loglan/Lojban =/= philosophical languages They're classed as logical languages/loglangs. Yes logic is an area studied by philosophy, but the focus of loglangs is to be able to express concepts with logical clarity and especially avoid ambiguity. It's not to express a philosophy or discuss philosophical topics better.

[@AtlantaBill]

The term 'metalanguage' was coined by Western linguists to describe natural, socially existing languages. Linguistic metalanguage is now pretty sophisticated and has been incorporated into computer algorithms that deal with language translation. It's hard to envision a successful conlang that didn't incorporate a great deal of what has been learned by computer linguists. One lifetime is probably not enough time to develop a sophisticated colang. Computer linguistics has the advantage of utility for automatic-language development and has a use in developing natural language-teaching. Lexicology needs a lot more development, but computer linguistics is breaking ground there too. One of the problems in grounding lexemes (units of lexicology) in the naturally developed etymology is that modern words may be translated accurately from one language to another but have a completely different basis in etymology. Words change their signification over time. At the same time, etymologically based language-learning is far more direct and simpler than culturally based language-learning (at the advanced level). That doesn't mean that etymology can't be helpful, but basing comparative linguistics on it has presented as many problems for computer linguistics as it has for natural linguistics. The scientific development of language-learning has lagged behind other aspects of artificial intelligence, but that may not continue to be the case. Language-learning today is a hodge-podge of different methodologies, which might not be bad from the vantage point of the different advantages distinct methods have for distinct (unique) individuals. The field is a vaste one that hasn't attracted anything like the investment in human potential and financing that it demands if we're going to see global communication flourish as it should.

[@IABITVpresents]

I once attempted creating a conlang for my imaginary country. That didn't go well because a) it was English words replaced with these imaginary ones, b) I started it in 2011 when I knew the English language poorly myself, c) I never developed it further through the course of years.

[@MultiSciGeek]

do you make more of such videos? Subscribed!

[@NoahNobody]

I guess if I was to create a new language, I would create it so that it could be learned quickly at a basic level, then mastered at an advanced level (and perhaps even mixed along the way if you are, say...communicating something basic or casual as opposed to something complex or unambiguous).

[@edi9892]

How about some kauderwelsch/jargon which is intended to deliver certain information to a small group? Some are just a technical auxiliary but others are like entire languages.

[@christosfrantzolas2200]

Actually, I love constructing languages, though most of the conlangs I have created are still relatively incomplete... Most of them are just artlangs, but there is an auxlang among them as well.

[@conormcauley2934]

Samesies! I've gotten farther in my current personal-language than any other. It's called 'Varo' which I developed from a previous "archaic" version called "Varóus". I don't use existing words and put a "Varo" twist on them, I just make 'em up, but I draw inspiration from Turkish, Czech, Slovakian, Russian, Arabic, North African Languages, Welsh and Old Irish. Here's a sample. Just if you're interested... Zımén em, ovos im com ivím, cibán bedekıkı, ved yur bıdıkay hé koron yur sayra. ‘Varo’ zı dir hé da-jo amasifi cam. (I think we should enjoy life, work hard, learn new things and make good friends. This is ‘Varo’ and its goals.)

[@christosfrantzolas2200]

It seems pretty intresting! I like languages that are not more complicated than they should be, and yet they are enjoyable while reading them... Actually, the first artlang I have created is the one I have cultivated the most. At the moment I am trying to revise its vocabulary (which is mostly made up). Each word contains smaller "roots" that give it a deeper meaning. A good example of the language (by the way, it's called ésala and its name mean "the language of being", or "the language of essence") is this one... énam èn' eseallémere peévaraa c' ísee céaras nóleson. Etoóment', efyévane c' entageméscasen éyian t' ayesénian valácene. Just one man/human has the power to change our world's future. Because of this, all people's lives should be driven by the values of truth and kindness. Tips for pronunciation; "r" is pronunced with a trill, the accents indicate where a word is stressed, "c" is pronunced like "th" in the word "think" and "g" is pronunced like a [ɣ] sound. Hope you like it!

[@FakeFreckles]

I have loved creating my conlang (still underdeveloped) Jorten and all though my conlang is still in its infancy it has been adapted to Latin and Cyrillic scripts as well as its own unique script. The grammar is still rough and the vocabulary is small i Hope it Will grow to be more than only an art language. This video has been very helpful! Ka ga-ára’nu ffómuxe káõ konlang ( nuí mūffómuxetel) Íorten õŕ fetefśań káõ konlang kea-on e ematõ čěleopaćeŕ emat ga-kea łóvnorć a Latěn õŕ Sěrelěk mõrśatbíkaff kkón-xó ematõťˇ měmmõrśatbíkaff. Šõūkgoabontlagne kea-on vuŕkkŕ õŕ šõukgośõkaffne kea dorá, ka ćarć emat kean-vá ūst stórxe mor «art language» dra vědeõ ga-kea ūstt kkap’al! Ка га-аыра’ну ффоъмузе каыю конланг ( нуи муьффоъмузетел ) Иортен юэ фетефшань као конланг кеа-он е ематю чеьлеопачеэ емат га-кеа хоъвнорч а Латеьн юэ Сеьрелеьк мюршатби жоън-зоъ ематюц меьммюршатбикафф. Шюуькгоабонтлагне кеа-он вуэжэ юэ шюуьгошюкаффне кеа дораы, ка чарч емат кеан-ваы уьст стоързе мор « art language » дра веьдею га-кеа уьстт жап’ал!

[@morthim]

are you interested in criticizing and analyzing conlangs? i have two i'm working on one is either aux or philosophical. the other is what i call a study lang, but which fits in your description of philosophical languages. in the seccond i'm attempting to issolate a variable in a presuppositional manner to see how it impacts communication using the language in a "natural" manner. i tried druming up interest elsewhere, but didn't find any responce let alone interest. it is an auxlang to test a variable, but it is heavily crowdsourced. it isn't a personal language, though some is set up apriori to reduce division and personality conflict.

[@ufotofu9]

The idea of Con Langs are fascinating for all the reason that you cited. I believe that it is actually very important have a Universal language that wasn't Anglo-centric. However, almost all of the Con Langs that I know of are Western influenced, like Esperanto and Interlingua. A true Universals Language would have to either drop any categorical influences all together, or truly be a blend of every category of language. That means it must have aspects of Romance and Germanic, Sino-Tibetan Indo-European languages, Pacific Island languages and on and on.

[@daniellesottas5967]

+Geoffrey Zoref L'espéranto emprunte son vocabulaire aux langues indoeuropéennes (latin simplifié, français, anglais, allemand, slave, etc), mais la construction des mots se rapproche des langues agglutinantes et isolantes. La syntaxe et la morphologie sont pour une grande part étrangères à nos langues. Le premier pays au monde à avoir introduit l'espéranto dans son système scolaire en 1912 est la Chine.

[@daniellesottas5967]

+Geoffrey Zoref L'espéranto emprunte son vocabulaire aux langues indoeuropéennes (latin simplifié, français, anglais, allemand, slave, etc), mais la construction des mots se rapproche des langues agglutinantes et isolantes. La syntaxe et la morphologie sont pour une grande part étrangères à nos langues. Le premier pays au monde à avoir introduit l'espéranto dans son système scolaire en 1912 est la Chine.

[@FLlTTER]

I want to construct a language where all movements between phonemes only take one muscle movement in a certain direction (I know that doesn't make sense but idk how to explain it). I also want to make an alphabet where unvoiced consonants have ascenders, voiced consonants have descenders, and vowels are x-height.

[@freedomfighter763]

Veranai, gomaan. Rilaan benai-gkira kimaan-ga. Hello, brother. I walk strongly with you.

[@KarimKSamnani]

I am working on a language , Lets see how it works out :) . English Grammer and Sanskrit Phonetics and Latin Diacritic and the Slang of All Around the Globe.

[@pearllee3327]

Ni a'l rinu unn inda-yo! Ku in kremade ku lu konrinu aka Kadarinu. Unn gasio de du gu. Inde. Translation: All these languages are pretty. I am creating my conlang which is Kadarin.(Kadarinu). Glad to meet ya. Bye.

[@MultiSciGeek]

thank you

[@NEWT-17]

So what about a code made into a conlang? Like: A= i B= v C= f Cab= fiv Would that be a conlang? Maybe?

[@66LordLoss66]

Ethan M No, that's a code.

[@chandlerplays1685]

So suo, suo woy jupi shro, dui yo shama suo Translation: Thank you, you are a nice person, and I love you I basically just started this language, haven't 100% figured out the name yet, thinking about the name in English being "Combinian" but it is SVO with sounds from German, French, English, Chinese, and Japanese with Japanese and Chinese and Spanish grammar... Wish me luck, we have around 80 to 85 words so far

[@audzediigrrvlanc6429]

I have my own currently in works named Ellmyntrallskcii. Only things I have to work out is the rest of the dict. and the... ~shudder shudder~ ...grammar.. But once I get that outta the way, it'll be good to go. It has two 'forms' ('High' & 'Low') that use the English letters and such, and a third form ('Royal') that has it's own character set for it. If you have any question, just feel free to ask. ^_^ I'm kind of curious of what others think of it, so here's an example for y'all (it's a quote from Doctor Who... don't judge me please. :) ). I put the 'High' form first, the 'Low' form second, and finished with the translation for y'all. Hope y'all enjoy!: "Bakaǫk Íż głá mú skaßí ǐ̃a Dęћlo, bakaǫk Íżía śá glỷ. Gląжk tav fàmśka yak īrí yak brʉ́; gląжk tav żla naż yak żla żdą dú żla phĩ́d ǐ̃a ßą. Gląжk ą̣ao yak aɵaŋ. Glą vlųd yag żla sēí rí ble yak kłí śa żla pra ǐ̃a gų́strakí yak... gląжk vų́tę̃ò..!" "Bakcaohnkc Iiz guaa mu skcatsii iirlla Dehnthllo, bakcaohnkc Iizziia shaa gllymm. Gllahn'kc tavv ffarrmshkca yakc iccrii yakc bruff; gllahn'kc tavv zla nazz yakc zla zdahn du zla ffiilldd iirlla tsahn. Gllahn'kc ahnjao yakc aoffahng. Gllahn vlluhndd yahg zla cceccii rii blleh yakc quii sha zla prahh iirlla gunssttrrakcii yakc... gllahn'kc vunttellnorr..!" "Because I was so scared of the Doctor, because I've seen him. He's like fire and ice and rage; he's like the night and the storm in the heart of the sun. He's ancient and forever. He burns at the center of time and can see the turn of the universe and... he's wonderful..!" (P.S. serry for the length.. >_>)

[@dreamingfifi]

Pedin laim echennin! Ach, pin nauthar i benin ind ir phedin... nae...

[@darwinvickers9171]

Nice video, very informative.

[@dotjretion]

I'm creating a conlang which is based off of several Germanic languages. As an example, I shall write this comment in both English and Vinlandic. Æch ȝøþørt äŋ Conlaŋska pettneð finn Ȝørmannskaðsprøchnen. Saz äŋ Térul, Æch sallen borþ ðøska Daalen nin Æŋgleskað ønt Winlantskað.

[@dotjretion]

Update: I lost all my data on Vinlandic. Language considered extinct.

[@SportsPhanatic17]

Interesting, I'm creating a conlang related to mainly English, Welsh, Dutch, and German, called Wytssete Ynterer, Yg lly kreter en kanlasse klos tah wornamijk Enlisse, Welsse, Nederlasse, end Dijtsse, nam't Wytssete.

[@dotjretion]

I started working on a new language called Eskanian. It's mostly a priori with very minimal Finnish influence. When it's developed enough, I'll add an Eskanian translation of this comment.

[@mladyavery9138]

jretion Obviously fake, but it looks cool. I will write this in my creöle, Nœlais. Obvio nerois, be zè appè keule. Je voiĺ ekroi zèś en mon kreyo, Nœlais.

[@sebastiangolgiri]

that's very creative aww it's lovely :)

[@neilo2679]

Love your work!

[@m13m]

saluton +DS Bigham

[@26blanco]

Very good video

[@markandlanguages4124]

Whatever you do, don't create a new language. It can become such an obsession that you could lose sleep over it.

[@slybadgerofficial4858]

im making a language but its put on hold

I think time sets the limit so you could not discuss Kotava which pretends to be culturally neutral or the reformed father of the modern auxlangs as is Volapük, fascinating even if it does not have many speakers. Then Interlingua or its cousin Occidental. But they can easily be found on the net.

[@celtman58]

What about twin speech?

[@pearllee3327]

Ni a'l rinu unn inda-yo!Ku in made ku lu kon-rinu aka Kadarinu.Unn gasio de du daga-yo! Inde....(smile)

[@josephe4766]

Lingua Ignota sounds like a bionicle mask

[@aroundworldnews]

موضوع خطير

[@padylha7]

Saluton! Mi nomighas Roberto Padilha el Fortalezo Brazilo. Bonvole, sendu al mi gramatikoj kaj kurso de Esperanto. Mia adreso : Travessa Jangadeiro, 76 Mucuripe Fortaleza Ceará Brasil. Dankon! Dio benu vin. Kisetoj. Ankauh aliaj lingvoj.

[@garyrector7394]

I don't like your saying that constructed languages are not natural. Human beings are part of nature; therefore, conlangs are also natural.

[@MyriadSkies]

This is arguably true, but your argument puts syntax over meaning, which is a great way to talk to a computer, but a bad way to communicate with humans. What he means, is that constructed languages are thought up, at the spot (possibly over multiple years). While "Natural languages" started forming at some point in history, and from that point they have been evolving. I wouldn't be surprised that if Klingon would actually be spoken by people for the next, say, thousand years, and it would mutate as a result of it, that the result would eventually be called a "Natural language".

[@raizin4908]

+Gary Rector This use of the word "natural" has nothing to do with nature, and more with "normal". I.e. natural languages are languages that came to be the normal way, their grammar an vocabulary a result of thousands of years of evolution. Whereas constructed languages came to be in a mere blink of an eye. In years, months, or even just days. And even then, the distinction says almost nothing about what the language actually is like, only about how it came to be. For example, Esperanto with its active community is definitely a living language that in the past century has evolved much like any other modern language. And in this point in time it is a much more vibrant and rich language than some of the hardly documented nearly extinct languages, which have now sadly almost fallen into oblivion and are frequently but a shade of what the languages used to be, when the number of speakers were over a thousand times more. And of course there are dead languages, like Latin and Sanskrit, which are now carved in stone and don't evolve anymore.

[@thegeniusfool]

I agree but... that extensive definition makes *everything* "natural," no? Thus, making the term "natural" quite redundant.

[@sebastiangolgiri]

gary thats very true

[@luyombojonathan7715]

Do vecnu to mi(lojban) learner here

[@acfanboy1997]

Tódus laud Jesu, al Re'ex de'el Rexis!

[@konq9779]

Ig likog eira. I like oxygen

[@shanenanigans27]

Mi amas Esperanton!!!

[@shanenanigans27]

Sadly, I have to give it up. I'm more into learning Spanish.

[@shanenanigans27]

Thanks

[@polyglotuniversity9114]

+Shane Doyle No te preocúpes. Don't worry. لا توجد مشكلة.

[@JusufAlGattan]

hakuna matata нет проблем مو مشكلة (gulf arabic) kein problem

[@shanenanigans27]

Okay?

[@celtman58]

What about twin languages?

[@dieterrooke]

Ankau papo francisko parolas Esperanton !

[@lianakamori4156]

Mi ankaux parolas Esperanto, la anglan kaj la hispana. Esperanto estas iomete malfacxila, sed esperanto estas bona por lerni.

[@thejunecooperative]

Lian Akamori Mi devas praktiki, sed mi komprenas viajn komentojn. (Ĉu ĝi estas ĝŭsta? Komentojn?) Ĉiuokaze, adiaŭ!

[@herrschwarz485]

Malfacila ??

[@fenryx0]

OK! Seventeen minutes in and you haven't taught a thing. I am definitely getting bored. I came to learn and you waste my time. I came to learn, I don't have to be persuaded, the class is not mandatory, and I don't care if you think conlangs are "awesome" or "awful". Maybe some day you will get around to a more compact style. I am going elsewhere.

[@michaelbell5410]

+fenryx0 You need to calm down and take a nap or a shower and really reconsider your life.

[@fenryx0]

Michael Bell Hey dude get off my back I was just being honest.

[@michaelbell5410]

I mean, he literally tells the veiwers what each type of conlang is, so thats teaching something. He also goes through some other basics of languages so he is quite literally teaching us things.

[@michaelbell5410]

viewers* sorry im used to german spelling.

[@KingdomofSmileys]

17 minutes in? What video were you watching?