List of constructed languages

This list of notable constructed languages is in alphabetical order, and divided into auxiliary, engineered, and artistic (including fictional) languages, and their respective subgenres.

Auxiliary languages

Spoken (major)

The following are languages that have generated significant followings, or which have been of significance in the history of auxiliary languages.

Language name	ISO	Year of first publication	Creator	Comments
Solresol		1827	François Sudre	the famous "musical language"
Volapük	vo, vol	1879–1880	Johann Martin Schleyer	First to generate international interest in International auxiliary languages (IALs)
Esperanto	eo, epo	1887	L. L. Zamenhof	Fluent speakers: between 30,000 and 300,000;^[1] Casual users: est. 100,000 to 2 million; native: 200 to 2000 (1996, est.).^[2]
Idiom Neutral		1902	Waldemar Rosenberger	A naturalistic IAL by a former advocate of Volapük
Latino sine Flexione		1903	Giuseppe Peano	"Latin without inflections," it replaced Idiom Neutral in 1908
Ido	io, ido	1907	A group of reformist Esperanto speakers	The most successful offspring of Esperanto
Occidental	ie, ile	1922	Edgar de Wahl	A sophisticated naturalistic IAL (Interlingue)
Novial	nov	1928	Otto Jespersen	Another sophisticated naturalistic IAL
Glosa	igs	1943	Lancelot Hogben, et al.	Originally called Interglossa, has a strong Greco-Latin vocabulary
Interlingua	ia, ina	1951	International Auxiliary Language Association	A Language to create common Romance vocabulary

Spoken (minor)

There have been hundreds of proposals for auxiliary languages, and more continue to be created. The following are languages with some notability, either historically or because of unusual characteristics.

Language name	ISO	Year of first publication	Creator	Comments
Adjuvilo		1908	Claudius Colas	an esperantido created to cause dissent among Idoists
Afrihili	afh	1970	K. A. Kumi Attobrah	a pan-African language
Arcaicam Esperantom		1969	Manuel Halvelik	'Archaic Esperanto', an archaizing 'Old Esperanto' for literature
Babm		1962	Rikichi Okamoto	noted for using Latin letters as an abjad
Bolak		1899	Léon Bollack	prospered fairly well in its initial years, now almost forgotten.^[3]
Communicationssprache		1839	Joseph Schipfer	based on French
Esperanto II		1937	René de Saussure	last of Saussure's many esperantidos
Europanto		1996	Diego Marani	a "linguistic jest"
Intal		1956	Erich Weferling	an effort to unite the most common systems of constructed languages
Lingua Franca Nova	lfn	1998	C. George Boeree and others	Romance vocabulary with creole-like grammar
Lingua sistemfrater		1957	Pham Xuan Thai	Greco-Latin vocabulary with southeast Asian grammar
Lojban	jbo	1987	Logical Language Group	A logical language based on Mandarin, English, Hindi, Spanish, Russian and Arab
Kotava	avk	1978	Staren Fetcey	An a priori constructed language
Modern Indo-European		2006	Carlos Quiles and María Teresa Batalla	modernized Proto-Indo-European
Mondial		1940s	Dr. Helge Heimer	naturalistic European language
Mundolinco		1888	J. Braakman	the first esperantido
Neo		1961	Arturo Alfandari	a very terse European language
Noxilo		1997	Mizta Sentaro	a language trying to avoid any regional or ethnic bias
Nuwaubic		1970s?	Malachi Z. York	the language of a black supremacist religious group
Poliespo		1990s?	Nvwtohiyada Idehesdi Sequoyah	Esperanto grammar with significant Cherokee vocabulary
Slovianski		2006	Ondřej Rečnik, Gabriel Svoboda, Jan van Steenbergen, Igor Polyakov	A naturalistic language based on the Slavic languages
Slovio		1999	Mark Hučko	A constructed language based on the Slavic languages and the grammar of esperanto
Sona		1935	Kenneth Searight	best known attempt at universality of vocabulary
Spokil		1887 or 1890	Adolph Nicolas	an a priori language by a former Volapük advocate
Toki Pona		2001	Sonja Elen Kisa	highly simplified language with restricted vocabulary
Unilingua		1966	Noubar Agapoff	an a priori language with systematic vocabulary (aka: Mirad)
Universalglot		1868	Jean Pirro	arguably the first IAL, predating even Volapük

Controlled languages

Controlled languages are natural languages that have in some way been altered to make them simpler, easier to use, or more acceptable to those who do not speak the original language well. Most of these have been based on English.

Visual languages

Visual languages use symbols or movements in place of the spoken word.

Engineered languages

Human-usable

An Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language by John Wilkins
aUI
Characteristica universalis
Ilaksh
Isotype
Ithkuil
Láadan (ldn)
Loglan
Logopandecteision
Lojban (jbo)
Ro
Unilingua

Knowledge representation

Several wellknown Knowledge Query and Manipulation Languages have been created from extensive research projets, to represent and query knowledge on computers:
- Knowledge Interchange Format (KIF), a precursor for knowledge representation.
- Common Logic (CL), an ISO standard derived from KIF.
- Resource Description Framework (RDF), a language standardized by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) based on the principles of Common Logic, which represents knowledge a a directed graph built from unordered sets of "sentences" (in fact, as relational triples: subject, relation, attribute) using a XML syntax for its interchange format. Each element of the triple can be either a simple value (if its semantic value is not specified outside of the relation using it), or identifiers of objects (such as URIs) that are part of enumeration built from another subset of relational triples. The relations may be open (in which case the attributes are not enumerable) or closed in a finite enumerable set whose elements can be easily represented as objects as well with their own identity participating in many different relations for other parts of the knowledge.
  - UML may be used to describe the sets of relations and rules of inference and processing, and SQL may be used to use them in concrete schemas and compact store formats, but RDF designs its own (semantically more powerful) schema language for handling large sets of knowledge data stored in RDF format.
  - RDF is probably useful only for automated machine processing, but its verbosity and complex (for a humane) representation mechanisms and inference rules does not qualify it a a humane language except in very limited contexts. It is still a specification with extensive research.
- Web Ontology Language (OWL), another knowledge representation language standardized by W3C, and derived from Common Logic.
CycL
The Distributed Language Translation project used a "binary-coded" version of Esperanto as a pivot language between the source language and its translation.
Lincos
Loom
Universal Networking Language (UNL)

Artistic languages

Languages used in fiction

Literature

Adûnaic from J. R. R. Tolkien's works
Aklo, Tsath-yo, and R'lyehian are ancient and obscure languages in the works of H. P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, and others. Aklo is considered by some writers to be the written language of the Serpent People
Amtorian, spoken in some cultures on the planet Venus in Pirates of Venus by Edgar Rice Burroughs and several sequels. Judged by critic Fredrik Ekman to have "a highly inventive morphology but a far less interesting syntax."^[4]
Ancient Language in the Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini.
Angley, Unglish and Ingliss - three languages spoken respectively in Western Europe, North America and the Pacific in the 29th century world of Poul Anderson's Orion Shall Rise. All derived from present-day English, the three are mutually unintelligible, following 800 years of separate development after a 21st century nuclear war and the extensive absorption of words and grammatical forms from French in the first case, Russian, Chinese and Mongolian in the second, and Polynesian in the third.
Anglic, the dominant language of the declining Galactic empire depicted in Poul Anderson's Dominic Flandry series, is descended from present-day English but so changed that only professional historians or linguists can understand English texts.
Anglic: unrelated to the above, seen in the Civiliztion of the Five Galaxies in David Brin's Uplift Trilogies; is descended from modern English, modified to account for the differences in the culture on Earth and it's colonies.
Anglo-French, in the alternate history world of the Lord Darcy stories by Randall Garrett - where England and France were permanently united into a single kingdom by Richard the Lionheart and their languages consequently merged.
Anglo-French, unconnected with the above, spoken in the dystopian 20th century of Poul Anderson's The Shield of Time where England won the Hundred Years' War and conquered France.
asa'pili ("world language"), in bolo'bolo, by Swiss author P.M..
Atlango from Ryszard Antoniszczak (Richard A Antonius) 's works"^[5]
Atlantean language, a constructed language created for Disney's film Atlantis: The Lost Empire
Babel-17, in Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delany
Baronh, language of Abh in Seikai no Monsho (Crest of the Stars) and others, by Morioka Hiroyuki
Black Speech - language of Mordor in The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien
Bokonon - language of the Bokononism religion in Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle.
Codex Seraphinianus by Luigi Serafini appears to be written in a constructed language which is presumably the language of the alien civilization the book describes.
Chapalli - language of the aliens in Kate Elliott's "Jaran" series, notable for incorporating hand signals to supplement oral meaning and multiple levels of formality used in different parts of a social hierarchy, like Japanese, described from the point of view of a protagonist who is a linguist.
Common Eldarin from J. R. R. Tolkien's works
High D'Haran - the ancient, dead language of pre-Great War New World in Terry Goodkind's The Sword of Truth series.
Dahmek, language spoken on Eho Dahma, a planet with a double-ended spoon-shaped orbit and populated exclusively of women in a binary star system from K Gerard Martin's Carreña book series.
Drac, language of the alien species in Barry B. Longyear's Enemy Mine and The Enemy Papers
From Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea books:
- Language of the Making - the basis of all magic, spoken by Dragons as their native tongue and learned with considerable effort by human mages.
- Hardic - linguistically descended from the above
- Osskilian, and Kargish - a different family of languages, distantly related
Elemeno, language of two sisters in Caucasia by Danzy Senna.
"Expanded English" or "World English", spoken throughout the world in the 22nd century in the Utopian world of H.G.Wells's The Shape of Things to Come.
The Giant's Fence by Michael Jacobson. ([4])
Goodenuf English, a form of English used by foreigners in the novel Rainbows End by Vernon Vinge
Glide, created by Diana Reed Slattery, used by the Death Dancers of The Maze Game
Groilish, spoken by giants in Giants and the Joneses by Julia Donaldson.
Gnomish, also Goldogrin from J. R. R. Tolkien's works.
Gnommish, spoken by the fairies in Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl series.
Gobbledegook is a language spoken by the goblins in the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling.
High Speech of Gilead from Stephen King's The Dark Tower
Kesh, in Ursula K. Le Guin's novel Always Coming Home
Khuzdul from J. R. R. Tolkien's works
Krakish, in Guardians of Ga'Hoole by Kathryn Lasky
Láadan (ldn), in Suzette Haden Elgin's science fiction novel Native Tongue and sequels
Lapine, in Watership Down by Richard Adams
Linyaari spoken by the Linyaari people of Vhiliinyar in Anne McCaffery's Acorna series.
Mando'a, created by Karen Traviss, used by the Mandalorians in the Star Wars Republic Commando novels Hard Contact and Triple Zero
Marain, in The Culture novels of Iain M. Banks
The Martian language in Percy Greg's Across the Zodiac may have been the first fictional language described using linguistic and grammatical terminology.^[6]
The Matoran language used by the various sentient species in Bionicle. It is named after its creators the Matoran species.
Miramish, language spoken on Eho Miriam, a planet with a rounded box-shaped orbit and populated exclusively of women in a binary star system from K Gerard Martin's Carreña book series.
Mirsua, a power language derived from Miramish, languages spoken on planet Eho Miriam from K Gerard Martin's Carreña book series.
Molvanian from Molvania, A Land Untouched By Modern Dentistry
Nadsat slang, in A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
Newspeak, in Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell (fictional constructed language)
The "Nautilus Language", spoken on board Jules Verne's famous fictional submarine, in token of crew members having completely renounced their former homelands and backgrounds. Every morning, after scanning the horizon with his binoculars, Nemo's second-in-command says: "Nautron respoc lorni virch". The meaning of these words is never clarified, but their construction seems to indicate that the "Nautilus Language" (its actual name is not given) is based on European languages.
Nimiash, language spoken on Nimsant, a distant prison planet in a binary star system from K Gerard Martin's Carreña book series.
Old Solar, in Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength by C. S. Lewis
The Old Language from Stephen King's The Dark Tower series.
The Old Tongue from Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series
Orghast from the Peter Brooks production of the same name invented for the Shiraz/Persepolis festival in Iran in celebration of the Persian state
Parseltongue, the language of snakes, in the Harry Potter series. The ability of humans to speak it is considered a magic ability.
Pravic and Iotic, in The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin
Ptydepe, from Václav Havel's play The Memorandum
Quintaglio from Robert J. Sawyer's Quintaglio Ascension Trilogy
Quenya from J. R. R. Tolkien's works.
Qwghlmian from Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon and The Baroque Cycle
Rihannsu, spoken by the Rihannsu (Romulans) in the Star Trek novels of Diane Duane
Spocanian, in Rolandt Tweehuysen's fictional country Spocania
Sindarin from J. R. R. Tolkien's works.
The Speech, a universal language in Diane Duane's books.
Stark (short for Star Common), a common interstellar English-based language from Orson Scott Card's Ender series
Starsza Mowa from Andrzej Sapkowski's Hexer saga
Troll language from Terry Pratchett's Discworld
Trinary, a language used by Neo-Dolphins and sometimes Humans, in David Brin's Uplift Trilogies
Utopian language, appearing in a poem by Petrus Gilles accompanying Thomas More's Utopia
Whitmanite, spoken by members of a radical Anarchist-Pacifist cult of the same name in Robert A. Heinlein' The Puppet Masters.
Zaum, poetic tongue elaborated by Velimir Khlebnikov, Aleksei Kruchonykh, and other Russian Futurists as a "transrational" and "most universal" language "of songs, incantations, and curses".
Zamgrh, spoken by Zombies in the Urban Dead games, and worked out in considerable detail (see [5]).
Several languages spoken by Panurge in François Rabelais' Pantagruel (1532)
The Time Machine featured an unnamed language for the Eloi people.
Jack Womack's Dryco novels feature a future form of English with a modified grammar.

Comic books

Bordurian in some of Hergé's The Adventures of Tintin, mostly in The Calculus Affair
Syldavian, in some of Hergé's The Adventures of Tintin, mostly in King Ottokar's Sceptre

Movies and television

Adspeak in The Year of the Sex Olympics (by Nigel Kneale) is a Newspeak-like impoverished language derived from 60s and 70s British advertising vocabulary.
Ancient in the Stargate universe (i.e. Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis) is the language of the Ancients, the builders of the Stargates; it is similar in pronunciation to Medieval Latin. The Athosians say prayers in Ancient. (However, when shown onscreen, written Ancient is simply a different character set for English)
Atlantean created by Marc Okrand for the film Atlantis: The Lost Empire
The Divine Language is a language invented by director Luc Besson and actress Milla Jovovich for the 1997 movie The Fifth Element.
Dothraki, created by David J. Peterson for the TV series Game of Thrones (based on the books by George R. R. Martin)
Enchanta, in the Encantadia and Etheria television series in the Philippines, created by the head writer Suzette Doctolero
Eunoia, in the television series Earth: Final Conflict, consultant Christian Bök.
Goa'uld, the galactic lingua franca from Stargate SG-1, supposedly influenced Ancient Egyptian
Klingon (tlhIngan Hol), in the Star Trek movies and television series, created by Marc Okrand
Krakozhian from The Terminal
Ku, a fictional African language in the movie The Interpreter (2005)
Nadsat, the fictional language spoken by Alex and his friends in Clockwork Orange
Na'vi, the fictional language spoken by the Na'vi in Avatar
Pakuni, the language of the Pakuni from the Land of the Lost television series and movie.
Slovetzian, the fictional Slavic language of Slovetzia in the movie The Beautician and the Beast
Tenctonese from the Alien Nation movie and television series, created by Van Ling and Kenneth Johnson
Ulam, the language spoken by the prehistoric humans in the movie Quest for Fire, created by Anthony Burgess by melting roots of European languages.
Vulcan language from Star Trek. Further developed by fans as Golic Vulcan.

Unnamed languages

Riddley Walker, a 1980 novel by Russell Hoban, set in a post-apocalyptic future, is written entirely in a "devolved" form of English.

Music

Gulevache: fictional Romance language of the kingdom of Gulevandia in the bilingual opera Cardoso en Gulevandia by the comedy group Les Luthiers
Kobaïan (Zeuhl), the language used by 70's French rock group Magma.
Loxian, created by Roma Ryan, used on Enya's 2005 album Amarantine.
Unnamed language by Yves Barbieux, used in his song "Sanomi" and performed by the Belgian group Urban Trad in the Eurovision Song contest in 2003.
Mohelmot, a forbidden language used by The Residents on the album The Big Bubble: Part Four of the Mole Trilogy.
Unnamed language by Emmanuelle Orange, used in her song "Pialoushka" and performed by Montreal band Eden106.
Unnamed language featured in the chorus of 2NU's 1991 track "This is Ponderous."
Unnamed language featured in the soundtrack to the film 1492: Conquest of Paradise by Vangelis.
Unnamed language constructed by Wim Mertens to be used in his vocal performances (piano/voice).
Unnamed language constructed by the Canadian classical composer Claude Vivier, used in works like Trois Airs pour un opéra imaginaire.
Unnamed “infernal language”^[7] devised by the composer Hector Berlioz, used for the original version of the Chorus of Shades in Lélio, the “Dance of Nubian slaves” in Les Troyens, and the Chorus of Demons (“Pandæmonium“) in La damnation de Faust.
Unnamed language used in early albums of Russian band 2 Samoleta.

Performance

Grammelot (Cirquish) is a "gibberish" that goes back to the 16th century, used by performers, including those of Cirque du Soleil

Games

D'ni, the language spoken by the subterranean D'ni people in Cyan Worlds' Myst series of computer games and novels
Gargish, used in the Ultima computer game series, by the gargoyle race
Hymmnos, used by Reyvateils for Song Magic in Ar tonelico
kiZombie, used by zombies in the Urban Dead MMORPG
Lashonnu is the language of the Wealdings (the Forest People) in the Gondica role playing game by Anders Blixt
Mando'a, created by Karen Traviss, used by the Mandalorians in Star Wars: Republic Commando
Tho Fan, in the Xbox game Jade Empire, created by Wolf Wikeley
Tsolyani, a language developed by M. A. R. Barker in the mid-to-late 1940s in parallel with the development of his legendarium leading to the world of Tékumel as described in the roleplaying game Empire of the Petal Throne, published by TSR in 1975 and later literary tie-ins.
Vasudan, the language spoken by the Vasudan race in Descent: FreeSpace– The Great War and in the other titles in the FreeSpace series.
Simlish is featured in The Sims life-simulation computer game series, a language that is spoken throughout the game.
Panzerese is a term used by the fans of the Panzer Dragoon series to describe the mix of Russian, Greek, and Latin spoken in the series.
Raymanese is a language used in the Rayman series, specifically Rayman 2: The Great Escape.

Toys

Furbish

Internet-based

Dritok, by Don Boozer
Kamakawi, by David J. Peterson
Kēlen, by Sylvia Sotomayor
Teonaht, by Sally Caves
Verdurian and several other languages created for the fictional planet of Almea by Mark Rosenfelder

Alternative languages

Anglish
Brithenig (bzt), created by the inventor of the alternate history of Ill Bethisad, Andrew Smith
Several North Slavic languages, inspired by the existence of West, East and South Slavic languages and the absence of a Northern branch
Sambahsa-Mundialect, a mixture of reconstructed Proto-Indo-European and modern worldlangs, by Olivier Simon.
Wenedyk, a language of the alternate history of Ill Bethisad created by Jan van Steenbergen

Micronational languages

Talossan, by R. Ben Madison

Personal languages

Enochian by Edward Kelley
Lingua Ignota, by Hildegard of Bingen
Vendergood (1906), invented by William James Sidis when he was eight years old

Language games

External links

Language analysis from Linguist List

References and notes

^ http://www.ling.helsinki.fi/sky/julkaisut/SKY2006_1/1FK60.1.5.LINDSTEDT.pdf
^ Ethnologue report for language code:epo
^ [1]
^ [2]
^ [3]
^ Ekman, F: "The Martial Language of Percy Greg", Invented Languages Summer 2008, p. 11. Richard K. Harrison, 2008
^ Tom S. Wotton, ‘Infernal Language’ : A Berlioz Hoax, The Musical Times 78 (1129): 209–10. March 1937