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As children we have the tendency to invent our own ways of speaking to communicate with our friends, cousins and siblings. This usually means taking our mother tongue and transforming it into something else entirely. By doing so, we are creating a constructed language .
A constructed language, often referred to as conlang , is a language whose grammatical structure, phonetics, and vocabulary were intentionally created for a specific purpose, either by one person or a group of people . In other words, it is a language that arose artificially instead of naturally evolving through use by different human communities.
The term conlang comes from the union of the two words that make up the term “constructed language” in English, constructed + language . In Spanish we usually refer to conlangs as ideolenguas , although they are also called artificial languages. These invented languages range from the fictional languages and dialects unique to alien races in science fiction TV shows and movies, to developments by acclaimed linguists seeking a universal language to serve as a scaffold to facilitate international communication.
The evolution and development of ideolanguages or constructed languages
Constructed languages are nothing new and have been around for a long time. However, it is only now, thanks to globalization and the development of more and better information and communication technologies, that they have achieved more notoriety.
It is believed that the first true constructed language was the Unknown Language, developed by the Abbess of Rupertsberg, Hildegard of Bingen in the 12th century . It is not clear why the abbess developed this language, apparently without grammar and with a unique alphabet.
According to some historians, the holy abbess sought to develop a universal language that she had obtained by divine inspiration. However, it seems more likely that it was simply a mechanism for secret communication within the abbey .
Later, in 1887 , the Polish ophthalmologist LL Zamhenof developed what would be the first serious attempt to invent a language from scratch that would serve as the basis for a new, more effective international communication free of ethnic and sociocultural charges. This language was Esperanto and it is among the most widely spread constructed languages today.
On the other hand, literature has been a fertile field in which different authors have created the outlines of a constructed language that later developed in greater depth. In addition, as usually happens in cases of successful literary productions, these works were adapted for the cinema, which required the development of all their phonetic part.
The creators of constructed languages or conlangers
Most of the people involved in creating new languages, who are called conlangers , tend to be linguists, which makes them the perfect candidates to ensure that the language has a proper and consistent structure.
However, this does not have to be like this. In fact, we already mentioned how Zamhenof, who was an ophthalmologist, created one of the most popular constructed languages today. Anyone who wants to can invent a new language for various purposes.
In many cases, the creation of a new language turns out to be, simply, an exercise to test the knowledge in linguistics. In others, it is simply a writer’s desire to give a narrative involving fantasy or science fiction characters more context.
Classification of conlangs or constructed languages
There are many examples of languages built by authors for different purposes and which, furthermore, have different particular characteristics. This means that there are different types of constructed languages, which can be classified based on various criteria, detailed below.
Classification according to the intention of use
In general terms, conlangers create a new language with one of two different intents, thus giving rise to two classes of languages constructed according to their intended use:
Auxiliary languages , which are those created with the intention that the language is actually used in the real world by real people as a means of communication, as is the case of Esperanto.
Fictional languages , which are those that are limited or circumscribed to the narrative of a novel and in which case the only speakers are fictional characters. There are many examples of fictional languages, including Sindarin (or Gray Elvish) created by JR Tolkien and the language of the Klingons, an extraterrestrial race from Star Trek .
Classification according to its creation purpose
According to this criterion, the constructed languages can be:
Languages with utilitarian purposes: these include languages that seek to function as languages of universal, experimental, secret communication, etc.
Languages for creative purposes: which are the ones an author uses simply to explore their creativity and to give setting to their narrative.
Classification according to its origin
According to the origin, the constructed languages can be those created a priori or a posteriori .
Languages created a priori : are those that are not based on any other pre-existing language. That is to say, they are the ideolanguages created from scratch, in which both the grammatical rules and the phonetics and vocabulary are entirely authored by the conlanger and clear parallels cannot be established with any natural language.
A posteriori created languages : they are the opposite of a priori languages . That is to say, they are those languages that are based on other existing natural languages. A posteriori languages often combine several natural languages with each other, taking grammatical elements from one or another language and borrowing terms from this or that vocabulary, as in the case of the language of Illumination Entertainment’s Minions, who speak a potpourri of Spanish, Italian, French, Japanese, Korean and Filipino.
Examples of constructed languages
| Gone | Lojban | Sindarin |
| Folkspraak | Toki Pona | Klingon |
| Esperanto | unknown language | Na’vi |
| Interlingua | enochian | Dothraki |
References
AnimoApps. (2017, April 11). Classification of Artificial Languages . https://aminoapps.com/c/lenguajes-artificiales/page/blog/clasificacion-de-las-lenguas-artificiales/lxeZ_JniQuXxJKaJXk56BwX7a1ok300pZb
Hoyos, FM (2019, September 12). 10 languages that were created from nothing . The vanguard. https://www.lavanguardia.com/historiayvida/mas-historias/20190212/47312500810/10-idiomas-que-se-crearon-de-la-nada.html
What is a constructed language? (2020, August 7). Prucommercialre. https://www.prucommercialre.com/que-es-una-lengua-construida/
Spiegato. (2021, July 25). What is a constructed language? https://spiegato.com/en/what-is-a-constructed-language
Valerias, R. (2003, November 22). artificial languages . Rodoval. http://www.rodoval.com/lenguas.html
