Word for artificial language

Yes, there is. The standard term of art is «conlang», short for «constructed language». Conlangs are further divided into numerous more specific categories like philosophical languages, artistic languages (artlangs), logical languages (loglangs), engineered languages (engelangs), auxiliary languages (auxlangs), and so forth. Where applicable, they can also be categorized by the natural language family from which they take inspiration, as in romlangs (artificial romance languages, generally the most popular of this sort), germlangs (artificial germanic languages) and slavlangs (artificial slavic languages).

The way Reverse Dictionary works is pretty simple. It simply looks through tonnes of dictionary definitions and grabs the ones that most closely match your search query. For example, if you type something like «longing for a time in the past», then the engine will return «nostalgia». The engine has indexed several million definitions so far, and at this stage it’s starting to give consistently good results (though it may return weird results sometimes). It acts a lot like a thesaurus except that it allows you to search with a definition, rather than a single word. So in a sense, this tool is a «search engine for words», or a sentence to word converter.

I made this tool after working on Related Words which is a very similar tool, except it uses a bunch of algorithms and multiple databases to find similar words to a search query. That project is closer to a thesaurus in the sense that it returns synonyms for a word (or short phrase) query, but it also returns many broadly related words that aren’t included in thesauri. So this project, Reverse Dictionary, is meant to go hand-in-hand with Related Words to act as a word-finding and brainstorming toolset. For those interested, I also developed Describing Words which helps you find adjectives and interesting descriptors for things (e.g. waves, sunsets, trees, etc.).

In case you didn’t notice, you can click on words in the search results and you’ll be presented with the definition of that word (if available). The definitions are sourced from the famous and open-source WordNet database, so a huge thanks to the many contributors for creating such an awesome free resource.

Special thanks to the contributors of the open-source code that was used in this project: Elastic Search, @HubSpot, WordNet, and @mongodb.

Please note that Reverse Dictionary uses third party scripts (such as Google Analytics and advertisements) which use cookies. To learn more, see the privacy policy.

Did you know that there are approximately 7117 languages spoken in the world today, but only 23% of them account for more than half of the world’s population?

These might be the statistics on natural languages, but what about the ones that are created artificially? Termed as artificial languages, or constructed languages, these have been created by humans and language creators believe these languages will ultimately bring world peace and clearer thinking.

Johann Martin Schleyer, a German priest, was the pioneer of artificial languages when he created Volapük in 1879. Although the creation of this language gave birth to numerous clubs and communities and became the officially spoken language of almost 210,000 speakers in many countries, owing to its phonetics and cumbersome grammar, it failed to survive. Consequently, a conference in Paris was held which ended up on an agreement to discontinue this artificial language. Soon after, Esperanto, another language by a Polish ophthalmologist Ludwik-Lejzer-Zamenhof was founded and became so popular that it was adopted by labor programs in Europe. UNESCO even went as far as to direct schools and colleges to teach Esperanto, and even church masses began to be held in this language in 1981.

There are many other languages besides Esperanto that made it big but soon died because of being “artificial”. Read on to find the classifications and the artificial languages that emerged over time.

Constructed and Natural Languages—A Brief Comparison

Since the beginning of civilization, languages have been used as a means to communicate and build relationships among individuals. While there is no doubt that a language progresses with time and use, the expressions in those languages grow and alter according to the environment, absorbing multiple linguistic effects. A comparison between natural and constructed languages suggests that natural languages gradually develop their grammar, phonologies, and terminologies over time for usage, while constructed or artificial languages are created by humans are developed for a particular reason. Natural languages consist of a group of local speakers whereas constructed languages don’t have native speakers at all. Natural languages evolve over time—they pass through generations, while constructed languages serve a particular purpose for a short time.

Classifications of Artificial Languages

Artificial languages are classified according to two main factors. The first one is classification on the basis of the goal of creation and the second one is the classification on the basis of structure. In the first type of classification, the actual aim of the language is described. For instance, “engineered languages” are created for a particular purpose, auxiliary languages are made for the assistance of communication instruments, and “artistic languages” serve the purpose of supporting fiction.

The classification on the basis of structure deals with the body of constructed languages which depends on a variety of elements borrowed from the existing languages—the quantity and the author. For example, “posteriori languages” use components from present languages and creates their own linguistic core on traditional terminology, grammatical guidelines, and body of sentences.

Artificial Languages:

Loglan and Lincos

The artificial languages have also been created for some scientific reasons as well. In 1955, James Cooke Brown, an American sociologist tested the theory that a language creates incomplete thoughts and an improved language can encourage better human understanding. Consequently, an artificial language “Loglan” was introduced which is a language without any grammatical errors and consists of 10,000 words. The creation of Loglan opened doors for other languages too, such as “Lincos” which was developed in 1960 with an aim to provide help in communication with foreigners.

Solresol and Nadsat

 ‘Solresol’ is a very interesting artificial language made for artistic purposes. In 1817 Jean François Sudre, a French music teacher designed Solresol. The special thing about this language is that it’s based on sound.  Its words are comprised of many syllables and notes based on a musical scale that can be played, whistled, or sung through devices. “Nadsat”, language used in Anthony Burges’s A Clockwork Orange and “Newspeak” from George Orwell’s 1984 greatly impressed the people. Although a number of languages have been created over time, some of them failed while the other survived. Nevertheless, Solresol and Nadsat made their marks on readers’ minds and were adopted by many people as a form of informal communication.

Esperanto

Developed by L.L. Zamenhof, Esperanto is an artificial language developed in the 19th Century. Zamenhof wanted to create a language that could be used globally as a second language. Having been developed on simple phonetics, Esperanto was well-liked by the public and is used by almost 2000 people as a local language and 2 million across the globe. In 1954, it was recognized by the United Nations as an internationally constructed language and was also nominated for a Nobel Prize in Literature. This is why this language boasts of successful history, as it had been used by narrators in World War II.

Dothraki

Artificially constructed languages become a hit when they are adopted by TV shows, films, and movies, owing to the massive fan following of these entertainment sources. Some of these languages have made unmatchable marks of success in the world and are still in use today. Dothraki is one such language. Known as one of the most popular fictional languages, Dothraki was created by George R.R. Martin in his book series A Song of Ice and Fire. Owing to its extensive vocabulary and grammar, it was deemed perfectly suitable for HBO’s show “Game of Thrones”. Just like natural languages, Dothraki is also growing with respect to the number of its speakers.

Valyrian

After Dothraki, David Peterson, the man tasked with the responsibility of adapting the language for TV shows also developed other languages. One of these is High Valyrian, the mother tongue of the legendary character Daenerys Targaryen. High Valyrian is the language of higher education in fictional cities of Westeros and Esos. Peterson created byproducts of High Valyrian as well by keeping in mind the requirements of the show. This High Valyrian became such a huge hit that it has been made available on the language learning platform Duolingo for enthusiasts willing to learn about the fictional world created by George R.R. Martin.

Klingon

Klingon is probably the most successful conlang among all these languages. Used by the world-famous Star Trek series, films, and books, Klingon was created by Marc Okrand, an American linguist. It consists of multiple dictionaries and became a real language after he introduced its expanded vocabulary and grammar. Marc Okrand is the author of the language Vulcan for the same franchise and also produced Atlantean for Disney’s Atlantis—A Lost Empire. The language has reached such heights of glory that a whole institute by the name of “Klingon Language Institute” is present in the USA since 1992. Not only that, but it is also available on Duolingo for learning by the masses.

The Controversy Surrounding Artificial Languages

Every new invention comes with its own set of controversies and criticisms. Artificially constructed languages are no exception. The popularity of some artificial languages such as Dothraki had been so huge that many people adopted its expressions (such as Valar dohaeris) in daily life, while more than 500 baby girls were named “Khaleesi” in the USA in 2018. The controversy that arose was the question of the intellectual property rights of these languages. Many of the critics asked whether an individual or a legal person was allowed to have the copyrights of these languages. Another controversy faced by these languages arose when it began to be questioned whether it was possible to have local speakers of constructed languages or not.

Who Translates Artificial Languages?

The question that arises after taking a look at all the languages is—who translates them? The translation of artificial languages can be tricky—but are extremely critical and important. Where the natural languages are easy to translate with the help of native speakers, artificial languages are difficult to interpret and translate owing to no native speakers present. As these languages have only a “limited” number of people understanding it, the communication in these languages becomes a tough task. Nevertheless, a reliable translation agency can do the job for you—all you have to do is to provide the text you want to translate and wait for the translation agency to deliver the translation in your favorite artificial language. Another way by which it becomes easier to understand the artificial language is through the use of Duolingo—the popular language-learning platform that has a ton of languages to download and learn.

The Last Word

Whatever the language may be, the truth surrounding the language remains as clear as a day—a language serves the purpose of communication and correspondence. An enthusiast is willing to learn any language, be it a natural or artificial one, need to have the proper resources to do so. More importantly, it is crucial to have a “hunger” to learn the new language. Without that motivation and willingness to learn, it would be difficult to learn and speak a new language.

Valar morghulis, dear LingoHubbers. 

You’re probably familiar with this term. It might be through HBO’s Game of Thrones show, or George R.R.Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire or just thanks to the huge amount of social media posts and hashtags. The truth is, constructed languages have a huge place in popular culture, but that’s not all…

The Game of Thrones wave brought
new phrases into everyday conversation,
making artificial languages and «Valar morghulis»
almost as easily recognized as
«Carpe Diem».

But what are these artificial languages? How are they created and how do they influence the times we live in?

That’s what we will be discussing in this article.

Natural Languages vs. Constructed Languages

A typical language develops and evolves through time and use of its speakers. The vocabulary expands, changes with the demands of the physical environment or even adopts different linguistic influences.

Just like traditional Latin didn’t include words which describe electronic letters and inboxes, a couple of decades ago
we didn’t have a word for emojis and following someone was a criminal offense — not an everyday activity on
social media platforms. 

But unlike natural languages, which develop its phonology, grammar and vocabulary slowly and usually under the influence of a great number of people, constructed languages present a conscious act of creation.  

Constructed languages or conlangs are artificially created languages. In this case, humans create all segments of the language in a shorter period of time, usually with a specific purpose in mind. 

While natural languages have a group of native speakers, in addition to non-natives who adopt the language; constructed languages have no native speakers. Essentially, majority of conlang speakers adopt the language. Of course, there are some exceptions to the rule, which we will discuss shortly. 

In general, the differences between natural and constructed languages is:

Natural Languages	Constructed Languages
Created by a group of people	Created by one person
Develop through time	Developed in a short period
Native speakers & non-native speakers exist	Non-native speakers only*

So, why would someone decide to create a language, you might ask. And what does it take to create a whole language from scratch?

Artificial languages 101

While there are many ways to classify constructed or artificial languages, we will rely on twofold classification in this article:
a) the goal of creation and b) structure of the constructed language. 

Observing the goal, or answering the question — why someone might want to create a language brings us to the following sections: 

• Engineered languages — constructing a language with a specific need for linguistic experimentation
• Auxiliary languages — created to serve as a supporting communication tool.  
• Artistic languages — created usually to support a work of fiction. In this article, we will take a look and analyse the creation and usage of constructed languages which have gathered a world-wide recognition. 

The structure of constructed languages can depend on a number of elements. The starting point, however, is deciding how much will the creator of the language “borrow” from existing languages. This way, we can differentiate

• A posteriori languages — a posteriori languages use elements from existing languages and build its linguistic core on established vocabulary, grammar rules and sentence structure. The most prominent example would be Esperanto. 

• A priori languages — a priori languages are languages with an original structure and features. If they take vocabulary, pronunciation or grammar inspiration from existing languages — it is in a smaller amount. Many artistic or fictional languages were created a priori — with their own grammar, vocabulary and writing script. Notably: Klingon, Dothraki, Valyrian, and the myriad of languages created by J.R.R. Tolkien.

Conlangs and Controversy

Constructed languages have been quite a controversial topic. The popularity of shows such as Game of Thrones certainly influenced the adoption of phrases (Valar dohaeris) and names (over 500 baby girls have been named Khaleesi in USA in 2018). 

In addition, there is a question if conlangs fall under protection of intellectual property. This creates the legal controversy:

Can an individual or a legal entity have
copyrights on a language?

An interesting study by Michael Adelman — “Constructed languages and copyright: A brief history and proposal for divorce” analyses the issue from its legal point).  

Another point is the question of whether or not it is possible to have native speakers of constructed languages. According to the website Ethnologue, the answer is — yes. Esperanto has around 2,000 native speakers. It is the most massive and frequently used conlang in the world.

Esperanto is not the only case, however. Dr. d’Armond Speers, a member of Klingon Language Institute, tried to raise his child as a bilingual, native speaker of Klingon, with no notable success — but not for a lack of effort. 

ISO recognition of Constructed languages

In our article on ISO Language Codes, we outlined the ISO standardized codes which are assigned to artificial, or constructed languages. 

However, not all popular artificial languages get this ISO recognition.
The use of language, the growing body of literature (translating books into artificial languages), and the popular online language courses in artificial languages are definitely influencing these decisions.

Language	ISO 639	ISO 639-2	ISO 639-3
Esperanto	eo	epo	epo
Klingon		tlh	tlh
Quenya			qya
Sindarin			sjn

Esperanto

This auxiliary constructed language was created in the 19th century by L.L.Zamenhof.

Initially, Zamenhof’s idea was to create a language which would be universally used and serve as a second language in a more connected world.

Esperanto represents a linguistic Utopia.

Although his idea of a language of international understanding might seem Utopian to some, it remains a fact that Esperanto is rather easy to master. Moreover, there is a lot of speculation if studying Esperanto helps speakers learn and adopt other languages easily later on.

The United Nations recognized it as an international auxiliary language in 1954.

Further recognition came with the Nobel Prize in Literature nomination in 1999. William Auld is the first ever nominee for a body of work written in Esperanto. The history of Esperanto has been a rocky one, especially with prosecution of speakers during World War II.

At the moment, Esperanto has around 2 million speakers. 

Fictional Constructed languages

Fictional or artistic conlangs are a specific linguistic category.

In contrast to other constructed languages, fictional conlangs are not created with real-life usage in mind. In fact, artistic conlangs are created to be a part of a fictional narrative. Basically, made up languages make movies, TV series, video games and books more believable.

They are typically created by individuals, conlanging experts, with a particular group of speakers within the narrative. The fictional characters are the actual only natives of such languages — so far. 

Further, we will take a look at some of the most prominent fictional languages. 

Dothraki

Arguably, one of the most popular fictional languages, which has taken a life of its own since its creation is Dothraki.

Dothraki was constructed for the needs of George R.R.Martin’s series of books A Song of Ice and Fire. Consequently, for the needs of the HBO’s Game of Thrones show, Dothraki got a full grammar and an extended vocabulary.

The man charged with this daunting task was the linguist David J. Peterson, who based on Martin’s notes on the language and description of the native speakers — built up the whole language.

The native language of the fictional nomadic nation of Martin’s novels has grown outside of the show — with millions of tutorials available on the web.

Just as with the natural languages, Dothraki is evolving as the number of its speakers is growing.

This effect is motivating even its creator, David Peterson to reconsider the structure of the language and evolve it. Consequently, as he explained, he was inspired by the use of Dothraki in the famous American TV Show The Office. He recognized changes that need to be added to the language and added a so-called Schrutean compound.  

High Valyrian

After the successful creation of Dothraki, David Peterson continued to work on developing the languages for Game of Thrones. More precisely, he worked on the development of High Valyrian, the mythical mother tongue of the protagonist Daenerys Targaryen.

In creation of High Valyrian, Peterson drew inspiration from Latin — especially its usage among the European nobility. Hence, High Valyrian functions as the language of higher education in the fictional Esos and Westeros. Additionally, Peterson developed derivatives of High Valyrian for the needs of the show. These include Astapori and Meereenese varieties of High Valyrian.

Interestingly, although created as a fictional language, High Valyrian found its place in the real world as well. Starting from 2017, and with the great help of Peterson, High Valyrian has been available on the popular language learning platform Duolingo. 

Klingon

Arguably one of the most popular artificial fictional languages comes from the Star Trek universe. It was originally created as the native language of the fictional Klingon nation for the Star Trek: Motion Picture back in 1979.

However, Klingon grew into a real language after its creator Marc Okran released the grammar and expanded vocabulary. Marc Okran developed Vulcan, as well, for the same franchise. Later on, he developed the Atlantean language for the Disney picture Atlantis: The Lost Empire.

In the previous decades, Klingon grew into a movement of sorts. Klingon Language Institute (KLI) operates in the USA since 1992. KLI functions as a non-profit that focuses on translation of notable literary works into Klingon.

So far, six translations exist in Klingon: 

• The Epic of Gilgamesh
• Hamlet
• Much Ado about Nothing
• Tao Te Ching
• The Art of War
• The Little Prince

Klingon is available on Duolingo, as well. However, users have noted that, due to the cultural clash between the average current user and the futuristic nation of Klingon — there are some issues in finding the right vocabulary for everyday expression.

J.R.R.Tolkien’s languages

The master of conlanging, Tolkien spent around 60 years developing his fictional languages.

Tolkein was a firm believer that a language has to reflect the historical development of the language and the historical development of its speakers and their culture.

That is why he provided a full history of language families present in his literary works.

Most notable languages created by Tolkien include: Elvish (and its derivatives: Quenya and Sindarin, which even have its own ISO codes), followed by several Mannish languages and the Dwarfish language (Khuzdul). 

Other notable mentions

Na’vi — created by Paul Frommer for the needs of James Cammeron’s Avatar movie in 2009. However, since the movie’s release, the vocabulary and grammar have been constructed further into a learnable language.

Syldavian and Bordurian — languages created by Herge, the author of the comic The Adventures of Tintin. Syldavian is based on Central European Languages, like Polish and Hungarian. However, it does include dual script like Serbian, while it is completely Germanic in its grammar and structure.

Gallifreyan from the long-running TV Show Doctor Who and the Heptapod language developed for the movie Arrival, represent forms of visual languages.

The Future of Conlanging 

Lastly, the increased popularity of fictional constructed languages shows us is the evolution of a language at high speed.

From its inception, adoption, and further development by speakers through use — we can observe how a freshly made language quickly adds slang, pronunciation changes and vocabulary extension.

Creating a new language from scratch might not be for everyone. However, you can provide native speakers with a good translation — with a little help of the right tools.

LingoHub supports translation to Esperanto, because we believe in the power of multilingual content. And who knows — maybe Klingon and High Valyrian are next?

There are thousands of different languages in this world. Have you ever thought about the difference between natural language, constructed language and artificial language?

Languages are like living creatures – they do not cease to evolve and change.

There are thousands of languages and dialects around the world. Some of them closely relate and belong to families such as the Indo-European languages or the sino-Tibetan language family.

Others are isolated in distant locations and are spoken by a few thousand, if not hundreds, speakers get doomed to die out.

Source:

In the meantime, new languages created by humans emerge. These languages may seem very similar to the language we as humans speak, but this is not really the case.

Indeed, man-made languages function differently, and oftentimes they use for communication between humans and machines. However, communication is not the only purpose they fulfil.

Has this sparked your curiosity? You are ready to dive deep into the topic of natural, artificial, and constructed languages.

What are natural languages?

Natural languages are all the languages that have evolved naturally through interaction and repetition without any conscious planning of their development.

For instance, English, Hindi, German, Chinese, Serbian, etc. are all-natural languages.

Latin can be regarded as a natural language as well; however, it is now dead which means they don’t speak anymore and thus, cannot evolve.

What’s important to understand about natural languages is that they do not have a creator.

Even if we trace it back to its roots, it would be virtually impossible to find a single person who invented the language. Natural languages do not have a single origin.

Source:

For instance, Bulgarian is an Eastern-European language and stems from the Proto-Slavic language.

Also Read: What Are The Most Spoken Languages in Eastern Europe?

Still, its vocabulary is not entirely Slavic.

Up to 30% of, the Bulgarian vocabulary gets composed of foreign words (e.g. from Turkish or Greek). Why? This could be due to historical and geographical factors.

For the most part natural languages evolve through usage. Words change their meanings, some words rise in popularity and after a few years completely disappear until they come back again with a completely different meaning.

Also Read: 10 Untranslatable Bulgarian Expressions

Natural languages influence each other

What’s more, natural languages influence each other. Nowadays English has left its mark on almost every living language.

In France, the French Academy publishes annually lists of approved French words in an attempt to limit the pervasive influence of English.

Natural languages change, grow and mutate through the interaction of speakers. These interactions sometimes result in the emergence of new languages.

Today’s linguists have established the notion of World Englishes. For example, in India, people mix local languages with English to form widely spoken hybrids like Hinglish and Kanglish.

Also Read: Hinglish- A Report on Usage and Popularity in India

Since English is so widely spoken, varieties have emerged and some of them might in the upcoming decades develop into distinct languages. They might die out as well, although this is extremely unlikely.

What is a constructed language?

The notion of constructed languages dates back to the 7th century’s Irish work Auraicept na n-Éces in which it was claimed that Old Gaelic, the predecessor of Irish, is a “selected language”.

Allegedly, Old Gaelic gotis not constructed  created to eliminate the confusion of tongues (confusio linguarum) which resulted from the construction of the Tower of Babel as described in Genesis 11:1–94.

Source:

While the Irish language is a natural language and as such, it has no creator.

It is noteworthy that the concept of creating a constructed language to aid the communication between people with different mother tongues has existed for such a long time.

Today the language barrier is considerably reduced by the lingua franca of our modern times – English. Interestingly, the fastest growing language today, not constructed, but a natural one.

In general, we could say that a constructed languages were purposefully designed by humans.

Its phonology, grammar, and vocabulary are “constructed” to suit a specific purpose such as communication. It is based on existing natural languages, but not necessarily.

Morse code is a constructed language

Codes are constructed languages that aim to make communication faster and easier.

Take the Morse code which uses dots and dahs/ dashes to encode Latin letters and Arabic numerals as well as some punctuation characters.

There are no upper or lower cases. Information gets transmitted via light signals or sound waves.

Source:

As a constructed language the Morse code was invented to aid communication of confidential information. It has a specific way to transmit information (dots and dahs/ dashes) and each letter/ number is a particular sequence of dots and dahs.

This code was invented during the 19th century, however, it was a vital means of communication during WWII since it was fast, easy and the information remained secret.

Other codes and cyphers used during WWII are the Pigpen cypher. For the purpose of this cypher one needs two grids with all the letters from the alphabet to create the key.

In this way, each character, represented by the “pigpen” by which it is surrounded.

Source:

What are controlled languages?

Another example of constructed languages is the so-called “controlled languages” and they are frequently used by translators when working with MT.

MT operates best when the source text is simple, direct, and literal.

To ensure better quality output, the source text might be pre-edited or “controlled” before it is run through the MT.

Pre-editing is a technique that ensures that the source text is less ambiguous and more straightforward. In this way, the MT system can produce more precise translations.

In other words, a controlled language, a simplified form of a natural language. Besides MT, such controlled languages, used for language learning.

Also Read: Machine Translation and Post Editing: Everything You Need to Know

For instance, we can adapt Macbeth by William Shakespeare for an intermediate English language learner.

Since they wouldn’t be able to understand most of the Modern English in which Shakespeare writes, we can use “controlled” English to translate the work with words that correspond to a particular language level.

Source:

What is Conlang?

Constructed languages are also called conlang.

In some cases, constructed, planned, artificial, and fictional languages get used interchangeably.

However, it would be more accurate to say that constructed language is an umbrella term for any human-devised language.

This means that planned and fictional languages are simply their sub-categories.

Check Out: GLOBAL LANGUAGE FACTS

Planned vs Fictional languages

Undoubtedly, both planned and fictional languages are “constructed” in the sense that they are created by a human for a specific purpose.

What’s more, they have not emerged through human interaction like natural languages. Still, these two terms denote two different sub-categories of constructed languages.

What are planned languages?

Planned languages are designed (or “planned”) for a specific purpose such as communication. For instance, an international auxiliary language (also called IAL or auxlang) is a planned language

Which has been developed for communication between people who do not share a common language.

A well-known auxiliary language is Esperanto. Some less known auxlangs are Ido and Interlingua.

Esperanto, in particular, was a planned language primarily built on European languages (but not solely). It was created with the sole purpose of international communication.

Programming languages also fall into the category of planned languages. They were created to help humans work with computers.

Source:

What are fictional languages?

Fictional languages, on the other hand, have a very telling name.

Indeed, these languages are not real, but fictional and were developed to create a more realistic atmosphere in a book or a movie.

For instance, J. R. R. Tolkien created the Elvish languages Sindarin and Quenya (and many more) specifically for his books.

While fictional languages are not real, meaning they are “spoken” by fictional characters in books or movies, they are gaining more and more popularity.

As a result, many people are so passionate that they even try to learn these languages.

What are the most popular fictional languages?

According to Britannica the most popular fictional languages besides Elvish are:

• Alienese or the Alien language from the animated show Futurama was invented for hidden in-jokes on the show.
• Na’vi is a fictional language created by the linguist Paul Frommer exclusively for the 2009 blockbuster Avatar. Interestingly, fans have helped the linguist to continue developing the language.
• Dothraki was created by the Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin. However, in his book the author included only very few words from the fictional language. Thus, the creators of the HBO series hired experts to develop it.
• Klingon was created by the linguist Marc Okrand for the TV show Star Trek. Okrand has even published books about it. There is a translation of Shakespeare’s tragedy Hamlet in Klingon.

What is an artificial language?

The concept of artificial languages is not as new as you might think.

Indeed, due to the decreasing popularity of Latin as early as the 17th century the first artificial languages were developed.

However, they aimed to “rationalize” the living languages by eliminating all the inconsistencies and creating clear categorization.

Today, artificial languages are primarily used in evolutionary linguistics. With the help of artificial languages researchers aim to investigate the dynamics of living languages and how they evolve.

A very important aspect of artificial languages is that their form depends on the experiment they are being created for.

This means that an artificial language could be a simplified form of a natural language or it could be a completely new language.

For instance, in his work Morten H. Christiansen1 “invented” an artificial language that used symbols such as ❂●■❂■ letters to investigate the word order evolution of languages.

In addition, as pointed out in Dr. Christine Cuskley’s paper2 on language evolution, when a researcher’s focus is on vocabulary, an artificial language with a limited vocabulary could be invented to suit the purpose of the experiment.

Artificial vs. Constructed languages

You might be confused as to how artificial and constructed languages are two different things. Indeed, these two terms are oftentimes used interchangeably.

While this has become acceptable even by linguists, there are some details you need to pay attention to understand the difference.

As you can see from the table above, the main aspect in which artificial and constructed languages differentiate is their purpose.

It is important to understand that artificial languages’ sole purpose is experimenting. They are highly prospective and have a very limited size.

Why?

Artificial languages are created for a specific experiment. For instance, if a researcher focuses on a particular grammar feature (e.g. cases or word order) the artificial language is developed for that purpose.

It won’t consist of millions of words because it will make the experiment harder.

Instead, it will have a rather limited vocabulary since the main focus of the experiment is grammar.

What’s more, since artificial languages are created with a specific experiment in mind, they have a very short-lived nature.

This means that they are rarely used after the particular experiment they were created for is finished.

Constructed languages, on the other hand, emerged as a result of humans’ desire to connect. They are an attempt to overcome the language barrier.

Constructed languages were developed before the rise of English as a lingua franca so that people with different first languages could communicate.

Are programming languages constructed languages?

All programming (e.g. Java, C++, Python) as well as markup languages (e.g. HTML, XML) are constructed languages and are used for communication between machines and humans.

A human enters a command via a code (this can be a sequence of characters or a single word). As a result, the machine completes the task and presents the results.

Source:

As the computational power of computers continues to increase, programming languages become more similar to natural languages.

However, programming and markup languages still have a very limited size and are prescriptive.

In a nutshell, artificial and constructed languages are very similar regarding their limited size and prescriptive, human-made nature.

However, artificial languages have a very precise purpose – experimenting (hence, their short life) while constructed languages are much more diverse and thus, has a much wider application.

Check Out: LANGUAGE INFOGRAPHIC GALLERY

Natural Language vs. Artificial language vs. Constructed language

Let’s revise the table above. Besides artificial and constructed languages we will add a new category – natural languages.

Natural languages cannot be prescribed, but rather described. We don’t use language based on some grammar rules – we simply use it.

Another very important difference is that natural languages have native speakers. Native means that a person has spoken a particular language since the day they were born or said their first word out loud.

What’s more, natural languages evolve on their own, so to say. They are not constructed by humans with a specific purpose.

While people do not determine how a language develops, it is the speakers and how they interact with each other that changes a natural language.

As you can see, humans “create” languages unintentionally while they communicate with each other. However, this change is not intended, but rather it mirrors the culture or the particular age.

A very suitable example would be Victorian English which is barely comprehensible by English speakers today.

During the Victorian age, English people had different beliefs and their language conformed to their culture.

As does English in our modern age. Nowadays, we use “influencers” and “social media” – concepts unknown to Victorian society.

All in all, natural languages are “free spirits”. They do not follow any prescriptions and cannot be intentionally changed by humans.

They simply are.

Natural languages are the way humans communicate with each other and somewhere along the way they evolve. Constructed and artificial languages are, in contrast, rather limited and not as free.

They follow clearly prescribed rules and change is nearly impossible unless a human decides to intentionally alter them.

To conclude

Natural languages’ sole purpose is communication. We, humans, are social creatures and as such we use natural languages to establish contact with the people around us.

Our desire for communication and evolution was so strong that we have gone beyond natural languages and created our own languages that we now call “artificial” and “constructed”.