An artistic language, or artlang, is a

constructed language A constructed language (sometimes called a conlang) is a language whose phonology, grammar, and vocabulary, instead of having developed naturally, are consciously devised for some purpose, which may include being devised for a work of fiction. ...

designed for aesthetic and phonetic pleasure. Language can be artistic to the extent that artists use it as a source of creativity in art, poetry, calligraphy or as a metaphor to address themes as cultural diversity and the vulnerability of the individual in a globalizing world. Unlike

engineered language Engineered languages (often abbreviated to engelangs, or, less commonly, engilangs) are constructed languages devised to test or prove some hypotheses about how languages work or might work. There are at least three subcategories, philosophical ...

s or auxiliary languages, artistic languages often have irregular grammar systems, much like natural

language Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...

s. Many are designed within the context of

fictional world A fictional universe, or fictional world, is a self-consistent setting with events, and often other elements, that differ from the real world. It may also be called an imagined, constructed, or fictional realm (or world). Fictional universes m ...

s, such as

J. R. R. Tolkien John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (, ; 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philology, philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''. From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was ...

's Middle-earth. Others can represent fictional languages in a world not patently different from the real world, or have no particular fictional background attached.

Genres

Several different genres of constructed languages are classified as 'artistic'. An artistic language may fall into any one of the following groups, depending on the aim of its use. Similarly to

philosophical language A philosophical language is any constructed language that is constructed from first principles. It is considered a type of engineered language. Philosophical languages were popular in Early Modern times, partly motivated by the goal of revising nor ...

s, artlangs are created in accordance with an initially defined principle in mind.

Fictional languages

By far the largest group of artlangs are fictional languages (sometimes also referred to as "professional artlangs"). Fictional languages are intended to be the languages of a fictional world, and are often designed with the intent of giving more depth and an appearance of plausibility to the fictional worlds with which they are associated, and to have their characters communicate in a fashion which is both alien and dislocated. By analogy with the word "conlang", the term '' conworld'' is used to describe these worlds, inhabited by fictional

constructed culture Worldbuilding is the process of constructing a world, originally an imaginary one, sometimes associated with a fictional universe. Developing an imaginary setting with coherent qualities such as a history, geography, and ecology is a key task f ...

s. There are two major categories of fictional languages. Professional fictional languages are those languages created for use in books, movies, television shows, video games, comics, toys, and songs. Prominent examples of works featuring fictional languages include the Middle-earth and ''

Star Trek ''Star Trek'' is an American science fiction media franchise created by Gene Roddenberry, which began with the eponymous 1960s television series and quickly became a worldwide pop-culture phenomenon. The franchise has expanded into vari ...

'' universes, the game ''

Ico is an action-adventure game developed by Japan Studio and Team Ico, and published by Sony Computer Entertainment, released for the PlayStation 2 video game console in 2001 and 2002 in various regions. It was designed and directed by Fumito U ...

'' and the songs of the French band

Magma Magma () is the molten or semi-molten natural material from which all igneous rocks are formed. Magma is found beneath the surface of the Earth, and evidence of magmatism has also been discovered on other terrestrial planets and some natural sa ...

, singing in Kobaïan. Internet-based fictional languages are hosted along with their "conworlds" on the Internet, and based at these sites, becoming known to the world through the sites' visitors. An example is Verdurian, the language of

Mark Rosenfelder Zompist.com is a website created by Mark Rosenfelder a.k.a. Zompist, a conlanger. It features essays on comics, politics, language, and science, as well as a detailed description of Rosenfelder's constructed world, Almea. The website is also the h ...

's Verduria on the planet of Almea.

Alternative languages

Alternative languages, or ''altlangs'', speculate on an alternate history and try to reconstruct how a family of natural languages would have evolved if things had been different, e.g.: What if Greek civilization had gone on to thrive without a Roman Empire, leaving Greek and not

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

to develop several modern descendants? The language that ''would have'' evolved is then traced step by step in its evolution, to reach its modern form. An altlang will typically base itself on the core vocabulary of one language and the phonology of another. The best-known language of this category is

Brithenig Brithenig, or also known as Comroig, is an invented language, or constructed language ("conlang"). It was created as a hobby in 1996 by Andrew Smith from New Zealand, who also invented the alternate history of Ill Bethisad to "explain" it. Off ...

, which initiated the interest among Internet conlangers in devising such alternate-historical languages, like

Wenedyk Venedic is a naturalistic constructed language, created by the Dutch translator Jan van Steenbergen (who also co-created the international auxiliary language Interslavic). It is used in the fictional ''Republic of the Two Crowns'', based on the ...

. Brithenig attempts to determine how Romance languages would have evolved had Roman influence in Britain been sufficient to replace Celtic languages with

Vulgar Latin Vulgar Latin, also known as Popular or Colloquial Latin, is the range of non-formal Register (sociolinguistics), registers of Latin spoken from the Crisis of the Roman Republic, Late Roman Republic onward. Through time, Vulgar Latin would evolve ...

, and bases its phonology on that of

Welsh Welsh may refer to: Related to Wales * Welsh, referring or related to Wales * Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales * Welsh people People * Welsh (surname) * Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peop ...

. An earlier instance is

Philip José Farmer Philip José Farmer (January 26, 1918 – February 25, 2009) was an American author known for his science fiction and fantasy novels and short stories. Obituary. Farmer is best known for his sequences of novels, especially the ''World of Tiers ...

's Winkie language, a relative of the

Germanic languages The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania and Southern Africa. The most widely spoken Germanic language, Engli ...

spoken by the Winkies of Oz in ''A Barnstormer in Oz''. Another example is

Anglish Linguistic purism in English involves opposition to foreign influence in the English language. English has evolved with a great deal of borrowing from other languages, especially Old French, since the Norman conquest of England, and some of its n ...

, which tries to reconstruct how English could have looked without Latin influence.

Micronational languages

Micronational languages are the languages created for use in micronations. Having the citizens learn the language is as much a part of participating in the micronation as minting coins and stamps or participating in government. The members of these micronations meet up and speak the language they have learned when they are participating in these meets. They coin new words and grammatical constructions when needed. Talossan, from R. Ben Madison's Kingdom of Talossa, is an archetypal example of a micronational language.

Personal languages

Personal languages are ultimately created for one's own edification. The creator does not expect anyone to speak it; the language exists as a work of art. A personal language may be invented for the purpose of having a beautiful language, for self-expression, as an exercise in understanding linguistic principles, or perhaps as an attempt to create a language with an extreme phonemic inventory or system of verbs. Personal languages tend to have short lifespans, and are often displayed on the Internet and discussed on message boards much like Internet-based fictional languages. They are often invented in large numbers by the people who design these languages. However, a few personal languages are used extensively and long-term by their creators (e.g., for writing diaries). Javant Biarujia, the creator of Taneraic, described his personal language (which he terms a hermetic language) thus: "a private pact negotiated between the world at large and the world within me; public words simply could not guarantee me the private expression I sought." The author

Robert Dessaix Robert Dessaix (born 17 February 1944) is an Australian novelist, essayist and journalist. Biography Robert Dessaix was born in Sydney and adopted at an early age by Tom and Jean Jones, after which he was known as Robert Jones. Tom Jones, a ...

describes the origins of his personal language K: "I wanted words that described reality. So I made them up."

Languages with small vocabulary

The aim of such languages is to express deep meaning with very few parts. For instance,

Toki Pona Toki Pona (rendered as ''toki pona'' and often translated as 'the language of good'; ; ) is a philosophical artistic constructed language (philosophical artlang) known for its small vocabulary, simplicity, and ease of acquisition. It was create ...

is generally said to have around 120, 123, or 125 root words and 14

phoneme In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west o ...

s. It was created by Canadian linguist and translator Sonja Lang for the purpose of simplifying thoughts and communication. Another example is Mini, a language of 1,000 words created by S. C. Gruget in 2020.

Jokelangs

The term jokelang is sometimes applied to conlangs created as jokes. These may be languages intended primarily to sound funny, such a
DiLingo
or for some type of

satire Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming ...

, often as satire on some aspect of constructed languages. Some typical jokelangs are: * Europanto – an unstructured mixture of European languages *

Transpiranto Transpiranto is a parody language, a caricature of the international auxiliary language Esperanto. The name contains a play on the Swedish verb ''transpirera'', to perspire. The parody language was developed from 1929 by contributors to the publ ...

– constructed from international words inflected to sound like Swedish jargon, in order to improve malplacedness and ambiguity * Oou – a deliberately ambiguous and polysemous language whose writing system is made up entirely of punctuation marks and whose

inventory is made up entirely of vowels * DiLingo – a rhyming languageDiLingo - official website
/ref> * Gulevache – a fictional joke romance language created by the Argentinian comedy-musical group Les Luthiers for its opera Cardoso en Gulevandia * Unwinese – the nonsensical but structured alternative English, also known as gobbledygook but named by its creator Basic Engly Twentyfimode, used by comedian Stanley Unwin * Inflationary Language – invented by comedian

Victor Borge Børge Rosenbaum (3 January 1909 – 23 December 2000), known professionally as Victor Borge ( ), was a Danish-American comedian, conductor, and pianist who achieved great popularity in radio and television in the North America and Europe. His ...

, incrementing numbers embedded in words, e.g., ''crenine'' ("create") and ''elevennis'' ("tennis")

Experimental languages

An experimental language is a

designed for the purpose of exploring some theory of

linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...

. Most such languages are concerned with the relation between

language and thought The study of how language influences thought has a long history in a variety of fields. There are two bodies of thought forming around this debate. One body of thought stems from linguistics and is known as the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis. There is ...

; however, languages have been constructed to explore other aspects of language as well. In

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...

, much work has been done on the assumption popularly known as the

Sapir–Whorf hypothesis The hypothesis of linguistic relativity, also known as the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis , the Whorf hypothesis, or Whorfianism, is a principle suggesting that the structure of a language affects its speakers' worldview or cognition, and thus people' ...

. Artlangs of this type overlap with

Examples of artistic languages

See list of constructed languages for a list.

References

External links

The CONLANG Mailing List

Zompist.com

Audience, Uglossia and CONLANG
by Sarah L. Higley
''Asemic Magazine''
is an Australian publication that explores artistic writing systems, at least some of which are ''asemic'', not representing specific meaning.

Wikis on or about constructed languages and artistic languages

ConlangWiki
– a wiki devoted to the topics of ConLangs and ConCultures.
Conlang wiki at Fandom

Unilang.org
– a database of language- and linguistic-related information {{DEFAULTSORT:Artistic Language