Engineered languages (often abbreviated to engelangs, or, less commonly, engilangs) are

constructed languages A constructed language (shortened to conlang) is a language whose phonology, grammar, orthography, and vocabulary, instead of having developed natural language, naturally, are consciously devised for some purpose, which may include being devise ...

devised to test or prove some hypotheses about how languages work or might work. There are at least three subcategories, philosophical languages (or ideal languages), logical languages (sometimes abbreviated as ''loglangs''), and experimental languages. Raymond Brown describes engineered languages as "languages that are designed to specified ''objective'' criteria, and modeled to meet those criteria". Some engineered languages have been considered candidate global auxiliary languages, and some languages intended as international auxiliary languages have certain "engineered" aspects (in which they are more regular and systematic than their natural language sources).

Logical languages

Logical languages are meant to allow (or enforce) unambiguous statements. They are typically based on

predicate logic First-order logic, also called predicate logic, predicate calculus, or quantificational logic, is a collection of formal systems used in mathematics, philosophy, linguistics, and computer science. First-order logic uses quantified variables ove ...

but can also be based on any system of formal

logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the study of deductively valid inferences or logical truths. It examines how conclusions follow from premises based on the structure o ...

. The two best-known logical languages are the predicate languages

Loglan Loglan is a Logical language, logical constructed language originally designed for linguistic research, particularly for investigating the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis. The language was developed beginning in 1955 by Dr. James Cooke Brown with t ...

and its successor

Lojban Lojban (pronounced ) is a Logical language, logical, constructed language, constructed, human language created by the Logical Language Group which aims to be Syntactic ambiguity, syntactically unambiguous. It succeeds the Loglan project. The Log ...

. They both aim to eliminate syntactical ambiguity and reduce

semantic ambiguity In linguistics, an expression is semantically ambiguous when it can have multiple meanings. The higher the number of synonyms a word has, the higher the degree of ambiguity. Like other kinds of ambiguity, semantic ambiguities are often clarified by ...

to a minimum. In particular, the grammar of Lojban is carefully engineered to express such predicate logic in an unambiguous manner. Toaq and Eberban are also logical languages.

Philosophical languages

Philosophical languages are designed to reflect some aspect of philosophy, particularly with respect to the nature or potential of any given language.

John Wilkins John Wilkins (14 February 1614 – 19 November 1672) was an English Anglican ministry, Anglican clergyman, Natural philosophy, natural philosopher, and author, and was one of the founders of the Royal Society. He was Bishop of Chester from 1 ...

' Real Character and Edward Powell Foster's Ro constructed their words using a taxonomic tree. Vocabularies of oligosynthetic languages, for example Ygyde, are made of

compound word In linguistics, a compound is a lexeme (less precisely, a word or Sign language, sign) that consists of more than one Word stem, stem. Compounding, composition or nominal composition is the process of word formation that creates compound lexemes. C ...

s, which are coined from a small (theoretically minimal) set of

morpheme A morpheme is any of the smallest meaningful constituents within a linguistic expression and particularly within a word. Many words are themselves standalone morphemes, while other words contain multiple morphemes; in linguistic terminology, this ...

s. Sonja Lang's

Toki Pona Toki Pona (; , , translated as 'the language of good') is a Philosophical language, philosophical, Artistic language, artistic, constructed language designed for its small vocabulary, simplicity, and ease of acquisition. It was created by Canadia ...

is based on minimalistic

simplicity Simplicity is the state or quality of being wikt:simple, simple. Something easy to understand or explain seems simple, in contrast to something complicated. Alternatively, as Herbert A. Simon suggests, something is simple or Complexity, complex ...

Experimental languages

An experimental language is a

constructed language A constructed language (shortened to conlang) is a language whose phonology, grammar, orthography, and vocabulary, instead of having developed natural language, naturally, are consciously devised for some purpose, which may include being devise ...

designed for the purpose of exploring some element in the theory of

linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

. Most such languages are concerned with the relation between language and thought; however, languages have been constructed to explore other aspects of language as well. In

science fiction Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...

, much work has been done on the assumption popularly known as the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis. Suzette Haden Elgin's Láadan is designed to lexicalize and grammaticalize the concepts and distinctions important to women, based on muted group theory.

Story of Your Life "Story of Your Life" is a science fiction novella by American writer Ted Chiang, first published in '' Starlight 2'' in 1998, and later in 2002 in Chiang's collection of short stories, '' Stories of Your Life and Others''. Its major themes are ...

is a short story by

Ted Chiang Ted Chiang (; pinyin: ''Jiāng Fēngnán''; born 1967) is an American science fiction writer. His work has won four Nebula Award, Nebula awards, four Hugo Award, Hugo awards, the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and six Locus Award, ...

that heavily features a written-only non-linear language (text in it has no discernible beginning or end) in the form of its Heptapod B, though the language is only described vaguely and never actually shown. This story was adapted into the movie Arrival, though its version of Heptapod B is only non-linear to a certain extent.

Examples

References

External links