A conlanger is a person who invents

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. ...

s (aka conlangs).

Professional conlangers

Individuals who have been hired to create languages. *

Victoria Fromkin Victoria Alexandra Fromkin (; May 16, 1923 – January 19, 2000) was an American linguist who taught at UCLA. She studied slips of the tongue, mishearing, and other speech errors, which she applied to phonology, the study of how the sounds of a l ...

- Paku (a.k.a. Pakuni) * Paul Frommer - Na'vi, Barsoomian *

Madhan Karky Madhan Karky Vairamuthu is an Indian lyricist, screenwriter, research associate, software engineer, and entrepreneur. A holder of a doctorate in computer science from the University of Queensland, Karky began his professional career as an ass ...

- Kiliki *

Marc Okrand Marc Okrand (; born July 3, 1948) is an American linguist. His professional work is in Native American languages, and he is well known as the creator of the Klingon language in the ''Star Trek'' science fiction franchise. Linguistics As a lin ...

Klingon The Klingons ( ; Klingon: ''tlhIngan'' ) are a fictional species in the science fiction franchise ''Star Trek''. Developed by screenwriter Gene L. Coon in 1967 for the original ''Star Trek'' (''TOS'') series, Klingons were swarthy humanoids c ...

Vulcan Vulcan may refer to: Mythology * Vulcan (mythology), the god of fire, volcanoes, metalworking, and the forge in Roman mythology Arts, entertainment and media Film and television * Vulcan (''Star Trek''), name of a fictional race and their home p ...

, Atlantean * Matt Pearson - Thhtmaa * David J. Peterson -

Dothraki The fictional world in which the ''A Song of Ice and Fire'' novels by George R. R. Martin take place is divided into several continents, known collectively as The Known World. Most of the story takes place on the continent of Westeros and in ...

, Valyrian, Kastithanu (Castithan), L'Irathi (Irathient), Indojisnen, Sondiv, Shiväisith, Lishepus, Trigedasleng, Noalath, Inha, Munja'kin * Wolf Wikeley - Tho Fan

Published international-auxiliary conlangers

Conlangers who have created languages intended for international communication. * Louis de Beaufront * Léon Bollack *

James Cooke Brown James Cooke Brown (July 21, 1921 – February 13, 2000) was an American sociologist and science fiction author. He is notable for creating the artificial language Loglan and for designing the Parker Brothers board game '' Careers''. Brown's no ...

Louis Couturat Louis Couturat (; 17 January 1868 – 3 August 1914) was a French logician, mathematician, philosopher, and linguist. Couturat was a pioneer of the constructed language Ido. Life and education Born in Ris-Orangis, Essonne, France. In 18 ...

Ido language Ido () is a constructed language derived from Reformed Esperanto, and similarly designed with the goal of being a universal second language for people of diverse backgrounds. To function as an effective ''international auxiliary language'', ...

* George Boeree *

Alexander Gode Alexander Gottfried Friedrich Gode-von Aesch (October 30, 1906 – August 10, 1970) was a German-born American linguist, translator and the driving force behind the creation of the auxiliary language Interlingua. Biography Born to a German f ...

Ján Herkeľ Ján Herkeľ (1786–1853) was a Slovak attorney and writer. Herkel was born at Vavrečka, Kingdom of Hungary. He was the creator of Universalis Lingua Slavica, an early auxiliary language for Slavs Slavs are the largest European e ...

Lancelot Hogben Lancelot Thomas Hogben FRS FRSE (9 December 1895 – 22 August 1975) was a British experimental zoologist and medical statistician. He developed the African clawed frog ''(Xenopus laevis)'' as a model organism for biological research in his ear ...

* Alex G. Igbineweka *

Otto Jespersen Jens Otto Harry Jespersen (; 16 July 1860 – 30 April 1943) was a Danish linguist who specialized in the grammar of the English language. Steven Mithen described him as "one of the greatest language scholars of the nineteenth and twentieth cen ...

Juraj Križanić Juraj Križanić (c. 1618 – 12 September 1683), also known as Jurij Križanič or Yuriy Krizhanich (russian: Юрий Крижанич), was a Croatian Catholic missionary who is often regarded as the earliest recorded pan-Slavist. His ideal, o ...

* Matija Majar * Vojtěch Merunka * Jackson Moore *

Charles Kay Ogden Charles Kay Ogden (; 1 June 1889 – 20 March 1957) was an English linguist, philosopher, and writer. Described as a polymath but also an eccentric and outsider, he took part in many ventures related to literature, politics, the arts, and phil ...

Giuseppe Peano Giuseppe Peano (; ; 27 August 1858 – 20 April 1932) was an Italian mathematician and glottologist. The author of over 200 books and papers, he was a founder of mathematical logic and set theory, to which he contributed much notation. The stan ...

Latino sine flexione Latino sine flexione ("Latin without inflections"), Interlingua de Academia pro Interlingua (IL de ApI) or Peano's Interlingua (abbreviated as IL), is an international auxiliary language compiled by the Academia pro Interlingua under chairmanship ...

* Kenneth L. Pike * Waldemar Rosenberger * Johann Martin Schleyer:

Volapük Volapük (; , "Language of the World", or lit. "World Speak") is a constructed language created between 1879 and 1880 by Johann Martin Schleyer, a Catholic priest in Baden, Germany, who believed that God had told him in a dream to create an i ...

* Kenneth Searight: Sona * Jan van Steenbergen * Edgar de Wahl:

Interlingue Interlingue (; ISO 639 ''ie'', ''ile''), originally Occidental (), is an international auxiliary language created in 1922 and renamed in 1949. Its creator, Edgar de Wahl, sought to achieve maximal grammatical regularity and natural character ...

* L. L. Zamenhof:

Esperanto Esperanto ( or ) is the world's most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Created by the Warsaw-based ophthalmologist L. L. Zamenhof in 1887, it was intended to be a universal second language for international commun ...

John Wilkins John Wilkins, (14 February 1614 – 19 November 1672) was an Anglican clergyman, natural philosopher, and author, and was one of the founders of the Royal Society. He was Bishop of Chester from 1668 until his death. Wilkins is one of the ...

: unnamed universal language * Francis Lodwick: Common Writing

Published fictional conlangers

Conlangers whose work has been published in books or other media that they created: *

Richard Adams Richard George Adams (9 May 1920 – 24 December 2016) was an English novelist and writer of the books ''Watership Down'', ''Maia'', '' Shardik'' and '' The Plague Dogs''. He studied modern history at university before serving in the British Ar ...

: Lapine, in ''

Watership Down ''Watership Down'' is an adventure novel by English author Richard Adams, published by Rex Collings Ltd of London in 1972. Set in Berkshire in southern England, the story features a small group of rabbits. Although they live in their natural ...

'' * M.A.R. Barker: Tsolyáni for

Tékumel ''Tékumel'' is a fantasy world created by American linguist and writer M. A. R. Barker over the course of several decades from around 1940. In this imaginary world, huge, tradition-bound empires with medieval levels of technology vie for control ...

Hector Berlioz In Greek mythology, Hector (; grc, Ἕκτωρ, Hektōr, label=none, ) is a character in Homer's Iliad. He was a Trojan prince and the greatest warrior for Troy during the Trojan War. Hector led the Trojans and their allies in the defense o ...

Marion Zimmer Bradley Marion Eleanor Zimmer Bradley (June 3, 1930 – September 25, 1999) was an American author of fantasy, historical fantasy, science fiction, and science fantasy novels, and is best known for the Arthurian fiction novel '' The Mists of Avalon'' ...

Anthony Burgess John Anthony Burgess Wilson, (; 25 February 1917 – 22 November 1993), who published under the name Anthony Burgess, was an English writer and composer. Although Burgess was primarily a comic writer, his dystopian satire '' A Clockwork ...

Nadsat Nadsat is a fictional register or argot used by the teenage gang members in Anthony Burgess's dystopian novel '' A Clockwork Orange''. Burgess was a linguist and he used this background to depict his characters as speaking a form of Russian-inf ...

in '' A Clockwork Orange'' and a prehistoric language in ''

Quest for Fire ''Quest for Fire'' may refer to: * '' The Quest for Fire'', a 1911 novel by J. H. Rosny * ''Quest for Fire'' (film), a 1981 film adaptation of the 1911 novel * "Quest for Fire", a song by Iron Maiden from 1983's ''Piece of Mind ''Piece of Min ...

''. * Samuel R. Delany *

Suzette Doctolero Suzette Severo Doctolero (born December 16, 1968) is a Filipina screenwriter for film and television. She is best known for being the creator of ''Encantadia'' in 2005 and the succeeding related television series including the ''Encantadia'' ...

: Enchanta from the '' Encantadia Saga''. *

Diane Duane Diane Duane (born May 18, 1952) is an American science fiction and fantasy author, long based in Ireland. Her works include the '' Young Wizards'' young adult fantasy series and the '' Rihannsu'' Star Trek novels. Biography Born in New Yo ...

Suzette Haden Elgin Suzette Haden Elgin (born Patricia Anne Suzette Wilkins; November 18, 1936 – January 27, 2015) was an American researcher in experimental linguistics, construction and evolution of languages and poetry and science fiction writer. She founded t ...

: Láadan, in the '' Native Tongue'' series *

Václav Havel Václav Havel (; 5 October 193618 December 2011) was a Czech statesman, author, poet, playwright, and former dissident. Havel served as the last president of Czechoslovakia from 1989 until the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1992 and the ...

Frank Herbert Franklin Patrick Herbert Jr. (October 8, 1920February 11, 1986) was an American science fiction author best known for the 1965 novel ''Dune'' and its five sequels. Though he became famous for his novels, he also wrote short stories and worked as ...

Hergé Georges Prosper Remi (; 22 May 1907 – 3 March 1983), known by the pen name Hergé (; ), from the French pronunciation of his reversed initials ''RG'', was a Belgian cartoonist. He is best known for creating ''The Adventures of Tintin'', ...

Robert Jordan James Oliver Rigney Jr. (October 17, 1948 – September 16, 2007), better known by his pen name Robert Jordan," Robert Jordan" was the name of the protagonist in the 1940 Hemingway novel ''For Whom the Bell Tolls'', though this is not how the n ...

: The Old Tongue in ''

The Wheel of Time ''The Wheel of Time'' is a series of high fantasy novels by American author Robert Jordan, with Brandon Sanderson as a co-author for the final three novels. Originally planned as a six-book series, ''The Wheel of Time'' spans 14 volumes, in ...

'' * Ursula K. Le Guin * Barry B. Longyear *

George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to totalitari ...

Newspeak Newspeak is the fictional language of Oceania, a totalitarian superstate that is the setting of the 1949 dystopian novel '' Nineteen Eighty-Four'', by George Orwell. In the novel, the Party created Newspeak to meet the ideological requirements ...

, in ''

Nineteen Eighty-Four ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' (also stylised as ''1984'') is a dystopian social science fiction novel and cautionary tale written by the English writer George Orwell. It was published on 8 June 1949 by Secker & Warburg as Orwell's ninth and final ...

'' *

Christopher Paolini Christopher James Paolini (born November 17, 1983) is an American author and screenwriter. He is best known for ''The Inheritance Cycle'', which consists of the books ''Eragon'', ''Eldest'', '' Brisingr'', ''Inheritance'', and the follow up short ...

: The Ancient Language in the

Inheritance Cycle ''The Inheritance Cycle'' is a tetralogy of young adult high fantasy novels written by American author Christopher Paolini. Set in the fictional world of Alagaësia (), the novels focus on the adventures of a teenage boy named Eragon and h ...

(''

Eragon ''Eragon'' is the first book in ''The Inheritance Cycle'' by American fantasy writer Christopher Paolini. Paolini, born in 1983, began writing the novel after graduating from home school at the age of fifteen. After writing the first draft for a ...

'' and its sequels) * Lynne Sharon Schwartz: in '' The Writing on the Wall'' *

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

: more than twenty languages including

Quenya Quenya ()Tolkien wrote in his "Outline of Phonology" (in '' Parma Eldalamberon'' 19, p. 74) dedicated to the phonology of Quenya: is "a sound as in English ''new''". In Quenya is a combination of consonants, ibidem., p. 81. is a constructed l ...

Sindarin Sindarin is one of the fictional languages devised by J. R. R. Tolkien for use in his fantasy stories set in Arda, primarily in Middle-earth. Sindarin is one of the many languages spoken by the Elves. The word is a Quenya word. Called in Engl ...

, Khuzdul; see Languages constructed by J. R. R. Tolkien *

Karen Traviss Karen Traviss is a science fiction author from Wiltshire, England. She is the author of the '' Wess'Har'' series, and has written tie-in material based on ''Star Wars'', ''Gears of War'', ''Halo'', ''G.I. Joe'' and the newest '' Nomad'' Series w ...

Mando'a Mandalorians are fictional people associated with the planet Mandalore in the '' Star Wars'' universe and franchise created by George Lucas. Their most distinct cultural features are their battle helmets, chest armor, wrist gauntlets, and oft ...

in the '' Star Wars'' expanded universe * Christian Vander *

Tad Williams Robert Paul "Tad" Williams (born March 14, 1957) is an American fantasy and science fiction writer. He is the author of the multivolume ''Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn'' series, '' Otherland'' series, and '' Shadowmarch'' series as well as the stand ...

: Higher Singing in '' Tailchaser's Song'' *

Gene Wolfe Gene Rodman Wolfe (May 7, 1931 – April 14, 2019) was an American science fiction and fantasy writer. He was noted for his dense, allusive prose as well as the strong influence of his Catholic faith. He was a prolific short story writer and no ...

: Ascian in ''

The Book of the New Sun ''The Book of the New Sun'' (1980–1983) is a four volume, science fantasy novel written by the American author Gene Wolfe. It inaugurated the "Solar Cycle" that Wolfe continued by setting other works in the same universe (''The Urth of the Ne ...

Other notable conlangers

Conlangers whose languages are neither international auxiliary languages nor part of popular media, but are nonetheless significant among enthusiasts, have amassed a notable amount of speakers, or do not fit in other categories: * Sonja Lang: Toki Pona, a minimalist language which has gained a large following and several publications over the years since its creation in 2001.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Language Inventors Linguists Lists of inventors