Artistic language

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An artistic language, or artlang, [1] [2] [3] is a constructed language designed for aesthetic and phonetic pleasure. Constructed languages 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 such as cultural diversity and the vulnerability of the individual in a globalizing world. [4] They can also be used to test linguistical theories, such as Linguistic relativity.

Contents

Unlike engineered languages or auxiliary languages, artistic languages often have irregular grammar systems, much like natural languages. Many are designed within the context of fictional worlds, such as J. R. R. Tolkien'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 languages, 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 cultures.

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 universes, the game Ico and the songs of the French band Magma, 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'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 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, which initiated the interest among Internet conlangers in devising such alternate-historical languages, like Wenedyk. Brithenig attempts to determine how Romance languages would have evolved had Roman influence in Britain been sufficient to replace Celtic languages with Vulgar Latin, and bases its phonology on that of Welsh. An earlier instance is Philip José Farmer's Winkie language, a relative of the Germanic languages spoken by the Winkies of Oz in A Barnstormer in Oz. Another example is Anglish, which tries to reconstruct how English could have looked without Latin influence.

Although technically a professional fictional language, Wenja, used in the video game Far Cry Primal is an attempt an reconstructing an earlier stage of Proto-Indo-European, before the appearance of characteristics such as gender, ablaut or the s-mobile, to name a few. [5]

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. [6]

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." [7] The author Robert Dessaix describes the origins of his personal language K: "I wanted words that described reality. So I made them up." [8]

Languages with small vocabulary

The aim of such languages is to express deep meaning with very few parts. For instance, Toki Pona is generally said to have around 120, [9] 123, [10] or 125 [11] root words [12] and 14 phonemes. It was created by Canadian linguist and translator Sonja Lang [13] for the purpose of simplifying thoughts and communication. [14] Another example is Mini, a language of 1,000 words created by S. C. Gruget in 2020. [15]

Jokelangs

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

Some typical jokelangs are:

Experimental languages

An experimental language is a constructed language designed for the purpose of exploring some theory of linguistics. 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, much work has been done on the assumption popularly known as the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis. Artlangs of this type overlap with engineered languages.

Examples of artistic languages

See list of constructed languages for a list.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fictional language</span> Constructed languages created for a fictional setting

Fictional languages are the subset of constructed languages (conlangs) that have been created as part of a fictional setting. Typically they are the creation of one individual, while natural languages evolve out of a particular culture or people group, and other conlangs may have group involvement. Fictional languages are also distinct from natural languages in that they have no native speakers. By contrast, the constructed language of Esperanto now has native speakers.

The English philologist and author J. R. R. Tolkien created several constructed languages, mostly related to his fictional world of Middle-earth. Inventing languages, something that he called glossopoeia, was a lifelong occupation for Tolkien, starting in his teens.

The Black Speech is one of the fictional languages constructed by J. R. R. Tolkien for his legendarium, where it was spoken in the evil realm of Mordor. In the fiction, Tolkien describes the language as created by Sauron as a constructed language to be the sole language of all the servants of Mordor.

A constructed writing system or a neography is a writing system specifically created by an individual or group, rather than having evolved as part of a language or culture like a natural script. Some are designed for use with constructed languages, although several of them are used in linguistic experimentation or for other more practical ends in existing languages. Prominent examples of constructed scripts include Korean Hangul and Tengwar.

Morphological typology is a way of classifying the languages of the world that groups languages according to their common morphological structures. The field organizes languages on the basis of how those languages form words by combining morphemes. Analytic languages contain very little inflection, instead relying on features like word order and auxiliary words to convey meaning. Synthetic languages, ones that are not analytic, are divided into two categories: agglutinative and fusional languages. Agglutinative languages rely primarily on discrete particles for inflection, while fusional languages "fuse" inflectional categories together, often allowing one word ending to contain several categories, such that the original root can be difficult to extract. A further subcategory of agglutinative languages are polysynthetic languages, which take agglutination to a higher level by constructing entire sentences, including nouns, as one word.

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 home of The Language Construction Kit, Rosenfelder's article introducing new conlangers to the hobby.

Engineered languages are constructed languages devised to test or prove some hypotheses about how languages work or might work. There are at least three subcategories, philosophical languages, logical languages, and experimental languages. Raymond Brown describes engineered languages as "languages that are designed to specified objective criteria, and modeled to meet those criteria".

<i>A Secret Vice</i> 1931 talk by J. R. R. Tolkien

"A Secret Vice", also known as "A Hobby for The Home", is a lecture first presented by English philologist and author J. R. R. Tolkien in 1931. The lecture concerns Tolkien's relations with and view on constructed languages, in particular on artistic languages. In the talk, Tolkien discusses the human desire to make languages, and his criteria to create a good language – these include phonoaesthetics and the presence of a mythology to accompany the language. Tolkien's presentation was the first instance of him openly exhibiting his hobby of conlanging, and includes examples of several of his languages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Asemic writing</span> Wordless open semantic form of writing

Asemic writing is a wordless open semantic form of writing. The word asemic means "having no specific semantic content", or "without the smallest unit of meaning". With the non-specificity of asemic writing there comes a vacuum of meaning, which is left for the reader to fill in and interpret. All of this is similar to the way one would deduce meaning from an abstract work of art. Where asemic writing distinguishes itself among traditions of abstract art is in the asemic author's use of gestural constraint, and the retention of physical characteristics of writing such as lines and symbols. Asemic writing is a hybrid art form that fuses text and image into a unity, and then sets it free to arbitrary subjective interpretations. It may be compared to free writing or writing for its own sake, instead of writing to produce verbal context. The open nature of asemic works allows for meaning to occur across linguistic understanding; an asemic text may be "read" in a similar fashion regardless of the reader's natural language. Multiple meanings for the same symbolism are another possibility for an asemic work, that is, asemic writing can be polysemantic or have zero meaning, infinite meanings, or its meaning can evolve over time. Asemic works leave for the reader to decide how to translate and explore an asemic text; in this sense, the reader becomes co-creator of the asemic work.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Talossa</span> Micronation in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, US

Talossa, also known as the Kingdom of Talossa, is one of the earliest micronations – founded in 1979 by then-14-year-old Robert Ben Madison of Milwaukee and at first confined to his bedroom; he adopted the name after discovering that the word means "inside the house" in Finnish. Among the first such projects still maintained, it has kept up a web presence since 1995. Its internet and media exposure since the late 1990s contributed to the appearance of other subsequent internet micronations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Toki Pona</span> Minimalist language created by Sonja Lang

Toki Pona is a philosophical artistic constructed language known for its small vocabulary, simplicity, and ease of acquisition. It was created by Sonja Lang, a Canadian linguist and translator, to simplify her thoughts and communication. The first drafts were published online in 2001, while the complete form was published in the 2014 book Toki Pona: The Language of Good. Lang also released a supplementary dictionary, the Toki Pona Dictionary, in July 2021, describing the language as used by its community of speakers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Constructed language</span> Consciously devised language

A constructed language 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. A constructed language may also be referred to as an artificial, planned or invented language, or a fictional language. Planned languages are languages that have been purposefully designed; they are the result of deliberate, controlling intervention and are thus of a form of language planning.

Kēlen is a constructed language created by Sylvia Sotomayor in 1998. The language is designed to be a truly alien language by violating a key linguistic universal — namely that all human languages have verbs. In Kēlen, relationships between noun phrases making up the sentence are expressed by one of four relationals. According to Sotomayor, these relationals perform the functions of verbs but lack any of the semantic content. However, the semantic content found in common verbs, such as those that are semantic primes, can also be found in Kēlen's relationals, which calls into question whether Kēlen is technically verbless. Despite its distinctive grammar, Kēlen is an expressive and intelligible language. Texts written in Kēlen have been translated into other languages by several people other than the creator of the language. In an interview, Sotomayor stated that she aimed for Kēlen to be naturalistic apart from its verblessness, and that to achieve this she employs the principle "change one thing and keep everything else the same".

Verdurian is a constructed language created by Mark Rosenfelder, first published in 1995 and hosted at his website, Zompist.com.

An experimental language is a constructed language designed for linguistics research, often on the relationship between language and thought.

Dritok is a constructed language (conlang) created by Donald Boozer in 2007. Boozer was Secretary (2012–2015) and Librarian (2009–2013) of the Language Creation Society.

The Valyrian languages are a fictional language family in the A Song of Ice and Fire series of fantasy novels by George R. R. Martin, and in their television adaptation Game of Thrones and later House of the Dragon.

The Dothraki language is a constructed fictional language in George R. R. Martin's fantasy novel series A Song of Ice and Fire and its television adaptation Game of Thrones. It is spoken by the Dothraki, a nomadic people in the series's fictional world. The language was developed for the TV series by the language creator David J. Peterson, working off the Dothraki words and phrases in Martin's novels.

<i>In the Land of Invented Languages</i> 2009 book by Arika Okrent

In the Land of Invented Languages: Esperanto Rock Stars, Klingon Poets, Loglan Lovers, and the Mad Dreamers who Tried to Build a Perfect Language is a 2009 non-fiction book by linguist Arika Okrent about the history and culture of constructed languages, or conlangs, languages created by individuals. Okrent explores the motivations for creating a language, the challenges faced by such projects, and the outcomes of a number of high-profile conlangs. The book revolves around six conlangs: John Wilkins' unnamed 'philosophical language', Esperanto, Blissymbols, Loglan and its descendant Lojban, and the Klingon language designed for the Star Trek universe. Okrent describes her personal experiences learning and interacting with these languages and their speakers, and provides historical and linguistic analyses of their structures and features.

References

  1. ↑ Durst, Jack (1997-11-18). "Proposal: new language-type name (fwd)". alt.language.artificial.ngl. Retrieved 2015-05-13. The idea was for "functionlang" to be a useful term to describe a certain group of conlangs that weren't fitting into the pattern. Those being the (relatively rare) conlangs that were not artlangs, logiclangs, or auxlangs, but instead designed around some *other* specified purpose(s).
  2. ↑ Roser, Paul (1998-01-08). "Help with phonological transcription". list.sci.lang.constructed. Usenet. Retrieved 2015-05-13. It is my artlang, spoken on an archipelago in the mid-Atlantic, somewhat south of the Azores and northwest of Madeira. The liturgical language has a number of _very_ exotic sounds, partly to indicate that it is not the normal language of the street (these sounds include several velaric egressive sounds, ie reverse clicks; one or two apicovelars; nareal fricatives; and a few others).
  3. ↑ May, Rex F. (2000-03-15). "Question about LSD". soc.culture.esperanto. Usenet. Retrieved 2015-05-13. I'm opposed to an artlang with tones, in much the same way I'm opposed to an artlang with the many vowel sounds of English, or the consonant clusters of Russian and English.
  4. ↑ (nl) Lies Daenen, De (on)macht van taal. Over Patrick Keulemans , kunstenaar (the '(un)power' of language. About artist Patrick Keulemans), text for the art exhibition 'unwritten & written', Kunst, Beeldende kunst, 20 August 2014.
  5. ↑ Zorine Te (January 26, 2016). "Far Cry Primal Developers Talk About Uncovering History". GameSpot. Retrieved February 8, 2016.
  6. ↑ WIRED Staff. "It's Good to Be King". Wired. ISSN   1059-1028 . Retrieved 2022-11-22.
  7. ↑ Taneraic on the Web Archived July 31, 2005, at the Wayback Machine
  8. ↑ "The Language of K", Lingua Franca, 19 December 1998 Archived May 27, 2006, at the Wayback Machine
  9. ↑ Bramley, Ellie Violet (2015-01-08). "What happened when I tried to learn Toki Pona in 48 hours using memes". The Guardian . Retrieved 2019-01-07.
  10. ↑ Griffin, Sarah (2018-08-18). "Podcast of the week: The smallest language in the world". The Irish Times . Retrieved 2019-01-07.
  11. ↑ Zorrilla, Natalia C. (2018). "Still Hoping: The Relation of International Auxiliary Languages to Worldview and Perception". doi:10.31235/osf.io/sj24a. S2CID   240167472 – via SocArXiv.{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  12. ↑ Originally 118 roots, with several roots added later.
  13. ↑ Roberts, Siobhan (2007-07-09). "Canadian has people talking about lingo she created". The Globe and Mail . Retrieved 2017-03-10.
  14. ↑ Morin, Roc (2015-07-15). "How to Say Everything in a Hundred-Word Language". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2022-08-10.
  15. ↑ Mini: The Minimal Language
  16. ↑ DiLingo - official website

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