Have you ever wondered about Tolkien’s “Quenya” language, or “Na’ vi” from Avatar? Why would anyone put that much work into a fake language? The LILA Gazette tells the story of constructed languages.

By Malachi Newman, Eshan Lyall and F. S. – 6th grade.

Conlangs – or constructed languages – are unofficial languages created usually by linguists, just for fun, for worldbuilding projects, or even an attempt at an international language. Today, they are best known in fictional literature and films. For example, Quenya was created by J.R.R Tolkien in 1910-1911,and used as the language for Tolkien’s High Elves so they can have dialogue that the hobbits do not understand. Na’Vi was created by Paul Frommer as a language for the alien race of the same name. The language is without a written form as the alien race is in the hunter gatherer phase, the language was created in 2005.

In real life, there are some well known examples, as well. The most famous one is definitely Esperanto. It is the world’s most widely spoken international conlang, created by the master linguist L.L. Zamenhof in 1887 to bring the world together. Zamenhof was a jew during Russia’s pogroms, and when he imagined a world without war, one of the most important details in his perspective was a universal language. So he set out and dedicated his life to creating Esperanto, which is based on many of the European languages, including Russian, Polish,  English, German, and Italian. Nowadays, a minority of diplomats and linguists use it, even though Zamenhof intended its use to be widespread and everyday.

Toki Pona, a conlang created by Canadian linguist Sonja Lang, was a recent addition to the modern list of the most popular conlangs. It was created in 2001, fairly recently, to act as the world’s simplest language. “Toki Pona” translates directly to “The Language of Good”. In Toki Pona, there is no word for “octopus”, for example. Instead, you have to say something like “ocean animal with eight legs”. Because of Toki Pona’s simplicity, many have decided to learn it, as it only takes several weeks, or even days. To date, Toki Pona is the fifth most popular conlang in the world. Other examples of famous conlangs are Interslavic, Ido, and Interlingua.

These modern creations were actually nothing new. The first conlang ever created was “Lingua Ignota” or “unknown language” in the 12th century. According to surfacelanguages.com, it was “designed by St Hildergard of Bingen”. The language was “contained in a manuscript called the Riesencodex (giant codex)”. It had only 23 characters and yet over 1,000 words. Unfortunately, we still do not know much about the mystic language today. 

While making a conlang, creators must go through a long process of customization before commencing their long journey through rules and regulations in the language. Language makers will first browse the International Phonetic Alphabet Website (or IPA) for sounds (or phonemes) they would like to use in their conlang, to customize the sound of the language to be. If the conlang is meant to have a written form, conlangers will choose a script type from the following options and then create a writing system for their chosen script type, create vocabulary, make grammar and conjugation rules, and so much more:

Abjad – A writing system in which the vowels are not represented at all. Although, sometimes these scripts will include small “vowel marks” which are mostly used for beginner learners of the script. 

Abugida – A writing system in which the vowel is represented by making a slight change to the previous consonant. 

Alphabet – A writing system in which both vowels and consonants have a designated character. 

Syllabary – A writing system in which each syllable is represented by a single character. 

Pictogram Script – A script made up of pictograms is a script in which each character represents an entire concept or idea.

Featural System – A writing system in which each character is created by adapting each character’s look to the way it sounds by designating factors like “nasal”, “palatal”, “affricate”, and “fricative”  to specific symbols.

The unknown world of conlangs is a bustling community full of wonders.You never know what the next language or person you discover is, which is true for all Language communities all around the world ranging from linguists to just simple human beings like you and me who are just trying to learn a language on Duolingo!