Talk:List of constructed languages/Archive 1

Merge proposal
(moved from Talk:List of fictional languages)

against
The reason this huge list is on a page by itself is that it would detract from the discussion on the page titled "fictional languages". Wikipedia has tons of poorly organized material, and sorting one page into logical units is a step in the right direction. Isn't there some policy paper on this somewhere? Cbdorsett 16:33, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
 * I agree - merging them would add nothing to this page and detract from the other one. DenisMoskowitz 19:57, 29 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I am against merging the two articles. I am also against merging the list of fictional languages article with the artistic languages article. I see a definite distinction between languages created for published works of fiction and languages created for individual artistic purposes. MakeRocketGoNow 18:58, 9 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Also against. I liked this page way back when, back when it was a lot less complicated [and consisted entierly of what's now the 'Artistic Languages' category, and then not broken into subdivisions of literary, comic books, movies/television, et cetera. Just put it back to when it was in alphabetical order. I don't even understand what the deal with 'Auxiliary languages' and 'Engineered Languages' is all about. ARBlackwood

in favour
I, on the other hand, favour the idea of a merge. While I agree that extremely huge articles should better be transformed into a set of smaller articles, it should be noted that Fictional languages is a very short article. In fact, adding it to the list would hardly make it bigger than it is now. Besides, I'm not always happy with our habit of making lists of about everybody and everything. --IJzeren Jan 21:29, 6 September 2005 (UTC)


 * I agree; the Fictional languages article is so short that using it as "preface" to this list wwould work well. Anke 08:45, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Wrong proposal
You probably failed to notice that the third article, Artistic language, contains a huge list, heavily overlapping with List of fictional languages. These lists should be merged into this place, not to merge a long list and a text. mikka (t) 22:08, 30 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Yes, you're absolutely right. I noticed the same thing yesterday. Will look into it. Thanks! --IJzeren Jan In mij legge alle fogultjes een ij  06:22, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Mikka: So you're saying there should be a single list of both artistic and fictional languages, and the two articles on those subjects should be separate? If so that sounds good to me. Fantom 19:00, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Basically yes, only the list should be renamed to List of constructed languages. (WHOA! It already exists! One more to merge...) mikka (t) 19:22, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

New proposal
Mikka is right about that. It's a terrible mess. So I've taken the liberty to redo the list of constructed languages completely. It now contains all list stuff found in the list of fictional languages, fictional language, artistic language, international auxiliary language, engineered language, and the list of constructed languages itself. Splitting it up into several smaller lists is of course possible, but IMO not desirable. The problem is that there's indeed a huge overlap between international auxiliary languages and engineered languages on one hand, and between fictional languages and other artistic languages on the other. So, to avoid all kinds of doublets I think it's better to keep all eggs in one basket.

What does this mean for this discussion? Well, first of all that the question whether we should merge fictional language with the list of fictional languages or not is obsolete. The situation as it looks now, is that fictional language does not contain any info that is not contained in artistic language, and therefore should become a redirect to the latter. Same goes for the descriptive header of the list. As for the list itself, I believe it should become a redirect too, this time to the renewed list of constructed languages.

That is what I propose, anyway. An alternative (but no preferred by yours truly) solution could be that we move contents of list of constructed languages back to the list of fictional languages and replace it with a link to it. &mdash;IJzeren Jan In mij legge alle fogultjes een ij  12:13, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Separating the wheat from the chaff
I arrived at this page looking for constructed languages that have met with some success. Instead, I've been going through the list, searching on google and voting on AfD pages. This is no good. I suggest that the Spoken Languages section be separated into three groups:
 * Conlangs with more than 100 known speakears (Make this a table with three columns: conlang name, number of speakers at peak, references.)
 * I could support this, but it may be hard to get good figures on numbers of speakers. That's why I'm leaning towards using the Blanke scale.--Chris 06:46, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
 * I think the Blanke scale is too granular. There's only a handful of conlangs that actually gathered traction. They'll all fit in this category or the one below. Gavin


 * Other fully documented conlangs - Those with fully defined grammatical rules and a mostly complete corpus.
 * Incomplete conlangs (Many listed here will probably be AfD candidates.)
 * Unfortunately, I doubt mass deletion of bogus conlangs is possible. Some kind of labelling would have better chance, I think.--Chris 06:48, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Agreed. That's why we should keep a bucket for "Incomplete conlangs". It'll keep them neatly tucked away on the bottom shelf. Gavin
 * I take it you guys are talking about IALs only here, right? Well, I think we can safely state that the number of auxlangs that have, or ever had, more than 100 speakers is fairly small, perhaps six or seven, and I guess we all agree that the List should not be limited to those. It's of course possible to make subsections, but I'm not sure if that's the ideal solution. Like Chris said, it is hard to get reliable figures on number of speakers. Even in the case of Esperanto, the estimations vary from some 100,000 to 6 million! In the case of the few languages that would qualify, why not put them in boldface in the alphabetical list? That's what some of the other language editions of WP do.
 * I don't know if you have read and/or contributed to WP:CONLANG, but there has been a large discussion about all this, including a straw poll. Although there has been quite some opposition against this poll, I still believe it is a useful way of gathering opinions, so notwithstanding the tag that should prevent you from adding something, I'd still encourage you to do so.
 * As for the other proposed subcategories: keep in mind that # of speakers is not the only criterion that can make a language notable. One case in point: Interglossa.
 * Anyway, you're both invited to WikiProject Constructed languages. I'd especially ask you to give some input about the list of "sollicited articles" on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Constructed languages; in my opinion, we should avoid asking for articles that wouldn't survive an AfD later on. &mdash;IJzeren Jan In mij legge alle fogultjes een ij  07:52, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
 * You yourself stated in a post above that it would be a good idea to group conlangs. The groupings I suggest here are broad and effective without being cumbersome.  All in the first group are major conlangs...as you say there are just six or seven.  The second group contains conlangs of some merit as they are more or less fully described.  The last group captures the rest...no one is left out.  This arrangement is simple and it enables people (like myself) looking for information to find it without getting mired down in conlangs of little distinction. There may be better solutions, but until one is employed, why not employ this one?  No information is lost and organization is gained.  Gavin
 * Yes, you're right, I wasn't fully awake yet! ;) And I agree that some sort of subdivision wouldn't hurt. Anyway, I still have a problem with the no. of speakers at peak. It's a criterion that is extremely hard to apply. Take for example Fasile, which claims 500 speakers. Personally, I don't believe that, and so do many others, but should we therefore redirect it to the minor languages? I don't think so. I think the easiest way to go would be a two-way distinction between "major" and "minor" languages. And I think we should be tolerant with both: languages like Solresol, Glosa and Novial IMO would definitely count as major languages, even though I don't know if they ever had more than 100 speakers. Like I proposed, we can always represent the languages of which we know for sure that they have/had more than 100 speakers in boldface. As for the "minor" section, I think it could also include languages (like Progressiva f.ex.) that are perhaps not significant enough to warrant an article on their own, but that are at least important enough to be included in a list. BTW, whatever subdivision we should go for, it shouldn't conflict too much with the current subdivision between spoken - controlled - visual; if we turn it into a subdivision spoken (major) - spoken (minor) - controlled - visual, we already make it complicated enough for the average editor. ;) &mdash;IJzeren Jan In mij legge alle fogultjes een ij  09:47, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Leetspeak
Shouldn't Leet be listed into this article? Best regards --surue&ntilde;a 16:11, 22 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Under "Language games", maybe?--Chris 16:47, 22 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I suppose yes (I don't have much knowledge about constructed languages). If the section is renamed to "Secret languages" it would be clearer the purpose of Leetspeak, however "language games" is better to describe some of the others (anyway, AFAIK their purpose is secrecy too). --surue&ntilde;a 17:47, 22 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Who constructed Leet? Feel free to prove me wrong, but I would say nobody. It "naturally evolved as part of a culture" rather than being "specifically devised by an individual or small group", so calling it a constructed language contradicts our own definition in that article. I've removed it. (And I've half a mind to remove some other language games for the very same reason, but I'll deal with this some other time.) EldKatt (Talk) 09:57, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Major-Minor thing
It seems to me that Lingua Franca Nova has more speakers than say, Occidental, but Occidental is considered major and LFN minor. Can someone explain?Cameron Nedland 19:43, 7 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Occidental is historically much more significant than LFN. In its heyday, it undoubtedly had more speakers than LFN does now. Its rise to prominence in the 1920s effectively ended Ido's period of expansion; it was also a strong influence on the considerations of International Auxiliary Language Association, which produced several model languages explicitly inspired by Occ. The rivalry between Occ. and Interlingua was a major theme in interlinguistics during the 1950s and 60s.


 * There's nothing comparable for LFN. Still, if I were to promote one of the minor langs to the "major" category, LFN would likely be my first choice.--CJGB (Chris) 12:53, 12 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Okay, thanks.Cameron Nedland 03:24, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Personally, I wouldn't object against moving LFN from Minor to Major. &mdash;IJzeren Jan Uszkiełtu?  09:24, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I'd like to see some more evidence for its notability first. I'm thinking, though, of downgrading Idiom Neutral, which though influential in some ways, was never much than a club effort.--CJGB (Chris) 20:29, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I think the categorization of major-minor is a bit too subjective to be useful. These subsections should probably be merged. MFNickster 03:48, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Merger proposal
I'd like to see the Portal list and this one be merged or synchronized.

They should still probably use different formats - the Portal a very short kind like it has now, and this one something more elaborate like it is now. But perhaps this could be done using some sort of detail-hiding code.

In any case, consider this more of a 'synchronization' proposal than a merge - I just don't know a specific way to do that. Sai Emrys  ¿?   ✍  00:14, 22 October 2007 (UTC)


 * The idea is not bad, but I think it's fairly impossible to realise. This is not merely a matter of detail-hiding code: the List fulfills an entirely different purpose. The Portal List is there only to provide links to all conlang-related articles - that's at least what it was meant for. The List of Constructed Languages, on the other hand, is not only supposed to be comprehensive and include detailed info about the languages, but also contains languages that wouldn't warrant articles of their own but still deserve mentioning on a list. Besides, the Portal List provides not only links to conlangs, but also to language types and other related stuff. &mdash;IJzeren Jan Uszkiełtu?  23:16, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Inclusion of Sambahsa-mundialect
Pro: it has an article, it's listed under 'minor', and this is a comprehensive list... Con: ??? Sai Emrys  ¿?   ✍  06:18, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Contra: The article was written after its inclusion on this article here. Plus, Google shows up nearly no independent websites about this language. Plus, the language is merely 3 months old. The addition of Slovio was reverted a few days earlier, although there's much more reason to include it, as it's older and quite well-known among people who know something about IAL (didn't want to say "conlang experts"). Would any minor private conlang be included if someone writes an article about it? Maybe I should try it myself... By the way, I doubt that the article on Sambahsa-mundialect will have a long lifetime either... but I'd agree to delete it's mentioning in this article here after its deletion. — N-true 13:40, 26 October 2007 (UTC)


 * If you think Slovio should be included, do so. It is a list of "minor" IALs, right? We could have further gradation, a la top, high, mid, low importance classification (which I've already started doing via WP conlangs). But you shouldn't delete X because Y was deleted unfairly - you should oppose Y's deletion. I expect that the current AfD will result in a delete, but we can deal with that then. Besides which, the list doesn't say it's a list of conlangs *with wikipedia articles* but of *conlangs* period... Sai Emrys   ¿?   ✍  23:19, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Okay, you're right. I indeed thought that if the threshold is higher than Slovio, then this Sambahsa-mundialect would be definitely lower as well... I won't insert Slovio for now, though... I'll just hope that someday there'll be reason enough to undelete its article. — N-true 23:25, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

I deleted Sambahsa-mundialect from the list and I request it to stay this way, for the following reason: There used to be an article about this conlang, so its status was for some time debatable. It was put up for deletion, as you remember, the outcome was deletion. The reason for that was that there were no reliable sources, in particular no 3rd (or 2nd?) party sources. Thus it is a mere private conlang. There are hundreds of thousands of private conlangs, which – if Sambahsa-mundialect should stay added, have a right to claim their place in the list as well. There simply must be a threshold somewhere. A private conlang is the most unpopular kind of conlang possible. So at least they should fall through the cracks. This article's section is titled "Spoken (minor)". If S.m. were spoken, then there would be more than one resource, it's copies and other instances most likely written by the same person. And last but not least, under "minor" I do not understand "all others" but truely "other small, but notable, projects". Throw one out, or let all other in. — N-true 00:10, 9 November 2007 (UTC)


 * May I suggest then that we figure out a general criteria for inclusion in this page? I think? we agree that it is a list of constructed languages, generally, not necessarily ones with Wikipedia pages. And we agree that there ought to be signal:noise improvement in not listing unnotable languages alongside notable ones. I would recommend including *everything* in fact - but treating them differently depending on how important or interesting they are. So e.g. we could have three categories: major, moderate, and minor (= everything else). Perhaps this could be taken e.g. from the WP:CL importance tags as a standard to punt to, so that all notability / importance discussion gets put in one place.
 * Then, we could have it so that majors are at the top, moderatres under them - both with the extra line of detail - and minors under them still, in a non-bulleted paragraph type list (like in P:CL). This would ensure that your concerns about the salience of articles in the list corresponding to their notability, as well as mine about including everything that can be shown to exist (which S-M can - just not very notably so; I'd agree with characterizing it as a private auxlang (ironic eh?)). Sai Emrys   ¿?   ✍  04:46, 12 November 2007 (UTC)


 * With regards to entries without articles, the notability of each entry should be verifiable through citations of non-trivial references to the language in reliable publications. If such references exist, it should be easy to make a short article on the language. The only situation where we should have an entry with no article is when sufficient sources are provided that it's clear an article could be written, but for some reason has not been. If a language's article was deleted through AfD due to lack of notability (as opposed to copy-vio or something else unusual), then it shouldn't have an entry here. Also, see Lists. -- Schaefer (talk) 15:57, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Slovio
This has been discussed already...

Lists on Wikipedia must not include links to subjects that aren't notable notable enough for an article. This doesn't exactly mean that this list must not include links to subjects which do not have an article. If a subject is notable, but no-one wrote an article about it yet, then it can and should be in a list, because that's a good way to attract editors.

Slovio was deemed non-notable by two discussions:
 * AFD discussion: Articles for deletion/Slovio (2nd nomination)
 * DR discussion: Deletion review/Log/2007 August 10

If good sources for its notability can be presented, then i'll gladly restore Slovio's article, and then it can be in this list, of course. Make sure you read those two discussions before you reply here, because everything has already been said ... --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 16:21, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Bring the Slovio back! It is very useful conlang! -- MR.CRO95 (talk) 19:18, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

"Natural conlangs"
Where, if anywhere, should Damin and Eskayan go here? --Tropylium (talk) 13:30, 14 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Thank you for adding the latter! Well, IMO these languages are to categorise, so "miscellaneous" or "for special uses" seems like the best solution, although I realise that's pretty much a compromise. &mdash;IJzeren Jan Uszkiełtu?  15:32, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Yerkish
Where's Yerkish in the list? . Gordomono (talk) 05:11, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Constructed languages vs. fictional languages
I see from this talk page that last year there was a merger of a former "list of fictional languages" into this list of constructed languages. However, many of the entries listed under "Artistic languages" haven't actually been constructed in any significant manner. For example, although Interlac is treated as an actual constructed language within the fiction of the Legion of Super-Heroes comics, in practice it's just a simple substitution cipher, not a language at all. Other examples have only a handful of words in one work of fiction. Of course, there are also works of fiction which contain genuine constructed languages (most notably those created by J. R. R. Tolkien), but there's a huge difference between, say, Sindarin (which has a complete grammar, morphological rules and extensive vocabulary) and Gobbledygook, which is essentially a passing joke, with only one or two words revealed.

Given the fact that many of the languages listed in the "Artistic languages" section aren't constructed languages in any meaningful sense, I think that something needs to be done: there should either be a major purge of the "artistic" entries, limiting them to ones that have some actual linguistic content (such as Tolkien's languages, Newspeak, etc.), or the article should be renamed "List of constructed and fictional languages". I don't have strong feelings about which course of action should be followed, but I do think that the article as it stands now is problematic. What do others think? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 18:28, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

new constructed language?
I've come upon a new constructed language, Niw Englisc (based on Old English), and would like to list it here. Where would I properly place this? --JamesR1701E (talk) 03:41, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I did a quick google search and it really doesn't look notable enough... there are only a few pages mentioning it and most of them were probably written or posted by the author themself. So Wikipedia isn't the right place for such a minor conlang. — N-true (talk) 17:53, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Reformed Egyptian
Does "Reformed Egyptian in the Book of Mormon" really belong in the "Languages used in Fiction" section? I hesitate to bring it up; IMO, Reformed Egyptian deserves any quantity of scorn that can be heaped on it, but including it here would seem to violate Wikipedia's NPOV policy. Also, while the Book of Mormon certainly isn't _true_, it arguably isn't fiction, either. In either case, it seems best to remove. I'm going to go ahead and cut it; if there's any disagreement, feel free to revert and discuss. Elmo iscariot (talk) 16:30, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Slovio
I haven´t found anything about Slovio in the English wikipedia, unlike other wikipedias. It's a constructed language based on Slavic languages. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.70.117.103 (talk) 09:50, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Does this help / explain why? Articles_for_deletion/Slovio_%282nd_nomination%29 - Aagtbdfoua 13:46, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

It seems to me that Slovio deserves at least a reference to http://www.slovio.com/. Its main idea seems to be somewhat similar to Interlingua but based on Slavic instead of Romance languages, even though the actual construction may not have been as careful. Tsf (talk) 13:31, 15 November 2008 (UTC)


 * It's not that simple. Once an article has been deleted, every single reference to it is often removed. I agree that Slovio deserves a reference, but then, I also believe it deserves its own article. Especially since it's considered notable enough by numerous other wikipedia projects, which would make it notable enough for wp.en as well (after all, wikipedia is language-related, not country-related).
 * BTW, I wouldn't consider Slovio a Slavic equivalent of Interlingua. It's more like a Slavic Esperanto or Ido if you like. The wordstock is Slavic-based, but the grammar is schematic and has little in common with the grammar of the natural Slavic languages. A more Interlingua-like approach you'll find in Slovianski. &mdash;IJzeren Jan Uszkiełtu?  15:01, 15 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree that Slovio should not have been removed from WP. As a matter of fact I discovered this whole issue because I was searching for information about Slovio and was frustrated because I did not find anything in WP-EN. I just noticed that there is another "Slovio" section below which also mentions the deletion. I am not an expert on constructed languages so that I cannot argue about the merits of this case but there are over 20 other WPs (OK, mostly Slavic) that include articles about Slovio. One of them is in Interlingua!. Tsf (talk) 00:27, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Richard Morneau's MTIL
I strongly disagree with the decision to remove Richard Morneau's MTIL (Machine Translation Interlingua) called Latejami from the engelang list. Not only should it be in the list, but it should have its own _article_ as well. It is, hands-down, one of the best-designed and most thoroughly implemented engelangs in existence. The language is well known and has been discussed on CONLANG and other web lists/fora. It also has a dedicated group of fans:

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Latejami/

These conlang pages are in shambles. The engelang page is a disaster. Latejami, arguably the most complete engelang in existence, after Lojban/Loglan, is removed without discussion. I'm willing to help in this situation, but please know what you're doing before you revert my edits. maikxlx (talk) 06:04, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

[Untitled]
(moved from Talk:List of fictional languages)

What about 'Thaihindi' from the film Ultraviolet? I'm not sure if it's actually used, other than some writing - does that count?

199.68.104.24 (talk) 02:13, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Does "pinguish" really qualify? It's not much of a language per se. It's just mumbling. Also, there are many other children shows that has similar "languages" (Instead, all of the story is told through images, communication is mainly conveyed by the tone of voice) and Pinguish isn't really unique enough to be a better example than any else...

--

It probably goes without saying, but Morporkian, Agatean, Quirmian and Klatchian don't count, because (unlike Tolkien and his translation notes) there's no evidence they aren't actually identical to English, Japanese, French and Arabic, right? What about Latatian; it's not "proper" Latin, but I'd hesitate to call it fictional exactly. In Colour of Magic there's two lines of "Krullian", which was vaguely Norwegian looking gibberish.

Damin
I want to know if Damin can be included on this list. It was created by the Lardil and Yangkall tribes of Mornington Island, Australia as a ceremonial language for initiated men. It is significant for several reasons, as outlined in the article. 122.111.15.54 (talk) 13:59, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Fictional languages -- how many are legitimate?
How many of the Fictional languages listed are actual 'constructed languages like Tolkien's Quenya and Sindarin, and how many are just names for fictional languages that have no content behind them or imitations of language that are actually ad hoc gibberish? I'm thinking that we should restrict the list to cases that have some claim to be actual linguistic artifacts.--Chris 13:28, 28 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, I fully agree. I'm observing the current wildgrowth with mixed feelings, but in all honestly, I don't know enough about most of those newly added languages to be able to separate the "real" languages from the ad hoc gibberish and languages that are hardly anything but a name. Any ideas about how to weed those out? &mdash;IJzeren Jan In mij legge alle fogultjes een ij  11:29, 13 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree, there is a clear difference between Sindarin, which has a proper grammar and can be spoken, and Parseltongue which is simply described as 'hissing' and is always translated to English when spoken. [anonymous comment]


 * The only course I can think of is to ask each of the editors who've added one of these obscure langs about the lang's status: how extensive is the corpus? (complete texts? single words? just the bare language name?), has the author provided a grammar, or has someone reconstructed one? I'd say a bare name doesn't qualify, but perhaps a sample word does -- not a conclusion I'm happy to draw, but otherwise we'd get into an arbitrary line-drawing exercise.--CJGB (Chris) 12:46, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

This article is about artificial languages, not fictional languages. Languages that don't exist in the real world don't belong on a list of artificial langauges anymore than Star Trek movies belong on List of human spaceflights. Of course, some languages like Klingon or Elvish were created for use in fiction, but they are still real artificial languages that can be learned and spoken in the real world. I think a lot of the non-notable cruft in the fictional languages section (and by this I mean languages with no independent sources to verify their grammar or even existence other than the fictional work in which they appear) by changing the section title to "Languages constructed for use in fiction" which emphasizes that the languages listed should actually exist. -- Schaefer (talk) 13:08, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, is it really necessary to include every alien gibberish spoken in a video game as its own language? Jibberish with consistency isn't a constructed language.
 * It's getting to be a problem as fans blindly add languages to the list without bothering to understand what a true Constructed language is. Newspeak and Quenya, for instance are conlangs whereas Chakobsa isn't. I've trimmed some. Paul S (talk) 18:53, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I've chopped the list again - it's been clogged up with fictional languages that clearly are not conlangs in the proper sense. I may add this page to my watchlist to stop more spurious additions. If you want to add to the list, please find out what a conlang is by reading the article! Paul S (talk) 20:50, 2 November 2009 (UTC)


 * I disagree with the distinctions you are making here. While I agree that it is legitimate to distinguish between names for languages that are not actually developed in fiction (i.e. always appearing in English translation with no developed linguistic attributes), I disagree that it is appropriate to exclude from a definition of constructed languages created by people as part of a work of fiction that are have vocabulary, linguistic rules, etc. but are natural languages for the characters in the work of fiction. No, they are not "constructed languages" from the perspective of the characters, but they are constructed languages from the perpsective of real living human beings.  JRR Tolkein, Charles Stross and Kate Elliott (and of course, the folks who created Klingon and Na'vi) are all examples of the latter.  As applied, you appear to be limited the list to languages that are not only realized, but are also constructed languages for the characters in the fictional works. Ohwilleke (talk) 22:30, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I have not said that whatever is not a conlang from the point of view of the fictional characters within its milieu should be excluded. The list includes numerous languages (or I strongly suspect it does) which are in no way whatsoever constructed by the author but simply referred to as existing or which consist of only of a minimal number of sample words and phrases and which therefore are not conlangs. Read my comments above: Quenya from Tolkien's Middle Earth is a conlang because you can see grammatical forms, derivations and a large vocabulary, regardless of it being a natlang for elves... Chakobsa from Dune consists of two sentences (untranslated) and therefore it is not a conlang. Paul S (talk) 01:44, 3 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Good work, thank you. I suspect most of the conlangs noted from literary sources could vanish, too, or at the very least a demarcation be made between those conlangs merely "used" for artistic purposes in works (with perhaps a few words dropped into the text) vs. those that have an in-depth conlang creation that exists backscenes or at the very least an attempt to describe the wider linguistic workings in an appendix or somesuch?
 * The various categories do overlap, too, which is not particularly "helpful" in some cases; e.g. Tsolyani is "better known" under "Games" whereas it was self-published (albeit on a very small scale) with a grammar, script, etc., 25 years prior to that date and existed 35 years before; both those being in a "Literary" rather than "Games" context. Harami2000 (talk) 01:00, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Logopandecteision
FYI: Logopandecteision is not a language. It is a satirical book describing the alleged qualities of an unpublished language by the author. There were never such a language. Rursus dixit. ( m bork3 !) 11:20, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Nagan (?) from the Legend of the Five Rings (RPG)
There is a brief language grammar of the snake-like Naga for the RPG Legend of the Five Rings, it was included in the sourcebook 'Way of the Naga" from AEG, which is out of print now. Someone could add that information to the article if it was deemed worthy. Apparently, there was a more extensive dictionary for it that wasn't included in print. 192.44.136.113 (talk) 20:25, 9 January 2009 (UTC)


 * No. Rursus dixit. ( m bork3 !) 11:21, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Adjuvilo
I corrected the year in which Adjuvilo was published from 1908 to 1910. The only book on Adjuvilo was published in the year 1910, I have a digitalized copy of it. This article once again mentions the conspiracy theory that Adjuvilo was a tool against Ido and the Ido-movement. Til now I have not seen any substantial proof or argument for this theory. Valodnieks (talk) 22:28, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Not auxiliary languages
The "Auxiliary languages" section seems to include some entries which aren't primarily IALs. Lojban and Toki Pona are surely engineered languages, and Arcaicam Esperantom could be considered an artlang.N4m3 (talk) 00:14, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree, they should be moved. Paul S (talk) 11:20, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Agreed about Lojban and Toki Pona. Note that Lojban is already mentioned under the engeneered languages. I am not so sure about Arcaicam Esperantom, though. I don't think you can really treat it as a language separate from Esperanto, it is rather some kind of extension of it. Obviously, it is not an auxlang as such, but it does belong to the family of Esperantidos anyway. &mdash;IJzeren Jan Uszkiełtu?  20:57, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Dovah Language
Does the Dragon language in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim count as a conlang? It certainly seems like it to me, but I'm not sure what the thoughts are here. 69.249.211.251 (talk) 02:06, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Simlish
Would anyone oppose to the mention of the "Simlish" language, which is featured in the various "Sims" games? I think it's notable, as it's been used at least since The Sims 2, and is heard throughout the games. Gpia7r (talk) 19:53, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, because Simlish is not a constructed language. Paul S (talk) 21:34, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Deliberately not constructed. According to its article:
 * they ultimately decided that Simlish worked best as a "language" made up of gibberish words that couldn't be translated, so that its meaning would be left open to the imagination of the player.
 * --Pi zero (talk) 22:34, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
 * On the contrary, Simlish deserves a mention in this article for the simple reason that the game producers themselves have stated that the language has been carefully monitored and if you play the games, you'll notice that the same phrases crop up for the same things. It may seem like gibberish but that's what they want you to think, as to keep the imagination strong. Yes, it's made up of gibberish words, but it's made up of gibberish words that make sense when you look at the whole, grand picture. And it can't be translated because they refuse to give us a translation. ;D You don't need translations to make it a language.

The Farty Doctor  Talk  16:09, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid you don't know the definition of a constructed language. I have therefore removed Simlish again, because it is not a constructed language within the definition. Paul S (talk) 21:31, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
 * No worries. I shan't add it again then but in response to "you don't know the definition of a constructed language"- if a language has been made up of words that are only usable in that language and- admittedly- are only used by AI characters, the next question is whether or not there's a consistency. "Degg degg", "noonoob" and "watchoo balando" (for example) all appear in the same situations and receive the same responses. I know now that you can't add it because it actually needs human speakers haha. Have a nice day.
 * The Farty Doctor  Talk  09:06, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
 * A constructed language is not the same as a made up language. Lots of people have made this mistake and added languages to this list which don't belong. Can you tell me what "Degg" means? Is Simlish characteristically an agglutinative, isolated or flexional language? What's the word order in a simple Simlish sentence - is it SVO or VSO, for instance? How many moods and tenses does the Simlish verb have? We can't answer any of these questions, because Simlish is not a conlang. Paul S (talk) 12:08, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Italian
The efforts of trying to normalize Italian is mentioned in Constructed language as an early example of a constructed language, as well as a popular example in discussions about constructed languages. Less so, however in the article on italian language where it just says "Dante is still credited with standardizing the Italian language, and thus the dialect of Florence became the basis for what would become the official language of Italy." Any objection to it making the list?

14:06, 11 April 2013 (UTC) themrza


 * Well, basically it's not written that Italian is a "constructed language", this is about an "ideal language". The question whether and in how far a standard language like Italian can be considered a constructed language is very difficult to answer. Other languages frequently mentioned in this context are German and Czech. To be honest, I wouldn't go there. Most standardized languages have artificial elements in them, but if you start adding them all, the article becomes a mess. &mdash;IJzeren Jan Uszkiełtu?  16:42, 11 April 2013 (UTC)


 * It goes double for modern Turkish, but I wouldn't include any of these languages in this list for obvious reasons; they are standardised versions of natural languages. Paul S (talk) 17:59, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

More and More Engineered/IALs
People are inventing languages and other people are adding them to this list, usually with a red link. Maybe a language's notability should be established before it is added, lest this section become as bloated as the one lower down on alleged conlangs in books. Paul S (talk) 10:54, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I absolutely agree. A language should be at least a bit known and be referenced somewhere else than just on the author's private webpage. It should have become more than a "private project". — N-true (talk) 11:02, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
 * It happens frequently that people start new projects and add them to the list very soon afterwards (not necessarily in the form of red links, see f.ex. Angos). I'm confident that these edits are made in perfectly good faith, but I agree the very existence of a project is not enough to warrant mentioning in the list. The question is: if a language is not notable enough for its own article, do we assume that it is also not notable enough for a place on the list? And if not, what would be the criteria, then? &mdash;IJzeren Jan Uszkiełtu?  16:48, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Hmm, I was going to get in touch with the WikiProject Constructed Languages but apparently it is listed as "semi-active". Where else might we look for help? Paul S (talk) 18:02, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

fictional languages, language games
I'd suggest breaking out language games as its own heading in section 3. Also moving fiction to the bottom of section 3; it overwhelms everything else and is of dubious quality to boot. In fictional languages, I'm not sure differentiating by media type (literary, movies, etc.) makes much sense. Klingon is everywhere, I don't think the fact that it was created for a movie matters much from a linguistic perspective. Differentiating by number of speakers or works makes a lot more sense, but is pretty hard.

There's almost certainly a lot of junk in the fiction list. Is something with only thirty words a language? In lots of cases, a writer (or even a set painter) will make up twenty or thirty words or a few sentences, but without a grammar, I'm dubious. In most cases, there isn't a corpus of even fifteen pages of text.

Entries I'm skeptical about:
 * LeGuin.
 * Atreides Battle Language.
 * Lovecraft. Aklo might be a real language, but I don't think Lovecraft ever made a grammar, or even more than a few dozen words.
 * Babel-17.
 * Kryptonian
 * Ancient, from Stargate; the article linked to makes it pretty clear that the script is most often used to transliterate English.
 * Common from D&D.
 * Terry Pratchett entries.
 * marain
 * I've not read the potter books (waiting for the last one, and might wait for the last movie to read the books), but did Rowling actually invent an entire language for a relatively minor plot point? doubt it.
 * stark. the article linked implies there isn't even a sentence of example.
 * interlac. linked article makes it seem that it's simply an alternative typeface.
 * gelfling
 * marklar
 * minbari. article says it's mostly derived from russian.
 * land of the lost
 * all the words in caveman fit on a postcard.
 * furbish is listed twice, and can't be all that big

Other gripes: -- Akb4 07:50, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
 * nadsat is a slang; should somehow be differentiated
 * zaum. is poetry fiction? it was used for a libretto; is that literary or musical?

I think the threshold for inclusion should be whether or not there exists an article specifically on the language. As written in in Notability, "List articles [...] should include only notable entries; for example, only notable writers should be in List of English writers." (Notable is used here to mean that it satisfies the notability guidelines at WP:N.) So if a fictional language is not notable enough to warrant a dedicated article, it should not be included in the list. -- Schaefer (talk) 01:26, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Dn'i, Gargish, and Tho Fan do not have their own articles, and yet these are included on the list. Can someone explain to me why these three are granted exception? Psychonautical1 (talk) 15:42, 20 November 2014 (UTC)
 * They weren't deliberately granted exception: the list used to be extremely long with numerous wrong examples before TechBear and myself chopped it back in 2013. I didn't remove these at that stage because I was concerned more with removing the numerous fictional languages which were just mentioned in games or books or which were only substitution cyphers, rather than with notability. I might argue that Dn'i could be granted exception though, although I don't know much about Myst I believe it has a large fanbase. Paul S (talk) 11:54, 21 November 2014 (UTC)
 * That's right. I might add that these three languages, even though don't have their own article (anymore), are still described on Wikipedia, so that links to them are warranted by any standard. &mdash;IJzeren Jan Uszkiełtu?  16:52, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

Removal of numerous literary non-conlangs
Removed several languages from the literature list. We must distinguish carefully between a constructed language and a fictional language which has not actually been constructed. I removed Tolkien's Black Speech and Adunaic: they are very fragmentary, although it may be that there is unpublished material on the latter to merit its inclusion. I've removed a lot of fictional literaly languages on that basis that it appears they are all either "naming languages" (simply a few short phrases and words for people and places) or have features described but there is not a signifcant sample of the language itself (such as Babel 17 or Pravic) while the article on Cherryh's M'ri says it"cannot be used as the basis of a working language". On Codex Serafinianus, "Serafini stated that there is no meaning hidden behind the script of the Codex, which is asemic; that his own experience in writing it was closely similar to automatic writing" so the author discounts it as a conlang. Old Solar is a naming language of 21 words with a system of plural formation, so not a conlang. Orghast's description makes it appear to be a piece of mystification with no actual grammar, syntax or vocabulary.

I have not removed Newspeak and Nadsat since they seem to have gained general acceptance as constructed languages even though, strictly speaking, they are not. Paul S (talk) 15:41, 28 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I very much oppose the removal of Tolkien's languages. Whether they are well-described or not (and all of them are better described than Nadsat, which is chiefly a collection of Russian loanwords). this article is a list and it makes perfect sense to link to the articles about Rohirric and Adûnaic and the rest from here. -- Evertype·✆ 18:43, 21 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Many of the ones you put back are definitely not proper conlangs. Westron consists only of a few names, which makes it a naming language. Primitve Quendian doesn't even exist except in in-universe history. We don't have enough on Khuzdul to categorise it, either. Telerin I'm not sure about, is there any documentation of its vocabulary or grammar. Adunaic is fragmentary as is Entish and as is the Black Speech. Rohirric is just Old English. Paul S (talk) 21:09, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Calling me a "fanboy" was discourteous. In point of fact I have published The Hobbit in two languages and have three more in the works. That makes me a professional. Thanks. Anyway, who appointed you the arbiter of what "is" and "is not" a "proper" conlang? This article is a list, and the list should properly point to articles the Encyclopaedia Your deletions did not have consensus. I reverted them. I am going to revert it back now, because there is not consensus to remove them. You may use this Talk page to try to garner such consensus. Your removals were unwelcome. Please do not remove them again. Thank you. -- Evertype·✆ 21:36, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
 * It's a list of constructed languages and you are adding things to the list which are clearly not constructed languages. You have even added Common Eldarin whose own article says, "Common Eldarin is not actually a constructed language in the proper sense". Your appeal to your own authority fails because despite your claimed credentials as a translator, you do not, like many contributors to this page before you, seem to have discovered what a constructed language actually is, yet you add to the list in order to give greater prominence to things you like, irrespective of their actual relevance to the article: that is fanboy behaviour. Paul S (talk) 00:34, 24 November 2014 (UTC)
 * I did not appeal to my own "authority" as a "translator". I didn't translate The Hobbit. I published it. Moreover, I have published a variety of books in constructed languages, so your personal attack on me (dismissing me as a "fanboy") would seem to have little weight. The weakness of any particular constructed language in terms of its scale and completeness can be dealt with in the individual articles. This list can be and should be a portal to those articles. -- Evertype·✆ 11:37, 24 November 2014 (UTC)
 * So, Common Eldarin's shortcomings are given in the article, but this list enables users of the encyclopaedia to find that article. That's what lists are for. -- Evertype·✆ 11:37, 24 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Note please, that the statement Rohirric is just Old English is incorrect. In the translation of the Red Book of Westmarch into English, .Rohirric is represented by Old English: Rohirric kûd-dûkan is represented by Old English holbytla. -- Evertype·✆ 11:45, 24 November 2014 (UTC)
 * The problem here, I believe, is an ideological insstance on what is a "proper conlang" and what is not. -- Evertype·✆ 11:45, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

Being the person who put this list together in the beginning, I have to say that this issue has been a pain in the butt from the very beginning. I agree with Paul S that this page is particularly apt to wildgrowth, which makes it absolutely necessary to delimit its scope somehow. The way I see it, there are three issues involved here: I do not claim to have satisfying answers to these questions. My take on this, for what it is worth, is that the list should include links to all constructed languages that either have their own article or at least are decribed in some detail in another article. If there is enough that can be said about a language to make such a description possible at all, it is, in all likeliness, enough of a constructed language to warrant inclusion in the list. For that reason I would be rather lenient when it comes to the actual size or degree of elaborateness of a language. In the case of Tolkien's sketch languages, I would suggest limiting the list to the most notable AND elaborated languages only: Sindarin, Quenya, perhaps Adûnaic and Khuzdul. But followed by a sentence like: "Tolkien's oeuvre as language creator also includes numerous language sketches: Black Speech, Common Eldarin, Entish etc." Would such a solution be a workable compromise? &mdash;IJzeren Jan Uszkiełtu?  02:47, 24 November 2014 (UTC)
 * 1) Do we include every reference to a non-existing language in a work of fiction, even if it's nothing but a name and perhaps a few samples? And if not, how elaborate should a language be to warrant its inclusion?
 * 2) How "constructed" should the language be? Some languages are merely cyphers of existing languages (Pig Latin), others merely provide them with some additional vocabulary ("superset languages": Nadsat, Lingua Ignota) or do exactly the opposite ("subset languages": Newspeak, Basic English). In how far do we consider projects like Rumantsch Grischun, Bahasa Indonesia etc. constructed languages?
 * 3) And then there is the issue of notability. Do we allow only languages that are notable enough to have their own article? Do we allow some notability by proxy (for example a language created by a notable person, or in a notable computer game)?
 * Lists are fine—what's not fine is people going in and pruning them on ideological grounds on the basis of assertions like "They are not constructed languages"—as Paul S has one—is what is problematic.
 * "Every reference to a non-existing language in a work of fiction" is perhaps too wide, but it must be noticed that even if full grammars of some of Tolkien's languages do not exist, the etymological principles and etymologies do bear out a certain level of constructedness, even if only in Tolkien's mind.
 * In a list like this, perhaps the net could be cast fairly widely—if the list becomes an annotated list; it seems to be heading that way in the second half after the Auxlang tables, anyway. It's not very tidy. Languages like Rumantsh Grischun and Bahasa Indonesia... those are standardized normalizations, which I think is a different thing from a conlang. I mean, Icelandic and Irish have terminology committees who work to expand vocabulary for new concepts.
 * In a list, I would tend to be generous, but links to an article are probably better than dead links or no links.
 * I agree with you: the list should include links to all constructed languages that either have their own article or at least are decribed in some detail in another article. In my view, as a list the list is more useful than listing links inline in text. Perhaps the entries might be annotated with fragmentary or something if necessary? Currently I have restored the list and I note that Paul S is one voice out of three calling for retention of his deletions. (Let's see more people weigh in!) -- Evertype·✆ 11:37, 24 November 2014 (UTC)
 * If the article is called List of Constructed Languages I would assert, and I think I am not altogether taking an eccentric view in this matter, that it should be a list of constructed languages. If something is not a constructed language it doesn't belong on the list and if it is a constructed language then, subject to notability, it does belong on the list. So, how do we decide what falls within that definition? Wikipedia's own article Constructed language might be a good starting point and it says this means: a language whose phonology, grammar, and vocabulary has been consciously devised for human or human-like communication, instead of having developed naturally. So if we don't disagree (which would mean proposing changes to that article also) then anything on our list must be a language, with an established phonology, grammar and voculary so as to facilitate human communication.
 * Right, but your OR thesis is (or seems to be) that if its phonology/grammar/vocabulary/whatever hasn't been elaborated to (evidently) your high standard of completion, it's not worth mentioning. Sure, Entish is sketchy. But there are texts. And analyses of these texts. And they are made by the Father of Modern Conlangs. And there is an article about it called Entish. Why on earth should it not appear on this list? You want another list for "fictional
 * There once was a List of Fictional Languages. That is not the same as this list. This list is a list of Constructed languages. You don't know what a constructed language is and refuse to be told what one is. It is not the same a fictional language. Paul S (talk) 02:17, 25 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Simlish is a good example of a non-conlang we keep having to remove from this list: it facilitates human communication a bit (albeit in a very limited number of situations) but its phonology is not clear, it has no grammar and elements of its vocabulary cannot be isolated. It fails on all but one of the Wikipedia article's criteria. It's not a conlang.
 * This article is a LIST. It points to articles. Simlish is an article in the encyclopaedia. What, you just want it to be orphaned because you don't like it? Or because it isn't rigorous enough for you? It's fictional. It might even be utter crap. But some readers of the encyclopaedia may have heard of it. Why are you attempting to censor a "list" article? I don't get it. -- Evertype·✆
 * Because this is supposed to be a list of constructed languages. Simlish, for reasons I have just pointed out is not a constructed language. So it does not belong on a list of constructed languages, any more than Henry Moore or Western Illinois University or Elektra Records belong on the list. The list is a list of constructed languages and the definition of a constructed language limits the list to languages which fit the definition.Paul S (talk) 02:17, 25 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Chakobsa from Dune is another one which doesn't belong: from it's one or two sentences we can produce a phonology (to some extent) but because we don't know what any of it means, we can't start to build up a grammar or vocabulary, nor can it facilitate communication. It, too, fails on all but one criterion.
 * Yet Chakobsa is notable enough for an article on this encyclopaedia. However sketchy it is, if it has an article here, this LIST should link to it. -- Evertype·✆
 * Doesn't matter. It's not a constructed language. The list is not a list of everything that is notable enough to have a Wikipedia article, it's a list of constructed languages. Paul S (talk) 02:17, 25 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Let's look at the Tolkien languages user:Evertype wants to have in the list: Adûnaic has a phonology according to its Wiki page, and according to the Ardalambion website we have a few sentences and they have set about analysing at least some of its grammar. But the vocabulary is very limited. As far as human communication goes, it's about as useful as Simlish: fine if one wants to talk about apocalyptic visions or naval warfare, fairly useless otherwise. So, I won't try and take it down again with the tag "fragmentary" added. Black Speech is the same but the available text is much shorter: the Ring inscription and the cursing of the unnamed Orc (which is said to be "debased" Black Speech, weakening it as a source and which has two different translations) I think that it is too limited: I think it should be removed from the list. I'll tag it as dubious for now.
 * No! No! No! You don't get to call Black Speech "dubious". OK, it hasn't got 100,000 vocabulary items like Volapük does. And we hardly understand its grammar. But leaving it off of this LIST page? Are you crazy? 100% certainty that people will start adding back these things which you have proposed for deletion. Sorry. Paul S. Climb down off of your purism, please? -- Evertype·✆
 * Common Eldarin's own article says it isn't a conlang.
 * Of course it is. It's just not elaborated extensively. And Tolkien himself used it and Telerian and so on in his etymologies. This gives them some weight. Enough weight that they have articles on this encyclopaedia, even if they are only stubs and enough weight that they certainly should be linked from this LIST page. -- Evertype·✆
 * It has a phonology only; I'm not quite clear on the difference between it and Primitive Quendian in linguistic terms and both articles severely lack any citations.
 * Then the articles can be improved. This LIST should not delete links to those articles. -- Evertype·✆
 * The Ardalambion site has only Primitive Elvish listed. This area strikes me as a mess in Wikipedia generally, not just regarding this article. Both dubious.
 * Whatever do you mean by this word? -- Evertype·✆
 * What I mean is that there is a debate about how low we set the bar. We can work out something of the Black Speech's vocabulary, grammar and phonology but is it enough to call it a constructed language? That's something to be decided. I'm not saying it has to have as much vocabulary as Esperanto or Volapük, just that some rough level should be set. Paul S (talk) 02:17, 25 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Entish has only one very long phrase or word, aparently the name of a hill but not really translated: it's therefore the same as Chakobsa so I'm removing it.
 * No, you are not. You do now own these articles, and so far, ONLY YOU want to delete these links. That is NOT consensus. Cool your jets. -- Evertype·✆
 * Rohirric I say is Old English because apart from Kûd dûkkan it is.
 * This is false to facts. The Rohirric language was translated into Old English in the LotR, just as Westron was translated into modern English. -- Evertype·✆
 * "Untranslated" Rohirric has no grammar, phonology, vocabulary otherwise and being able to repeat the word for "Hobbit" over and over doesn't even facilitate communication to the level Simlish does. I am removing it.
 * You can propose to delete the article on Rohirric if you want. This LIST should link to it because otherwise you're just wilfully orphaning the article because You Don't Like It.
 * What happens to the article on Rohirric is irrelevant. It isn't an article about a constructed language and so this list should not link to it, any more than it should link to Alanis Morisette or Herring as food. Rohirric, having as it does a vocabulary consisting entirely of Kûd dûkan, no grammar and no phonology, does not qualify as a constructed language. Once again, I'm not saying that it needs to be as well developed as Ido or Lojban to qualify, but I am saying it has to have more than nothing. Paul S (talk) 02:17, 25 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Telerin I still want a citation for. How is it different from Quenya or Sindarin to a sufficient level to justify being a separate language?
 * Tolkien describes it as a different language. Frankly, he has more authority than you do in this matter.
 * Yes, I did some searching a few minutes later and discovered that. Paul S (talk) 02:17, 25 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Westron is in a similar position to Adûnaic, but with no grammar apart from one method of plural formation and evidence of article suffixation and with a vocabulary largely limited to names. It fails and I am removing it. Paul S (talk) 15:34, 24 November 2014 (UTC)
 * You're removing NOTHING without consensus here. You do NOT own this page. I will invoke sanctions upon you if you do not behave like a proper editor. Discuss and achieve consensus. You do NOT have permission from the interested community to just remove stuff you dislike. -- Evertype·✆ 22:49, 24 November 2014 (UTC)
 * No, I'm removing things that are not constructed languages from a list of constructed languages and I will keep on doing this. Paul S (talk) 02:17, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

I am way too busy to write anything more at the moment, but I'd like to allow myself one remark: Paul S, it wouldn't go against good manners to refrain from removing the links in question until consensus has been reached. Editwarring is never the way to solve a difference in opinion. Let's first try to find a solution here on the talkpage, preferably with some input from others as well. &mdash;IJzeren Jan Uszkiełtu?  03:39, 25 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Now wait... I haven't simply reverted the changes; most of has been added has stayed in: I've only removed Entish and Rohirric, the two which have essentially no grammar, vocuabulary or phonology. As I said above, we can talk about how high or low we set the bar below which we have to say something can't reasonably be called a conlang, but we can't have no bar at all as Evertype seems to want, apparently being unable to distinguish a constructed from a fictional language. Paul S (talk) 11:38, 25 November 2014 (UTC)
 * This encyclopedia has articles about Entish and Rohirric. Those articles can talk about the paucity of information we may have about these languages. This page is a LIST and there is no earthly reason that Paul S's prejudice against poorly-elaborated conlangs should prevent readers from accessing articles about them (even if they are poorly-elaborated!) via this LIST. Your thesis seems to be "Tolkien invented some constructed languages and also some fictional languages and this LIST is the place where a bar should be drawn to distinguish them." You haven't convinced me anyway that this is a wise idea. Indeed, it seems to be based on your Original Research. Entish text is given in the LotR and Tolkien wrote about it here and there. Why exclude it from a LIST like this? Because you don't like it? All you achieve is orphaning the article. -- Evertype·✆ 14:10, 25 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Don't like it? Don't like what? There's nothing there to like or dislike! The entire corpus of Rohirric consists of kûd dûkan and the untranslated cognates of Hobbit-Westron, kastu and trahal plus the root lo(ho)- meaning something to do with riding horses. It's absurd to say that this constitutes a constructed language. It's the same with Entish: all we have is an incomplete name or word for a hill. Once again you aren't recognising that a constructed language is 'not the same as a fictional language. A constructed language has to be able to spoken in real life to at least some degree and not just saying, "Hobbit" over and over again which is all anyone can do in Rohirric. I'm happy to debate the inclusion of the others, but these two don't bear argument at all because they have no grammar or phonology and a vocabulary of one word and one part of a word respectively. Paul S (talk) 16:35, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

I've been following this article for a couple of years. I have used two metrics: Is it intended as to be a language? Is it notable enough to have its own Wikipedia article? I don't see that using how fleshed out it is as a language is workable, as it would have to exclude languages such as Newspeak which probably should be listed here. There is room to trim, however, by verifying that the links actually do point to articles about the language: Tenctonese should be removed, for example, as the article is about the species and makes no mention at all of language. TechBear &#124; Talk &#124; Contributions 16:47, 25 November 2014 (UTC)


 * I don't suppose that we could resolve this by just having one single link to the page Languages constructed by J. R. R. Tolkien as the Conlang template does, perhaps with a note that Quenya and Sindarin are the best known of them...? Paul S (talk) 19:38, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

It would seem like stating the obvious if I tell you that for something to be a constructed language, it must fulfil two criteria: it must constructed, and it must be a language. But both things are not so simple as they may seem. In fact, it is extremely hard, if not impossible, to fetch them in objective criteria.

What makes a language "constructed"? The obvious answer would be: a language that is has not developed naturally, along with the ethnic entities to which it belongs, but was created by one author or a group of authors instead. To put it even simplier, natural languages have ancestors, constructed languages have creators. This, however, leaves us with a huge grey zone. Some of the languages we generally consider natural do in fact have authors, who perhaps did not really invent anything, but at least put them together, not always in an objective way. In fact, many of the standard languages we have to today have some kind of council or body overseeing them, deciding what is right and what is wrong, and from time to time inventing a new word here and there. A special category are standardisation projects for dialect groups and projects for reviving dead languages. Here we can see a very strange mechanism at work, basically boiling down to this: if it catches on, we accept it as a natural language, if it doesn't, we classify it as a conlang. Politics sometimes play a role, too, giving rise to claims that for example Serbo-Croat or Ukrainian are constructed languages. And let's not forget about tradition. For some reason, Iazychie is usually classified as a constructed language, while Slaveno-Serbian is not, even though they are basically the same thing. All I am trying to say, is that there are no objective criteria. Any effort on our part to play the role of arbiters here would be a) completely arbitrary, and b) original research.

Next question: what makes a language a language? Above I read: "an established phonology, grammar and voculary so as to facilitate human communication." Well, facilitating human communication is clearly not the purpose of the average artistic language. But the other criteria won't work either: Nevertheless, most (if not all) of the examples quoted above are usually categorised as "constructed languages", even if they happen to be identical to an existing language for 99%, and no matter how minimal they are. Apparently, a little bit of human interference by an author is already enough to give a project the label "language". On the other hand, it is also true that these languages, using the languages they are embedded in as a vehicle, are perfectly able to express anything, i.e. to function as full-fledged languages.
 * Latino sine flexione has a few grammar rules, but no phonology and no vocabulary on its own.
 * Basic English has no grammar and no phonology on its own, it's just a list of English words, so no vocabulary on its own either. Still, it is intended to facilitate human communication, it can be used as a language and has been promoted as such.
 * Nadsat and Lingua Ignota: no grammar, no phonology (not much, at least), just a number of words embedded in another language
 * Romanica: just Interlingua with a few minor grammatical tweaks
 * Arcaicam Esperantom: based on Esperanto as much as Pig Latin is based on English
 * Europanto has neither an established phonology, nor an established grammar, nor an established vocabulary.

Which leaves us with those languages that don't. I dare say that most of the languages on the list (including many of the IALs mentioned) are too incomplete to be really usable. Let's face it: a language with 200 or 2000 words cannot be used for any real, serious communication. Still they are on the list, which IMO is their rightful place nonetheless. I'm not saying size doesn't matter at all, but if 200 words is enough, then why would 20 words suddenly not be enough anymore? Any number you pick is arbitrary.

And one last thing. This list explicitly includes fictional languages. Let's therefore have a look at the article fictional language. First it says: "Fictional languages are constructed languages created as part of a fictional setting [...]", but one paragraph lower it goes: "Fictional languages are separated from artistic languages by both purpose and relative completion: a fictional language often has the least amount of grammar and vocabulary possible, and rarely extends beyond the absolutely necessary. At the same time, some others have developed languages in detail for their own sake, such as J. R. R. Tolkien's Quenya and Sindarin and Star Trek's Klingon language which exist as functioning, usable languages. Here "fictional" can be a misnomer." Okay, I think we can all agree that the text above is not a masterpiece. But for whatever it is worth, I read it as: a fictional language is a language that acts within a work of fiction, but in reality is little or nothing more than the names and/or examples given. If there is any system behind it at all, it is very rudimentary at best. You cannot actually speak a fictional language, just like you can't be killed by a fictional murderer.

For Tolkien's languages, this would mean that Quenya and Sindarin are artistic languages, while the rest of his projects can be qualified as fictional languages. Since the list explicitly promises to mention fictional languages, I cannot see why Tolkien's stuff should not be included.

The point of this little essay: whatever criteria you pick, the result will never be entirely satisfactory, as there will always be plenty of examples to undermine it. And again, it is not our task to define these criteria anyway. Lists like this are doomed to become link farms, which is basically what they are meant for. But obviously, we shouldn't mention any language mentioned in any book about any fictional universe. Therefore I think we should apply the only really objective criterium we can use, namely the question: is there an article about it on WP:EN, or is it at least described in another article in some detail? And whether that is the case or not will pretty much depend on the question whether there are sources supporting it. My personal opinion is that an article like Entish shouldn't exist at all (even notability by proxy should end at some point), but since it does, it deserves inclusion on the list as an example of a (very!) fictional language.

However, there is no reason why Tolkien's languages should necessarily be represented by means of a dotted list. I repeat my earlier proposal: mention Quenya and Sindarin as more elaborate languages, and have this followed by one sentence: "Except for these, Tolkien was also the author of several less elaborate language projects, some of which are fragmentary or consist only of a vague description: Adûnaic, Khuzdul, Common Eldarin, [rest of the list]. See also: Languages constructed by J. R. R. Tolkien, Elvish languages (Middle-earth)."

For the rest, I very much agree with TechBear that things like Tenctonese (and f.ex. Bordurian) should be removed from the list. Thank you for your attention! &mdash;IJzeren Jan Uszkiełtu?  23:30, 25 November 2014 (UTC)


 * I agree with what you've said here except for one small point which is your interpretation of "an established phonology, grammar and vocabulary so as to facilitate human communication", which I interpret as such phonology, grammar and vocabulary as will facilitate human communication; in other words someone (or something) has to be able to speak the language. As for Basic English and Latino sine Flexione, they do have phonology, grammar and vocabulary, it's just that it isn't all an original creation, it draws on that of some other language, which is always going to be true to some extent anyway ("You can't have a dative case in a conlang - that's been done before!") All of this leads me back to my argument against Entish and Rohirric which don't have any grammar, phonology or significant vocabulary: nobody can speak either of them. Looking back at the history of this page, I see where the problem started: with the merger of articles including List of fictional languages. On that page there would have been no problem with languages like Battle Language or Qhal or Tsath-yo which are fictional but wouldn't qualify as constructed languages. The changed title suggested different content. Paul S (talk) 00:53, 26 November 2014 (UTC)


 * That is true, a fictional language (if you follow the description in the corresponding article) is essentially a constructed language that hasn't been constructed (yet). Still, the border between them is blurry at best. Take Syldavian for example: a typical example of a fictional language. It's one big improvisation. A good one, but still one without a real system behind it. Still, there were enough text samples to allow Mark Rosenfelder to reconstruct a grammar, a phonology and a short word list. All these things can easily be combined into new words and sentences that Hergé never wrote. The fact that there is just a huge grey zone justifies keeping constructed and fictional languages together in one list IMO, also because fictional languages are generally considered a subgroup of constructed languages anyway, even though I agree with you that strictly speaking they aren't. But there is nothing wrong with being more explicit about a language being little more than a name and two words.
 * As for Basic English, is just a list of English words and nothing more. We call it a language because, in combination with English phonetics and grammar, it can be used as such; and we call it a constructed language because this list is the work of one person. Which is odd when you think of it: the vocabulary list at the end of the average language textbook is practically the same thing, the only difference being that nobody would ever even think of calling it a language separate from the one the book is about. &mdash;IJzeren Jan Uszkiełtu?  01:23, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

Okay, since this seems to be something like the consensus, I've bullet listed Quenya, Sindarin and Taliska only while adding a note which mentions all the others (including adding Avarin before someone else does) Paul S (talk) 15:29, 27 November 2014 (UTC)
 * The analysis you are putting into What IS and What IS NOT a conlang is original research on your part. It should not be the guiding principles for this LIST. Tolkien is the father of modern conlangs. It is absurd, deeply absurd, to imagine that Tolkien made the kind of rigid distinction that you are wanting to make between well-elabourated and poorly-elabourated instantiations of linguistic creation. The right thing to do is probably move this LIST to List of constructed and fictional languages so that the ambiguity can be shared, rather than by the kind of rigid thinking which is currently at play. -- Evertype·✆ 20:49, 27 November 2014 (UTC)
 * So then, make your proposal to rename the article and see who else agrees with you and wants to make this page the mother of all link farms. Paul S (talk) 01:40, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

IEML
A present day attempt at a semantic metalanguage, allowing semantic calculus, now having next to the dictionary also a grammmar. It has been developped by Pierre Lévy. see http://ieml.org/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.23.151.187 (talk) 14:33, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

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Trimming the list
See also: Talk:International auxiliary language

Chris, I agree with most of the deletions and moves you made, but not with the deletion of Dunia, Fasala, Folkspraak, and Progressiva. Without delving into their significance or lack of it, the fact remains that these languages have articles, and as such they should be linked to from the list.


 * I'll allow Dunia. It's level 0 (draft project, the anonymous author sent a discription on diskette to Rick Harrison), but clearly an IAL project. Folkspraak and Progressiva are also level 0. Fasala is not intended as an IAL, acc. WP. If uncompleted projects merit a mention, then I guess we'll keep the first three.

As for Comunleng: there used to be an article about it, but that has been deleted. There was quite some fuss about that. The first AfD was concluded with a keep (no consensus), the second one, held very shortly after that resulted in a very narrow-margin delete. That does not prevent the language from having articles in several other language-editions of wikipedia. In my view, even if a full-blown article about Comunleng is not warranted, a place on a list of auxlangs most definitely is.


 * I'll insist that everything on the list be referenced to somewhere, for verifiability's sake. The list would be more useful, mind you, if it were a table including the author and date of publication (and maybe Blanke rating? see below). So I'd prefer to exclude redlinked languages.

I have to add that the idea of distinguishing between major and minor auxlangs on the list could be a good idea in my opinion. Where would you put the border? &mdash;IJzeren Jan In mij legge alle fogultjes een ij  14:18, 5 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Here's Detlev Blanke's 18-step scale, in Esperanto, which I expect you can read:


 * 1. publikigo de sistemo (multaj projektoj),
 * 2. la aùtoro eldonas revueton en sia lingvo (ekz. Ro, Medial)
 * 3. relative forta propagado, ekzisto de adeptoj, internacia korespondado
 * 4. certaj organizaj formoj de propadago, malgrandaj organizoj (ekz. Idiom Neutral, Novial)
 * 5. iom da beletro, tradukoj, originala literaturo
 * 6. pluraj revuoj en la planlingvo
 * 7. parta uzado por fakaj celoj, scienco, tekniko (Latino sine flehhione, Basic English)
 * 8. instruado, neshtataj kursoj
 * 9. ioma paroluzo, internaciaj aranghoj (Volapùk, Occidental, Interlingua)
 * 10. pli forta praktika uzado, fakaj revuoj kaj organizoj
 * 11. pli evoluigitaj naciaj kaj internaciaj organizoj
 * 12. abunda beletro, tradukoj, originalaj verkoj
 * 13. relative disvastigita instruado, ankaù en shtataj lernejoj
 * 14. grandaj internaciaj eventoj, mondaj kongresoj
 * 15. radioelsendado
 * 16. socia kaj politika diferencigo de parolantoj
 * 17. propra junulara movado
 * 18. parta uzado en familio, bilingvismo de infanoj

Quick translation:


 * 1) Publication of a system
 * 2) The author distributes a small periodical in the L. (e.g. Ro, Medial)
 * 3) Relative strong publicity, existence of other competent users, international correspondence
 * 4) Certain organized forms of publicity, small organizations (e.g., Idiom Neutral, Novial)
 * 5) Some belles-lettres translations and original works
 * 6) Several periodicals in the L.
 * 7) Some use for practical purposes, science, technology (e.g., Latino sine flexione, Basic English)
 * 8) Instruction, non-state-supported courses
 * 9) Some oral usage, international meetings
 * 10) More extensive practical use, professional journals and organizations
 * 11) Well developed national and international organizations
 * 12) Abundant belles-lettres translations, and original works
 * 13) Relatively widespread instruction, including state schools
 * 14) Large international events, world congresses
 * 15) Radio broadcasts
 * 16) Social and political differentiation among speakers
 * 17) Dedicated youth movement
 * 18) Some use within families, bilingual children


 * Now, there are problems with this scale. First, it assumes all IALs aim to emulate Esperanto - having youth movements, denaska speakers, etc. A vastly successful IAL like mediaeval Latin would still trail Esperanto. Second, a few of the criteria appear antiquated. Does a podcast = radio broadcast (Step 15)? Does a regularly updated website = a small periodical by the author (Step 2)? Thirdly, it's not clear whether you can skip levels. Still, it's an established benchmark by a wellknown figure in academic interlinguistics.


 * Step 3 is an important threshold, cos having multiple users strengthens your claim to be a language rather than a mere project. (Blanke makes the project/language cutoff at a higher level, which I find tendentious.) Step 7 is also important, because the language is being used as an IAL in the present, not at some vague future date.


 * I'd suggest anything below 3 are "minor projects", and any at 7 or higher are "major projects". I don't where to put projects at levels 3-6. It seems fussy to have three categories - "minor projects" (1-2), "major projects" (3-6), "established IALs" (7+, i.e., have seen practical use). - but maybe that's the way to go. The difference between, say, Atlango and Glosa is at least as great as between Glosa and Ido. (There must be a more neutral label than "established IALs", one less likely to annoy the proponents of smaller projects.)


 * If a language has special claims to notability that aren't captured by the Blanke scale, there can be exceptions. Bissymbolics strikes me as an example of an important, highly successful language (more so than Esperanto!) that might only reach level 3 (although, arguably, level 13).


 * Most of the projects in Wikipedia are at level 1 or less (let's put uncompleted projects level at level 0). Whether they stay is not for me to decide. Based on past votes, I expect they will stay. I wonder if the Blanke level could be incorporated into an auxlang template, to form part of the sidebar? But that's a bigger issue, of course.--Chris 19:50, 5 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Thank you! I'm not really good at reading Esperanto, but I'll give it a try tomorrow! &mdash;IJzeren Jan In mij legge alle fogultjes een ij  22:46, 5 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Mine's not so great either, but I've done a quick (and possibly inaccurate) translation.--Chris 00:50, 6 January 2006 (UTC)


 * I note that a significant share of natural languages never reach any of the following levels:


 * 1) Publication of a system
 * 2) The author distributes a small periodical in the L. (e.g. Ro, Medial)
 * 3) Some belles-lettres translations and original works
 * 4) Several periodicals in the L.
 * 5) Some use for practical purposes, science, technology (e.g., Latino sine flexione, Basic English)
 * 6) Instruction, non-state-supported courses
 * 7) Some oral usage, international meetings
 * 8) More extensive practical use, professional journals and organizations
 * 9) Well developed national and international organizations
 * 10) Abundant belles-lettres translations, and original works
 * 11) Relatively widespread instruction, including state schools
 * 12) Large international events, world congresses
 * 13) Radio broadcasts

Also, some languages in use today which come pretty close to be constructed languages, such as the multiple sign language systems in place, themselves spent expended periods in which they were not literate languages. More generally, the system favors wide diffusion over depth of commitment, even though again, the vast majority of the 6,000 natural languages today are geographically isolated, spoken by small numbers of people, marginally literate or illiterate, and lack government support or use in modern professions.

Ohwilleke (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 22:22, 2 March 2010 (UTC).


 * , I must correct your misunderstanding. Sign languages are not constructed languages; they are natural languages that have evolved in the communities that use them or have been brought in from another  Deaf community by educators.
 * I am a linguist, retired from a career in linguistics (Dragon Systems, Linguistic Data Consortium), with a Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of California at Berkeley, and I wrote my dissertation on aspects of American Sign Language. I'm not trying to brag, but to demonstrate that I do know what I'm talking about here.
 * --Thnidu (talk) 02:27, 19 January 2018 (UTC)


 * , I've been an Esperantist for over 50 years, and your translation is pretty good but not perfect. Consulting the Plena Ilustrita Vortaro de Esperanto when necessary, I've revised it a bit. Italicized words that are significantly different from yours in meaning.


 * 1) Publication of a system (many projects)
 * 2) The author publishes a small periodical in their language (e.g. Ro, Medial)
 * 3) Relatively strong propagation, the existence of competent speakers, international correspondence
 * 4) Certain organized forms of propagation, small organizations (e.g. Idiom Neutral, Novial)
 * 5) Some belles-lettres, translations, and original writing
 * 6) Several periodicals in the planned language
 * 7) Some use for specialized purposes, science, technology (e.g., Latino sine flexione, Basic English)
 * 8) Teaching, non-state-supported courses
 * 9) Some oral usage, international events (Volapük, Occidental, Interlingua)
 * 10) More extensive practical use, specialized journals and organizations
 * 11) More-developed national and international organizations
 * 12) Abundant literature, translations, and original works
 * 13) Relatively widespread instruction, including in state schools
 * 14) Large international events, world congresses
 * 15) Radio broadcasting
 * 16) Social and political differentiation among speakers
 * 17) A dedicated youth movement [that is, one focused on the language]
 * 18) Some use within families, bilingual children
 * --Thnidu (talk) 03:38, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

Nightic Esperanto(see the Esperanto talk page)
If the public approves it, I will make an article so I can put Nightic Esperanto in this article. Ciao, see you there. PhoenixSummon (talk) 21:38, 26 November 2019 (UTC)