Why are artificial languages needed?
There are more than 7,000 natural languages, that is, those that were randomly formed in societies, responding to the demands of a changing way of life. In the Russian Federation, 37 languages are officially declared state languages, and this does not take into account the various dialects and languages spoken by visiting citizens. A huge number is explained quite simply - different nations developed and lived separately, each with its own special realities, traditions, culture. In view of such fragmentation, each individual living group developed its own language that met all the requirements of the community. However, common languages have common roots. This is also understandable: over the centuries, people have mixed and moved around the world a lot, bringing their culture with them.
It is difficult to say when the first natural language appeared. Sumerian writing, for example, existed in archaic form as early as the third millennium BC. However, some researchers suggest that people began to speak to each other using some kind of systemic phonetic structure tens of thousands of years earlier.
Artificial languages began to appear en masse much later, if not quite recently. It was the turn of the XVII-XVIII centuries. The thinkers of that time suddenly felt the need to create a language that would be devoid of the shortcomings of any "natural". Plus, the influence of Latin in the world, which served universal remedy communication for science, religion and art. Something had to replace Latin and at the same time be well rationalized so that you do not have to spend a lot of time studying.
The first artificial languages
At the turn of the 11th and 12th centuries, there lived a German nun and writer Hildegard of Bingen. Besides the fact that she became the founder of female religious mysticism in literature, Hildegard is actually the first person in history who invented her own language. She named it Lingua Ignota ("Language unknown"). We learned about him thanks to two manuscripts, which are now kept in Wiesbaden and Berlin. The nun suggested 1000 new words for her language, but there were no grammar rules in it. The words were specific, often with an incomprehensible origin, and the phonetic picture was dominated by l sound « z » .
Ta Hildegard also compiled an alphabet for Lingua Ignota. Why did she do all this? Nobody knows. Maybe for fun, maybe in the name of comprehending some spiritual goals.
But the next writer of the language in history fully outlined his motives. The priest John Wilkins, who lived in England in the 17th century, criticized natural languages, and among them Latin, then dominant in the scientific community, for imperfection and decided to take on the difficult lot of a person who would come up with a new means of communication without all the shortcomings. Wilkins wrote a treatise, An Essay on Genuine Symbolism and Philosophical Language, in which he presented his universal language with its phonetics, symbolic system, vocabulary and grammar. The language turned out to be logical, harmonious, orderly, but ... nobody needs it. They completely forgot about him until the 20th century, until Jorge Luis Borges became interested in him and dedicated an essay to him " Analytical language John Wilkins".
After that, an endless series of linguistic constructions began. All and sundry offered their own languages, either devoid of natural flaws, or designed to make people kinder, or simply experimental. Loglan, Toquipona, Ithkuil, Esperanto... We cannot list them all in one text. Better tell you how these artificial systems are classified.
Classification of artificial languages
share artificial languages possible on the basis of what goals pursued their creation. Let's start with the ambitious goal of influencing people's thinking by creating a better mechanism for communicating ideas between them. This led to the creationphilosophical or logicallanguages. Sometimes they are also callededgelangs(from English engineered languages). Unfortunately, it is impossible to check their effectiveness. More precisely, it is possible, but this is an unethical method, and so far no one has used it. Indeed, in order to find out how an artificial language will affect thinking, it is necessary to teach a person to speak it from early childhood, excluding teaching other, natural languages. It is clear that conducting such an experiment would make the subject unsuitable for existence in society. The creators of one of the logical languages, Lojban, planned to teach it to their adopted children, but the plans fell through due to a phrase said by one Bulgarian linguist:
“If it turns out that Lojban, as a not quite natural language, does not lend itself to natural assimilation, and children do not speak it, and miss the chance to speak like a human, they will become wolves in the human environment.”
The construction of languages may have another goal - to build a universal auxiliary system that will serve to establish mutual understanding between all people. In fact, these languages are calledinternational auxiliary, or auxlangs(from English auxiliary language - "auxiliary language").
Ludwik Lazar Zamenhof - creator of Esperanto
Their most famous representative is Esperanto. Everyone has heard something about him. It was far from a linguist who came up with it, but a Polish ophthalmologist Ludwik Lazar Zamenhof. In 1887 he published The International Language under the pseudonym Doctor Esperanto, which in his new language meant "hoping". A good auxlang, according to the author, should be easy to learn, convenient for a quick start of communication with its help and used by the broad masses, due to its qualitative promotion. Did Zamenhof come up with the perfect auxiliary international language? Obviously not. Some of his grammatical solutions look strange, some phonetic units are difficult to pronounce for many peoples of the world, the morphology is redundant. However, Dr. Esperanto nevertheless completed some task - his language became the most massive among all artificial languages.
The third goal of linguistic construction is the most impractical. You can create languages just like that, in the name of creativity. So appearartisticartificial languages, orartlangs. You've definitely heard of these. This is Sindarin, the language of the elves in Tolkien, and Klingon in the sci-fi epic " Star Trek”, and Dothraki from the popular TV series Game of Thrones. Some of the artlangs are worked out very well, they have their own alphabet, grammar, lexicon, phonetics. Some are worse - can be presented separate rules and not have a clear structure.
In addition to this classification, there is another one - according to the method of linguoconstruction. A language can be created on the basis of already known rules. Take, for example, one natural language and try to improve it. Such languages are calleda posteriori. On the other hand, nothing ever prevents you from simply inventing a language entirely from your head, without relying on anyone else's experience. Such languages are calleda priori. Which of them will take root better in people's speech? Most likely a posteriori. To come up with a language from scratch, you need to have a good education and a clear understanding of how natural languages function. Not everyone has this skill.
There are a lot of artificial languages, and you can be sure that they will be created in the future. Perhaps someday you will too, dear reader. Linguistic construction is not just entertainment, it helps us understand how natural languages work, and therefore human nature. Who knows, maybe in the future we will communicate in a language that, with the help of scientific method came up with themselves.
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The legend of the Babylonian pandemonium haunts linguists - from time to time someone tries to come up with a universal language: concise, understandable and easy to learn. Also, artificial languages are used in cinema and literature to make fictional worlds even more alive and realistic. Theories and Practices compiled a selection of the most interesting projects of this kind and found out how antonyms are formed in Solresol, how long words can be made up in Volapuk, and how the most famous quote from Hamlet sounds in Klingon.
Universalglot
Universalglot is the very first artificial language, systematized and developed in the likeness of Latin by the French linguist Jeanne Pirro in 1868. This a posteriori language (it is based on the vocabulary of already existing languages) appeared 10 years earlier than Volapük and 20 years earlier than Esperanto. It was appreciated only by a small group of people and did not gain much popularity, although Pirro developed it in sufficient detail, inventing about 7000 basic words and many verbal morphemes that allow you to modify words.
Alphabet: consists of 26 letters of the Latin and German alphabets.
Pronunciation: Similar to English, but the vowels are pronounced in the Spanish or Italian manner.
Vocabulary: the most famous and easy to remember and pronounce words are selected from the Romance and Germanic languages. Most of the words are similar to French or German.
Grammar Features: nouns and adjectives are invariable parts of speech. All nouns female end with in. Verbs change in tenses and have passive forms.
Examples:
"In futur, I scriptrai evos semper in dit glot. I pregate evos responden ad me in dit self glot"“In the future, I will always write to you in this language. And I ask you to answer me on it.”
Habe or vin?- "Do they have wine?"
Volapyuk
Volapuk was invented in Germany by the Catholic priest Johann Martin Schleyer in 1879. The creator of Volapyuk believed that this language was prompted to him by God, who descended to him during insomnia. The name came from English words world (vol in Volapük) and speak (pük), and the language itself was based on Latin. Unlike the universalglot that preceded it, volapyuk was popular for quite a long time: more than 25 journals were published on it and about 300 textbooks were written on its study. There is even Wikipedia on Volapuk. However, besides her, this language is practically not used by anyone in the 21st century, but the very word “Volapyuk” has entered the lexicon of some European languages as a synonym for something meaningless and unnatural.
Alphabet: There are three alphabets in Volapük: the main one, close to Latin and consisting of 27 characters, the phonetic alphabet, consisting of 64 letters, and the extended Latin alphabet with additional letters (umlauts) included in it, which is used to convey proper names. Three alphabets, which were theoretically designed to help read and write, in fact only made it difficult to understand, since most words could be written in several ways (For example, "London" - London or).
Pronunciation: Volapuk phonetics is elementary: there are no complex combinations of vowels and the sound r, which makes pronunciation easier for children and people who do not use the sound r in speech. The stress always falls on the last syllable.
Vocabulary: Many roots of words in Volapuk are borrowed from French and English, but the lexicon of the language is independent and lacks a close semantic connection with living languages. Volapuk words are often formed according to the principle of "stringing roots". For example, the word klonalitakip (chandelier) has three components: klon (crown), lit (light), and kip (keep). Making fun of the word-formation process in Volapük, people who knew the language deliberately composed long words, such as klonalitakipafablüdacifalöpasekretan (secretary of the chandelier factory directorate).
Grammar Features: Nouns can be declined in four cases. Verbs are formed by adding a pronoun to the root of the corresponding noun. For example, the pronoun ob (s) - "I (we)", when attached to the root löf ("love") forms the verb löfob ("love").
Example:
"Binos prinsip sagatik, kel sagon, das stud nemödik a del binos gudikum, ka stud mödik süpo"“It is wisely said that a little study every day is better than a lot of study in one day.”
Esperanto
The most popular of the artificial languages was created in 1887 by the Warsaw linguist and ophthalmologist Lazar Markovich Zamenhof. The main points of the language have been collected in the Esperanto textbook Lingvo internacia. Antaŭparolo kaj plena lernolibro ("International language. Preface and complete textbook"). Zamenhof published a textbook under the pseudonym "Doctor Esperanto" (which in translation from the language he created means "Hoping"), which gave the name to the language.
The idea to create an international language came to Zamenhof due to the fact that people of different nationalities lived in Bialystok - his hometown - and they felt disunited, not having a common, understandable language for everyone. Esperanto was enthusiastically accepted by the public and actively developed for a long time: the Esperanto Academy appeared, and in 1905 the first World Congress dedicated to the new language took place. Esperanto has several "daughter" languages such as Ido (translated from Esperanto as "descendant") and Novial.
Esperanto is still spoken by about 100,000 people all over the world. Several radio stations broadcast in this language (including Vatican Radio), some music bands and make films. There is also a Google search for Esperanto.
Alphabet: was created on the basis of Latin and consists of 28 letters. There are letters with diacritics.
Pronunciation: The pronunciation of most sounds is easy without special training, some sounds are pronounced in Russian and Polish manners. The stress in all words falls on the penultimate syllable.
Vocabulary: The roots of words are mainly borrowed from Romance and Germanic languages (French, German, English), sometimes there are Slavic borrowings.
Grammar Features: In the first textbook published by Zamenhof, all the grammatical rules of Esperanto fit into 16 paragraphs. Each part of speech has its own ending: nouns end in o, adjectives end in a, verbs end in i, adverbs end in e. Verbs change by tense: each tense has its own ending (past is, present as, future os). Nouns change in only two cases - nominative and accusative, the remaining cases are expressed using prepositions. Plural numbers are shown with the ending j. There is no category of gender in Esperanto.
Example:
Ĉu vi estas libera ĉi-vespere?- Are you free tonight?
Lincos
Linkos is a "space language" created by Utrecht University mathematics professor Hans Freudenthal to interact with extraterrestrial civilizations. Linkos, unlike most artificial languages, is not a posteriori, but a priori (that is, it is based on no existing languages). Due to the fact that this language is intended for communication with alien intelligent beings, it is as simple and unambiguous as possible. It is based on the idea of the universality of mathematics. Freudenthal has developed a series of lessons on linkos, which in the shortest possible time help to master the main categories of the language: numbers, the concepts of "greater than", "less than", "equal", "true", "false", etc.
Alphabet and pronunciation: There is no alphabet. Words do not need to be spoken. They are designed to be read-only or to be passed in the form of a code.
Vocabulary: Any word can be encoded if it can be mathematically explained. Since there are few such words, lincos mainly operates with categorical concepts.
Example:
Ha Inq Hb ?x 2x=5- Ha says Hb: what is x if 2x=5?
Loglan
Loglan is a logical language, a language developed by Dr. James Cook Brown as an experimental language to test the Sepphire-Whorf hypothesis of linguistic relativity (language determines thinking and the way of knowing reality). The first book on its study, Loglan 1: A Logical Language, was published in 1975. The language is perfectly logical, easy to learn and devoid of the inaccuracies of natural languages. An observation was made of the first students of Loglan: linguists were trying to understand how language affects thinking. It was also planned to make Loglan a language for communicating with artificial intelligence. In 1987, the Loglan Institute split, and at the same time, the language also split: into Loglan and Lojban. Now there are only a few hundred people left in the world who can understand Loglan.
Alphabet: Latin alphabet unchanged with four diphthongs.
Pronunciation: Similar to Latin.
Vocabulary: all words are created specifically for this language. There are almost no borrowed roots. All uppercase consonants end in "ai" (Bai, Cai, Dai), lowercase consonants end in "ei" (bei, cei, dei), all uppercase vowels end in "-ma" (Ama, Ema, Ima), lowercase vowels end in "fi" (afi, efi, ifi)
Grammar Features: Loglan has only three parts of speech: names, words, and predicates. Names are capitalized and end with a consonant. Predicates act as almost all parts of speech, do not change and are built according to a certain scheme (they must have a specific number of vowels and consonants). Words help to create all connections between words (both grammatical, punctuation and semantic). So, most punctuation marks are not in Loglan: words are used instead - kie and kiu (instead of brackets), li and lu (instead of quotation marks). Words are also used for the emotional coloring of the text: they can express confidence, joy, aspiration, and so on.
Examples:
Ice mi tsodi lo puntu- I hate pain.
Le bukcu ga he treci?- Interesting book?
Bei mutce treci.- The book is very interesting
Solresol
Solresol is an artificial language invented by the Frenchman Jean François Sudre in 1817, based on the names of the seven notes of the diatonic scale. You don't need to be proficient in music to learn it. The language project was recognized by the Paris Academy of Sciences and received the approval of Victor Hugo, Alphonse Lamartine, Humboldt - however, interest in solresol was stormy, but short-lived. A separate plus of the language is that words and sentences in the Solresol language can be written both in letters (and vowels can be omitted for brevity) and musical notation, the first seven digits, the first seven letters of the alphabet, rainbow colors and shorthand signs.
Alphabet: Instead of an alphabet, Solresol uses the names of seven notes: do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si.
Pronunciation: You can pronounce words by reading their names aloud or by singing the appropriate notes.
Vocabulary: All solresol words consist of note names. In total, the language has about 3,000 words (one-syllable, two-syllable, three-syllable and four-syllable). Words are grouped according to semantic categories: all that begin with "salt" refer to the sciences and arts (soldoremi - theater, sollasila - mathematics), beginning with "solsol" - to medicine and anatomy (solsoldomi - nerve), words related to time categories begin with "dor": (doredo - hour, dorefa - week, dorela - year). Antonyms are formed by inverting the word: domire - unlimited, remido - limited. There are no synonyms in solresol.
Grammar Features: Parts of speech in solresol are determined by stress. In a noun, it falls on the first syllable: milarefa - criticism, in an adjective - on the penultimate: milarefA - critical, the verb is not stressed, and in the adverb, the stress falls on the last syllable. Nouns officially have three genders (masculine, feminine, neuter), but actually two: feminine and non-feminine. In feminine words in oral speech, the last vowel sound stands out - it is either underlined or a small horizontal line is placed above it.
Examples:
mirami recisolsi- beloved friend
I love you- dore milyasi domi
Ithkuil
Ithkuil is a language created in 1987 by the American linguist John Quijada and, according to his own words"in no way intended to function as natural". Linguists call Ithkuil a super-language capable of speeding up thought processes: by pronouncing a minimum number of sounds, you can convey the maximum amount of information, since words in Ithkuil are built on the principle of “semantic compression” and are designed to increase the effectiveness of communication.
Alphabet: The alphabet is based on Latin with diacritics (45 consonants and 13 vowels), but words are written using Ichtail, an archetypal script that changes depending on the morphological role of the character in the word. In writing, there are many symbols with a double meaning. Also, the text can be written both from left to right and from right to left. Ideally, Ithkuil text should read as a vertical snake, starting from the top left corner.
Pronunciation: Difficult to pronounce language with complex phonology. Most of the letters individually are similar to Latin and are pronounced in the usual way, but in combination with others they turn out to be difficult to pronounce.
Grammar Features: The creator of the language himself says that the grammar is constructed according to "a matrix of grammatical concepts and structures designed for compactness, cross-functionality, and reusability." There are no rules in the language as such, but there are certain principles of compatibility of morphemes.
Vocabulary: There are about 3600 semantic roots in Ithkuil. Word formation occurs according to the principles of semantic similarity and grouping. New words are formed due to a huge number of morphemes (suffixes, prefixes, interfixes, grammatical categories).
Examples:
elaţ eqëiţorf eoļļacôbé- "Brevity is the soul of wit"
Literal translation: A (prototypical) utterance (produced by a prototypical) talented person is compact (i.e., metaphorically reminiscent of the idea of a tightly bonded substance).
xwaléix oípřai“lîň olfái”lobîň- "The deep blue sea". Literal translation: "A large volume of still water, seen as something with new properties, which manifests itself as 'blue' and at the same time has a more than normal level of depth."
Quenya and other Elvish languages
Elvish languages are dialects invented by the writer and linguist J.R.R. Tolkien in 1910-1920. These languages are spoken by elves in his works. There are many Elvish languages: Quendarin, Quenya, Eldarin, Avarin, Sindarin, Ilkorin, Lemberin, Nandorin, Telerin, etc. Their multiplicity is due to the numerous "divisions" of the Elven people due to frequent wars and migrations. Every Elvish language has both an external history (that is, the history of its creation by Tolkien) and an internal history (the history of its origin in the Elvish world). Elvish languages are popular among Tolkien fans, with several magazines published in Quenya and Sindarin (the two most popular languages).
Alphabet: The Quenya alphabet has 22 consonants and 5 vowels. There are two writing systems for writing words in the Elvish languages: tengwar and kirt (similar to runic writing). Latin transliteration is also used.
Pronunciation: The pronunciation and stress system in Quenya is similar to Latin.
Grammar Features: Nouns in Quenya are declined in 9 cases, with one of the cases called "Elfinitive". Verbs change by tense (present, present perfect, past, past perfect, future and future perfect). Numbers are interesting - there is not only singular and plural, but also dual and multiplex (for an uncountable set of objects). To form names, suffixes are used that have certain meanings, for example -wen - “maiden”, - (i) on - “son”, -tar - “ruler, king”.
Vocabulary: Finnish, Latin and Greek became the basis of Quenya. The Welsh language served as the prototype for Sindarin. Most of the words in one way or another relate to the life of the elven settlements, to military operations, to magic and to the daily life of the elves.
Example (Quenya):
Harië malta úva carë nér anwavë alya- It's not gold that makes a man really rich
Klingon language
Klingon is a language developed in the 1980s specifically for the alien race of Star Trek by linguist Mark Okrand. It is well-thought-out: it has its own grammar, stable syntax, writing, and is also actively supported by the Klingon Language Institute, which publishes books and magazines in Klington (including the works of Shakespeare and the Bible translated into Klingon). There is not only a Klingon Wikipedia and a Klingon Google search engine, but also rock bands that only sing in Klingon. In The Hague in 2010, the opera “’u’” was released in this invented dialect (“’u’” means “Universe” in translation).
Pronunciation and alphabet: A phonetically difficult language that uses the glottal stop to create an alien-sounding effect. Several writing systems have been developed that have the features of Tibetan writing with an abundance of sharp corners in the character outline. Latin is also used.
Vocabulary: Formed on the basis of Sanskrit and the languages of the North American Indians. Basically, the syntax is about space and conquest, war, weaponry, and many variations of curses (in Klingon culture, curses are a kind of art). There are many "movie jokes" built into the language: the Klingon word for "couple" is chang'eng (a reference to the twins Chang and Eng).
Grammar Features: Klingon uses affixes to change the meaning of a word. Most various suffixes are used to convey animation and inanimateness, plurality, gender and other distinguishing features of objects. Verbs also have special suffixes that characterize the action. Word order can be either direct or reverse. Speed in the transfer of information is a decisive factor.
Examples:
tlhIngan Hol Dajatlh'a"?- Do you speak Klingon?
Heghlu'meH QaQ jajvam.- Today is a good day to die.
taH pagh taHbe: DaH mu'tlheghvam vIqelnIS To be or not to be: that is the question
Na "vi
Na vi is a language developed in 2005–2009 by linguist Paul Frommer for James Cameron's film Avatar. Na'vi is spoken by the blue-skinned inhabitants of the planet Pandora. From their language, the word for "vi" is translated as "people".
Pronunciation and vocabulary: Papuan, Australian and Polynesian languages were used as prototypes for na "vi. There are about 1000 words in total in the language. Vocabulary is mostly everyday.
Grammar Features: The concept of gender in na vi no, words denoting men or women can be distinguished using the suffixes an - masculine and e - feminine. The division into "he" and "she" is also optional. Numbers are denoted not by endings, but by prefixes. Adjectives do not decline. Verbs change in tenses (and not the endings of the verbs change, but infixes are added), but not in persons. Due to the fact that the Na'vi have four fingers, they use the octal system. Word order in a sentence is free.
Examples:
Oeyä tukrul txe'lanit tivakuk- Let my spear strike the heart
Kaltxim. Ngaru lu fpom srak?- "Hi how are you doing?" (literally: “Hi, are you okay?”)
Tsun oe ngahu nìNa“vi pivängkxo a fì”u oeru prrte" lu. - "I can communicate with you on na" vi, and it pleases me"
Fìskxawngìri tsap'alute sengi oe. - "I'm sorry about that jerk"
To many, the very phrase “artificial language” may seem extremely strange. Why "artificial"? If there is "artificial language", then what is "natural language"? And finally, the most important thing: why create another new language when there are so many living, dying and ancient languages in the world?
An artificial language, unlike a natural one, is not a product of human communication resulting from complex cultural, social and historical processes, but created by man as a means of communication with new characteristics and capabilities. The question arises, is it not a mechanical product of the human mind, is it alive, does it have a soul? If we refer to languages created for literary or cinematic works (for example, the language of the Quenya elves, invented by Professor J. Tolkien, or the language of the Klingon empire from the Star Trek series), then in this case the reasons for their appearance are clear. The same applies to computer languages. However, most often people try to create artificial languages as a means of communication between representatives of different nationalities, for political and cultural reasons.
For example, it is known that all modern Slavic languages are related to each other, like all modern Slavic peoples. The idea of their unification has been in the air since ancient times. The complex grammar of Old Church Slavonic could not have made it the language of interethnic communication of the Slavs, and it seemed almost impossible to opt for any particular Slavic language. Back in 1661 he was nominated Kryzhanich Pan-Slavic language project who laid the foundations of Pan-Slavism. It was followed by other ideas of a common language for the Slavs. And in the 19th century, the common Slavic language, created by the Croatian educator Koradzic, became widespread.
The projects of creating a universal language were occupied by the mathematician Rene Descartes, the enlightener Jan Amos Comenius, and the utopian Thomas More. They were all driven by the alluring idea of breaking down the language barrier. However, most artificially created languages have remained the hobby of a very narrow circle of enthusiasts.
The first language to achieve more or less noticeable success is considered to be Volapuk, invented by the German priest Schleir. It had a very simple phonetics and was built on the basis of the Latin alphabet. The language had a complex system of verb formation and 4 cases. Despite this, he quickly gained popularity. In the 1880s, newspapers and magazines were even published on Volapuk, there were clubs of its lovers, and textbooks were published.
But soon the palm passed to another much easier language to learn - Esperanto. The Warsaw eye doctor Lazar (or, in the German manner, Ludwig) Zamenhof published his works for some time under the pseudonym "Doctor Esperanto" (hoping). The works were devoted just to the creation of a new language. He himself called his creation "internacia" (international). The language was so simple and logical that it immediately aroused the interest of the public: 16 uncomplicated grammar rules, no exceptions, words borrowed from Greek and Latin - all this made the language very convenient for learning. Esperanto remains the most popular artificial language to this day. It is interesting to note that in our time there are also speakers of Esperanto. One of them is George Soros, whose parents once met at an Esperanto congress. The famous financier is originally bilingual (his first native language is Hungarian) and a rare example of how an artificial language can become native.
In our time, there are a great many artificial languages: this and lolgan, designed specifically for linguistic research, and created by a Canadian philologist Toki Pona language, and edo(reformed Esperanto), and slovio(Pan-Slavic developed by Mark Gutsko in 2001). As a rule, all artificial languages are very simple, which often evokes associations with Newspeak described by Orwell in his novel 1984, a language that was originally designed as a political project. Therefore, the attitude towards them is often contradictory: why learn a language in which great literature is not written, which is not spoken by anyone except a few amateurs? And, finally, why learn an artificial language when there are international natural languages (English, French)?
Regardless of the reason for the creation of this or that artificial language, it is impossible for them to replace the natural language equally. It is deprived of a cultural and historical base, its phonetics will always be conditional (there are examples when Esperantists from different countries hardly understood each other due to the huge difference in the pronunciation of certain words), it does not have a sufficient number of speakers to be able to "plunge" into their environment. Artificial languages, as a rule, are taught by fans of certain works of art where these languages are used, programmers, mathematicians, linguists or just interested people. It is possible to consider them as an instrument of interethnic communication, but only in a narrow circle of amateurs. Be that as it may, the idea of creating a universal language is still alive and well.
Kurkina AnaTheodora
ARTIFICIAL LANGUAGES TODAY
1.
Considering the issue of artificial languages, I would like to note that more and more languages are currently being created, and now anyone who wants to, having studied the methodological literature, can easily create their own language to their taste and color. Or, alternatively, he can take any of the languages, whether artificial or natural, and change it to his liking.
2.
The creation of languages turns into a household craft, or into an art, depending on the skill. It can be a homemade product created in one day by one person, or the work of hundreds of scientists who have worked for many years.
3.
In this regard, one gets the impression that this is not a serious occupation, and that there is no practical benefit from it. In those days, when only a few languages were known, the attitude towards Esperanto was more serious, and now, when there are many languages, these creations of thought do not seem like something great, but look ordinary.
4.
There are many opinions concerning the future of the all-language. Groups of like-minded people who speak and know at least one language have formed. They don't need to explain why. I call them "intermen".
5.
I think that the initial impetus that led to the creation of a new language was never due to the goal of creating a means of universal communication. It is, rather, an impulse of an artist, a surge of creative energy, and not a cold calculation based on the need to make all of humanity happy, and at the same time become famous all over the world. Already further, creating a new and new language project, the creator directs himself in such a way that it is the universal language that comes out, and not a toy for his own entertainment.
6.
To put it bluntly, every new language is a toy. Some have one entertainment, others have another. What caused the need to create new languages?
7.
Speaking about myself, I have always been interested in the sound of the Russian language. As part of secondary education, this was the most interesting for me. As a result, in my certificate there is only one five - in Russian. Everything else is boring and boring. I started creating languages late, this is due to the fact that there was no one's example, and no one suggested how exactly this could be done. As a result, only in 2001, when I was 27 years old, did my first language gradually begin to emerge. In terms of its parameters, it would quite pass for an international one. While creating new projects and sketches, from time to time I created conlangs that would by no means pass for international. Knowing the method that I discovered for myself without outside help, I could have created something in 10 years. Desire was.
8.
It is caused by the imperfection of the Russian language. Russian, like other languages, is imperfect. It is possible that its ancestor, the Thracian language, was much more elegant and interesting, but it sank into oblivion of the past. I can name many shortcomings of the Russian language, and many others. But I don't think there's any need for that, because someone else could have done it already. There are also many shortcomings in Esperanto and Lideple.
9.
I would like to know where in general these 1000 languages are located, and whether they can be found on the Internet. I managed to find only about a dozen languages. Putting in the search "all artificial languages", I did not find anything that would fit under this definition.
10.
If we consider complex languages, where words from different languages, there are a couple of things to note. Usually the words there are chosen according to the principle of the greatest prevalence at the moment. If one word root occurs simultaneously in several languages selected for merging, then it is selected. But, if the fusion of languages did not occur artificially, but on its own, from the people, the choice of words could be different. And not only could, but in reality all the words are connected ARTIFICIALLY, not the way it would actually happen. Some do not care at all, and they fearlessly merge Chinese words together with French, mixing German, Hindi and Arabic into the same place. Everything looks good, and the lofty goal of bringing people together gives inspiration.
11.
The end result is a product - like nothing. Exactly with the same success, you can merge into a heap not the most popular words, but arbitrarily, everything that comes across. The result will be exactly the same, and the sound of the language will not suffer from this. Strict discipline requires that there be some kind of algorithm in the selection of words, but this will not affect the final result. All rules exist for a practical purpose, but in this case it is a rule for itself, the obligation to follow a strict algorithm so as not to lose a sense of self-importance.
12.
The language created according to the algorithm "for the sake of conscience" is considered successful, there are dozens of fans, they study it, they are crazy. But, on the other hand, would you equally enthusiastically accept a language in which words are collected without any system? The language is just as brilliant, but you don't accept it. So you don't agree that 1=1? The language, roughly speaking, is accepted only because it was worked on according to a single scheme. The work itself is recognized, not the end result. The language is no longer a work of art, like all natural languages, but a simple convention. You and I agree that this is a LANGUAGE, and you undertake to recognize that yes, this is a real LANGUAGE. But in fact, it does not matter who thinks what, who agreed on what, and what matters is only what is. If the picture is drawn not under inspiration, but on the basis of some thoughts, then this is not a work of art. And any complex language, where words from different languages are combined into one, is, as it were, not a language at all. And a fake. The sensitive subject understands this, but the crowd does not. Tell them it's art and they'll believe it.
13.
Feeling an urgent need to create something integral, and not an arbitrary bunch of rules and words, experts created "interlingua". Together with a number of other languages, this project seems to be something holistic. Someone connects Romance languages, someone Germanic. It's starting to sound like a language. But, nevertheless, as in the previous case, the problem is still the same - you cannot connect the unconnectable. It can unite by itself, if one simply mixes the peoples, but any artificial combination will be reflected in the external sound.
14.
This is how “simpls”, or simplified languages, arose. A simpl is created from one language by simplifying it. But, it should be noted that the same process of language simplification occurs in real life. But in real life, everything happens NATURALLY, and designing the language of the future is the same as designing the future itself. Not a single person, I think, is able to predict what our future will be like in 100 years. It's the same with designing languages, in this case, symbols. I would not design a Russian simple, but rather experiment with Old Russian. At the same time, one should not strive to recreate the ancient language, but to create something new, sharply distinguishable, it will be original.
26.
All languages are getting easier. The Russian language in the future should lose all its cases, and there is no need to be horrified by this. Forms that disappear do not play any role in the expression of thoughts. Lost forms can be replaced by new parts of speech, and then the language will not become simpler, but many times more difficult, allowing you to express complex thoughts swarming in your head smart people. The brain, so to speak, will begin to work better, assimilating complex concepts and categories. If these parts of speech do not arise by themselves, we will create them ourselves.
15.
Now I'm trying to create a Zip-Jolzik language, which will have 38 parts of speech. This is about three times more than in Russian. If someone does not need them, he can pass what he heard past his ears, understanding only the basic meaning. Here the wolves will be fed and the sheep will be safe. The same language serves both primitive people and educated people. I would like Zip-Jolzik to become an international language.
16.
For my part, I would like to note that I prefer some of the other languages I created, for example, Grassonian. But the zip jolzik is more phlegmatic than the others, and this must be approved by people who are themselves phlegmatic. Everything is thought out in such a way as to satisfy the most average person. Other languages are more emotional and more suited to my personality. Zip jolzik is also as far as possible from resemblance to anything national. It can be noted that the Esperanto ending "-o" appeals more to Italians and Spaniards than to anyone else, and "Interlingua" is completely like a variety of Italian.
17.
Zip-Jolzik, like a paralanguage, involves more intuition than logic. But the Arahau language created by Ahanera takes a different path. On the contrary, everything is subject to logic. Intuition is only 20%. Both are good. Language must be either a product of the brain, that is, of logic, or a product of intuition. Zip jolzic is 70% intuition and 30% logic. In other languages, logic and intuition are distributed approximately equally. It remains unclear whether it is possible to create a language 100% according to the laws of logic, and whether it will sound so good that it will fit as an international language? And it is quite clear that it is impossible to create a language based only on intuition, since such a person must have 100% perfection.
18.
The Arahau language is designed in such a way that each of its words is decomposed into letters, due to which each word is a perfect product, and, moreover, can be comprehended. The price for this is the loss of external sound. For some, external sound is the main thing, and such people usually study natural language. Paralanguages and mutants involve more intuition, but intuition, as you know, is compressed logic. The brain performs thousands of logical operations per second when creating each word in a paralanguage. But some people think that since you did it yourself, it means that this is all a gag, and not some kind of art. In fact, this is not a gag, but the work of the brain. Any ingenious picture of the artist is the same “gag”, where the author cannot logically substantiate each stroke of the brush. But we put up with it, and recognize the picture, without requiring proof.
19.
Separately, the language "hammer" can be noted. He belongs to the simp - mutants. This is simplified Russian. The author did not dwell on only one simplification, but used his own, original ideas which made the language more perfect. The best mutant languages could emerge in the real world if one knew how to put people in an artificial environment where a language with given parameters could emerge. Everything here is like in jazz: on the basis of one rhythm, various improvisations are possible, and all of them will be correct.
20.
Paralanguages, in turn, require skill and powerful intuition. If any paralanguage is clumsy, then you can remember natural languages and find even more flaws.
21.
The Arahau language, created according to the laws of logic, loses a little in external sound, but it allows you to construct any kind of words. This allows you to express the most complex thought and easily create terminology. An intellectual conversation in Arahau at some point comes to the point that you generally stop hearing the language and words, and catch only one movement of thoughts. Haven't tried it yet, but I think it is. To arm the brain, you just need to give it a constructor language, and so that the complex is expressed concisely. Brevity, in fact, is a way of expressing thoughts. When it is necessary to express a long thought (in Russian), we simply refrain from doing so. If we need to speak a whole sentence, instead of one word, we choose silence. And in a number of cases, they simply do not understand us, ignoring the word that indicates the context. The text is understood as if there was no indication of the desired meaning. Starting to speak simply and in a savage way (but understandable), we do not say anything smart, and we cannot prove the correctness of our views. Personal convictions for the opponent begin to seem like stupid obstinacy. Therefore, the zip jolzik also has the tools to build a more complex thought. At the minimum level.
22.
Imagining a future in which everyone knows zip-jolzik, I would prefer to speak both Russian and zip-jolzik in it. I do not exclude Russian from my vocabulary. Some will prefer to speak only one language - either Zip Jolzik or Russian.
23.
At the moment, it is necessary that it is the intermen who come over to my side and begin to promote zip-jolzik and speak it. Then everything will go easier. If it is decided that some other language should become international, and if it is a worthy project, then I will abandon my developments and start studying this language. In this case, I will not need to create a zip jolzik until the end.
24.
If we take into account that there are more than 1000 artificial languages, then among them there may well be a worthy candidate for the role of the world. It seems strange to me that there is no such site where all these languages would be collected and categorized. I also don't know if there are any other paralanguages besides mine. Only the most popular languages are widely known. But it may turn out that some little-known language is the best. The little-known should not be ignored, but should be considered together with the popular.
25.
It may also happen that the international language will be thrown to us by aliens. Their technology has evolved over millions of years, and there may be some kind of language suitable for us. If so, even better. At least, I can say for sure that complex languages are only the first stage of evolution, and a dead end one at that. In the future, interest in complex languages and simple symbols should dry up. Both are the 20th century, the stone era of interlinguistics. Times are different now and we need to look ahead.
Two centuries ago, humanity began to think about creating a single language understandable to everyone, so that people could communicate with each other without barriers. In literature and cinema, ordinary human language is also sometimes not enough to convey the culture of some invented world and make it more realistic - then artificial languages come to the rescue.
Natural and artificial languages
Natural language is a hereditary system of visual and sound signs that a group of individuals use as their native language, that is, ordinary human language. The peculiarity of natural languages is that they develop historically.
Such languages include not only languages with multi-million speakers, such as English, Chinese, French, Russian and others; there are also natural languages spoken by only hundreds of people, such as koro or mathukar panau. The most marginal of them are dying out at an alarming rate. Living human languages are learned in infancy for the purpose of direct communication with other people and for many other purposes.
Constructed languages- this term is often used when referring to sign systems similar to human ones, but created either for entertainment (for example, the Elvish language of J.R.R. Tolkien), or for some practical purposes (Esperanto). Such languages are built with the help of already existing artificial languages or on the basis of human, natural ones.
Artificial languages include:
- non-specialized, which are created for the same purposes that human languages serve - the transfer of information, communication between people;
- specialized, such as programming languages and symbolic languages of the exact sciences - mathematics, chemistry, etc.
The most famous artificially created languages
Currently, there are about 80 artificially created languages, and this is not counting programming languages. Some of the most famous artificially created languages are Esperanto, Volapuk, Solresol, as well as the fictional Elvish language Quenya.
Solresol
Solresol was founded by the Frenchman Genre Francois Sudre. To master it, there is no need to learn musical notation, it is only important to know the names of the seven notes. It was created in 1817 and aroused considerable interest, which, however, did not last long.
There are many ways to write words in the Solresol language: they are written both in letters and, in fact, using musical notation, as well as in the form of seven numbers, the first seven letters of the alphabet, and even using the colors of the rainbow, which are also seven.
When using notes, the names do, re, mi, fa, sol, la and si are used. In addition to these seven, words are made up of combinations of note names - from two-syllable to four-syllable.
In solresol there is no such thing as synonyms, and it depends on the stress to which part of speech a particular word belongs, for example, a noun is the first syllable, an adjective is the penultimate one. The category of gender in fact consists of two: feminine and non-feminine.
Example: "miremi recisolsi" - this expression means "beloved friend."
Volapyuk
This artificial language of communication was created by a Catholic priest named Johann Schleyer from the city of Baden in Germany, in 1879. He said that God appeared to him in a dream and ordered him to create an international language.
The Volapuk alphabet is based on the Latin alphabet. It has 27 characters, of which eight are vowels and nineteen consonants, and its phonetics is quite simple - this is done to make it easier for people without complex combinations of sounds in their native language to learn it. French and English in a modified form represent the composition of Volapuk words.
The Volapuk case system has four - these are the dative, nominative, accusative and genitive cases. The minus of Volapyuk is that it has a rather complicated system of verb formation.
Volapyuk quickly became popular: a year after its creation, a Volapyuk textbook was written in German. The appearance of the first newspapers in this artificial language was not long in coming. In 1889, Volapük's fan clubs numbered almost three hundred. Though artificial languages continued to develop, with the advent of Esperanto, Volapuk lost its popularity, and now only a few dozen people around the world speak this language.
Example: "Glidö, o sol!" means "Hello Sun!"
Esperanto
Perhaps even those who do not know the details about artificial languages have heard about Esperanto at least once. It is the most popular among artificial languages and was originally created for the purpose of international communication. It even has its own flag.
In 1887 it was created by Ludwig Zamenhof. The name "Esperanto" is a word from the created language, translated as "having hope". The Latin alphabet is the basis for the Esperanto alphabet. Its vocabulary consists of Greek and Latin. The number of letters in the alphabet is 28. The stress falls on the penultimate syllable.
The grammatical rules of this artificial language have no exceptions, and there are only sixteen of them. The category of gender does not exist here, there are only nominative and accusative cases. To convey other cases in speech, it is necessary to use prepositions.
You can speak this language after several months of constant practice, while natural languages do not guarantee such a quick result. It is believed that now the number of people who speak Esperanto can reach several million, and presumably from fifty to a thousand people speak it from birth.
Example: "Ĉu vi estas libera ĉi-vespere?" means "Are you free tonight?"
Quenya
The English writer and linguist J. R. R. Tolkien created Elvish artificial languages throughout his life. Quenya is the most famous of them. The idea of creating a language did not arise on its own, but when writing a fantasy-style trilogy called The Lord of the Rings, one of the most popular books in the world, and other works of the writer on this topic.
Learning Quenya will be quite difficult. Quenya is based on Latin, as well as Greek and some Finnish. There are already ten cases in this artificial language, and four numbers. The Quenya alphabet was also developed separately, but the common Latin alphabet is often used for writing.
Nowadays, the carriers of this artificial language are mainly fans of Tolkien's book and film trilogy, who create study guides and Quenya study circles. Some magazines are even published in this language. And the number of Quenya speakers around the world is several tens of thousands.
Example: "Harië malta úva carë nér anwavë alya" means "Gold does not make a man really rich."
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