Why create artificial languages. Artificial languages ​​and attempts to create them

  • 22.09.2019

Two centuries ago, mankind began to think about creating a single, understandable language for 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 uses as their mother tongue, 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 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. Although 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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Today, there are a considerable number of artificial languages ​​in the world. Some of them are well known, others are known only to small groups of people. But none of them has yet become really popular. And can they even become a substitute for natural languages?

The dream of a universal language appeared among people for a very long time. And it would seem, what could be easier? Create a language with a very simple but concise grammar and sufficient vocabulary. Such that it could be without special efforts to study a person who is sure that he does not have any abilities in mastering languages. But, as practice has shown, this is not enough.

There are hundreds of similar languages. Some of them were intended for communication of people from all over the world (,), while others - only for individual social groups( , ). There have also been attempts to create languages ​​based entirely on the logic (). Other creators of artificial languages ​​\u200b\u200btreated this matter as a kind of creativity (). Move people and other motives.

But the result remains the same - none of the artificial languages ​​has yet managed to become popular enough so that with its help it would be possible to communicate freely in the most different corners Earth. Usually everything is limited only to a narrow circle of interested people. The only exception is Esperanto, which can boast of speakers who consider this language their mother tongue (these are children born in international families). According to some estimates, Esperanto is spoken by about 2 million people around the world. However, many linguists are sure that this figure is very overestimated.

For the widespread dissemination of a planned language (that is, an artificial language for international communication), it is not enough just that it be simple. On its way, there will be many other obstacles, the existence of which the creators of the first artificial languages ​​did not even think about. After all, language is more than just a means of communication. There is a theory that a person perceives the world through the prism of his native language, which determines his consciousness and directly affects the type of his thinking.

Flag of artificial languages.
It depicts tower of babel with the rising sun in the background.

Why are there individual people - languages ​​determine the consciousness of entire peoples. It is not for nothing that all conquerors always strive to belittle the value of the native dialect of the people they conquered (typical examples are and). Language is also a whole layer of culture. Unless, of course, it's artificial.

In addition, in order for a language to become really popular, it must be of interest to a large number of people to please them. It is simply impossible to take and make any language a means of international communication.

There is another problem. In order for a planned language to remain a truly universal instrument of international communication, it must be free of dialects. And the appearance of each new word should be considered by special commissions. And this, you see, is not an easy task at all.

There are other difficulties as well. However, despite them, new artificial languages ​​will be constantly created in the future. Mostly for needs and sometimes. Languages ​​will also appear, the purpose of which is simply a language game, entertainment. But as far as languages ​​for international communication are concerned, it is doubtful that anyone today will seriously hope to create something like that. It just doesn't make sense - today it copes well with such a task, the popularity of which is constantly growing. Let's not forget that English is relatively easy to learn. Yes, and with the cultural layer everything is in order here.

Does it make sense to learn any artificial language? Given enough time, definitely yes! But only as a hobby. This is a great workout for the mind, a way to learn a lot of new things, to get acquainted with unusual forms of expression of various other ideas. Also, it is a way to meet interesting people from all over the world who are also interested in your chosen language. The famous Hungarian polyglot expressed an excellent idea, according to which, "language is the only thing that is useful to study even poorly." Learning any language will only bring benefits.

on their Facebook pages that they speak Esperanto. At the same time, it is not known how many people actually know and speak this artificial language. In addition to Esperanto, there are many more languages ​​constructed by people in an unnatural way. Researchers have already counted more than a thousand of them. Why do people create their own languages? What are they and how do they differ from natural ones?

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 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, which then dominated 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

Artificial languages ​​can be divided on the basis of what goals their creation pursued. 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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Artificial language- a sign system created specifically for use in areas where the use of natural language is less effective or impossible. Constructed languages ​​differ in their specialization and purpose, as well as in the degree of similarity with natural languages.

There are the following types of artificial languages:

Programming languages ​​and computer languages ​​- languages ​​for automatic processing of information using a computer.

Information languages ​​- languages ​​used in various systems information processing.

Formalized languages ​​of science are languages ​​intended for symbolic recording of scientific facts and theories of mathematics, logic, chemistry and other sciences.

Languages ​​of non-existent peoples created for fiction or entertainment purposes. The most famous are: the Elvish language, invented by J. Tolkien, and the Klingon language, invented by Mark Okrand for the fantasy series Star Trek (see Fictional Languages).

International auxiliary languages ​​are languages ​​created from elements of natural languages ​​and offered as an auxiliary means of interethnic communication.

According to the purpose of creation, artificial languages ​​can be divided into the following groups :

Philosophical and logical languages ​​are languages ​​that have a clear logical structure of word formation and syntax: Lojban, Toki Pona, Ithkuil, Ilaksh.

Auxiliary languages ​​- designed for practical communication: Esperanto, Interlingua, Slovio, Slovyanski.

artificial language natural specialization

Artistic or aesthetic languages ​​- created for creative and aesthetic pleasure: Quenya.

Also, the language is created to set up an experiment, for example, to test the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (that the language spoken by a person limits consciousness, drives it into certain limits).

According to their structure, artificial language projects can be divided into the following groups:

A priori languages ​​- based on logical or empirical classifications of concepts: loglan, lojban, ro, solresol, ifkuil, ilaksh.

A posteriori languages ​​- languages ​​built mainly on the basis of international vocabulary: interlingua, occidental

Mixed languages ​​- words and word formation are partially borrowed from non-artificial languages, partially created on the basis of artificially invented words and word-formation elements: Volapuk, Ido, Esperanto, Neo.

Of the artificial languages, the most famous :

basic english

interlingua

latin-blue-flexione

occidental

Simlian

solresol

Esperanto

The most famous artificial language was Esperanto (L. Zamenhof, 1887) - the only artificial language that has become widespread and has united quite a few supporters of the international language around itself. Esperanto is based on international words borrowed from Latin and Greek, and 16 grammatical rules that have no exceptions. In this language, there is no grammatical gender, it has only two cases - nominative and accusative, and the meanings of the rest are conveyed using prepositions. The alphabet is built on the basis of Latin. All this makes Esperanto such a simple language that an unprepared person can become fluent enough in a few months of regular practice. It takes at least a few years to learn any of the natural languages ​​at the same level. Currently, Esperanto is actively used, according to various estimates, from several tens of thousands to several million people. At the same time, it is believed that for ~ 500-1000 people this language is native, that is, studied from the moment of birth. Esperanto has descendant languages ​​that lack some of the shortcomings of Esperanto. The most famous among these languages ​​are Esperantido and Novial. However, none of them will be as widespread as Esperanto.

For or against artificial languages?

The study of an artificial language has one big drawback - the almost impossibility of its application in life. This is true. An article entitled "Artificial Languages" published in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia states that: "The idea of ​​an artificial language common to all mankind is in itself utopian and impracticable. Artificial languages ​​are only imperfect surrogates of living languages; their projects are cosmopolitan in nature and therefore vicious in principle." It was written in the early 50s. But even in the mid-60s, the same skepticism was characteristic of some scientists.

The author of the book "Principles of Language Modeling" P.N. Denisov expressed his disbelief in the possibility of implementing the idea of ​​a universal language in the following way: “As for the possibility of declaring the transition of mankind to a single language created at least according to the type of Esperanto, such a possibility is a utopia. the inseparable connection of language with thought and society and many other purely linguistic circumstances do not allow such a reform to be carried out without disorganizing society.

The author of the book "Sounds and Signs" A.M. Kondratov believes that all existing native languages ​​can never be replaced by "any artificially invented "general" language". He still admits the idea of ​​an auxiliary language: "We can only talk about an intermediary language, which is used only when talking with foreigners - and only"

Such statements seem to stem from the fact that none of the individual projects for a universal, or worldwide international, language has become a living language. But what turned out to be impossible in some historical conditions for individual idealists and groups of the same idealists cut off from the proletariat, from the masses of the people, may turn out to be quite possible in other historical conditions for scientific collectives and the masses of the people who have mastered the scientific theory of language creation - with support of revolutionary parties and governments. The ability of a person to multilingualism - this phenomenon of linguistic compatibility - and the absolute primacy of the synchrony of the language (for the consciousness of those who use it), which determines the absence of the influence of the origin of the language on its functioning, open before all the peoples and peoples of the Earth the way in which the problem of their linguistic community. This will give a real opportunity to the most perfect project of the language of the new mankind and its new civilization to turn on all the continents and islands of the globe into a living, controlled developing language. And there is no doubt that it will not only be alive, but also the most tenacious of languages. The needs that brought them to life are manifold. It is also important that in these languages ​​the ambiguity of terms, which is characteristic of natural languages ​​and unacceptable in science, has been overcome. Artificial languages ​​allow expressing certain concepts in an extremely concise form, perform the functions of a kind of scientific shorthand, economical presentation and expression of voluminous mental material. Finally, artificial languages ​​are one of the means of internationalizing science, since artificial languages ​​are unified, international.

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" made a selection of the most interesting projects of this kind and found out how antonyms are formed in Solresol, how long words can be invented 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 word roots 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 Google search in 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. Plurals 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 American linguist John Quijada and, in 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 densely 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 hallmarks items. 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"