Questions tagged [history]
For questions about the real world history of individual conlangs as well as the conlanging community
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How likely is it for conlangs to have verbs that have the same conjugation as another verb?
So I have been studying Spanish recently (mainly verb conjugations because I'm great at constructing sentences, but still am horrible when it comes to verb conjugations), and decided to teach myself ...
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Were there serious a priori fictional languages before Tolkien?
By serious I mean somewhat complete, with a working grammar. So the examples in Gulliver's Travels are probably not really "languages" (or are they, I'm not sure).
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Are there any languages with a vertical consonant distinction?
Are there any languages which distinguish consonants exclusively by manner of articulation instead of place of articulation and such, akin to a vertical vowel system?
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History of world language
If we look at world history—I am speaking a little vaguely, since it is not possible to be completely accurate. The human race began from a single region, as you can see in the bottom image.
What ...
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Has anyone tried learning and speaking Kesh?
The book "Always Coming Home" by Ursula K Le Guin is an anthropological account of the Kesh, a people that "might be going to have lived" in future California. It includes short ...
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How many literatures?
I believe or assume that Volapük, Esperanto, Ido, Interlingua, Interlingue, and Klingon each have at least a few translations of important literature such as the Bible or Hamlet. What other ...
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How to make names in a conlang?
So, draconic in the setting is used to name places, people, and communication in general. I skipped through most of the phonotactics as I'm using the Hungarian template. So as I filled out entries in ...
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Has the Asshai'i language ever been created?
I heard that David Peterson thought about creating the Asshai'i language.
Did that ever happen? Has the Asshai'i language ever been actually created?
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Should languages spoken by two similar races have the same protolanguage, or can they be not related by protolanguage? [closed]
Should languages spoken by two similar races have the same protolanguage, or can they be not related by protolanguage? I guess they should be similar for example in phonetics or in some other ...
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Is Schleyer's first sketch of Volapük available as a reprint?
Johann Martin Schleyer published the first sketch of Volapük in 1879 in a rather obscure catholic newsletter named Die Sionsharfe. This newsletter isn't easily accessible, as far as I know. Is this ...
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Are there any Conlangs using Chinese characters?
The Chinese character system is one that is universal to many Chinese dialects. Two people can pronounce the same character in two different ways, but when writing to each other it is intelligible.
...
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Is latino sine flexione dead?
Latino sine flexione is a variant of Latin created by Peano in 1903. As far as I know it was used in scientific literature but since forgotten.
I found this site and a few discussions on Duolingo but ...
user966
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Conlangs based on Proto-Indo-European (PIE)?
Have there been any attempts to create a language based on Proto-Indo-European (PIE)?
Of course PIE has had an effect on other languages, and through them ended up in many a posteriori conlangs as ...
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Did a majority of followers of Ido indeed switch over to Occidental?
The Wikipedia article on Occidental/Interlingue says (in this version):
According to the Occidental magazine Cosmoglotta in 1928, a majority of Ido adherents took up Occidental in place of Ido.
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How do you call a "stillborn language"?
And by "stillborn", I mean a dead language that never really lived to begin with: a modernized version of an archaic language frozen in time, or an all-out archaic language (with archaic grammar and ...
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21st century International Auxiliary Languages
What are examples of International Auxiliary Languages (IALs) created and promoted in the 21st century?
I am aware that many people think that Esperanto and Interlingua are in some sense "the last ...
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Is there anyone that has a conlang as their first/only language?
It seems that people generally use constructed languages in very limited circumstances, or within small communities that speak the language. Thus it seems to me unlikely that one of these languages ...
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Why is Romanian not a control language for Interlingua?
IALA Interlingua is a naturalistic romance-based conlang. There are six control languages (primary: English, French, Italian, and Spanish/Portuguese counted as one language "Iberian"; secondary: ...
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Is there a middle-written language?
Real languages
I am aware of several types of writing systems.
The first one would be left to right and a prime example is English and also most of other languages, no matter if they use letters or ...
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Teaching children constructed languages
Are there any modern accounts (either of personal experiences of individuals on this forum, or in general) of an individual creating their own language and teaching it to their child(ren)/family?
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Does Volapük contain any elements (order, participle, etc) not present in its European source languages?
Volapük was designed back in the 1800s to be a 'world language', but at first glance, it appears to the layman (me) to just be a mixing of Romance languages, English, and maybe High German. Are there ...
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What is the influence of Russian on Tolkien's languages?
I have noticed some artifacts from Russian in published earlier manuscripts of Tolkiens works, e.g.,
The figure named Beorn in The Hobbit was named Medwed in earlier manuscripts
In Early Quenya, ...
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What are reasons to construct an auxlang, artlang, altlang, etc? [closed]
What are reasons to construct a language? Why do people construct languages? For example, auxlangs are created for global (or regional) 'compatibility'. Why do people construct artlangs, altlangs, ...
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How does one determine the date a constructed language was invented?
Some constructed languages list a date, or at least year, of creation. Is there any official or unofficial standard to determine that date for any given conlang? The way I see it, there are several ...
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International Auxiliary Language created by a Japanese person
I remember some facts about an international auxiliary language (IAL) created by a Japanese person, but unfortunately I both forgot the name of the inventor and the name of the IAL. Can someone help ...
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What has the impact of Star Trek: Discovery been on the development of Klingon?
Has Klingon changed significantly since it has started being used for Star Trek: Discovery? Has the vocabulary grown significantly? Has there been novel grammar revealed? To what extent is the ...
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Has any nation ever employed a constructed language in the military as code talkers?
Esperanto was once used in the US army to realistically simulate the language situation when training.
Has any nation ever employed other constructed languages in the military as code talkers?
From ...
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Was Tolkien aware of the Voynich manuscript?
Looking at the Tengwar script designed by Tolkien I feel a certain similarity to the unknown script of the Voynich manuscript: Many characters look very similar to others of the same script, and there ...
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Is there an existing constructed language that once was dead?
That means, are there any such conlangs that exist today but were once declared as dead or not in use by any community?
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Which types of conlangs are the most popular to construct? [closed]
For example, can it be shown that there are more auxiliary than artistic conlangs? Note that I'm not talking about use, but about which type is more popular to create. The answer can address any level ...
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Is Loglan still alive?
Loglan is a predecessor of the Lojban language. Is it still supported and actively used/developed, or is it a dead language?
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Where do the words in Láadan come from?
Láadan is a language created as an experiment in seeing if a constructed language designed specifically for women could better express the views of women better than natural Western languages.
As ...
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What is the oldest known constructed language?
Historically speaking, what is the oldest known constructed language that we are able to determine with historical evidence?
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Is Tolkien's Dwarvish really based on Hebrew?
Many sources say that Tolkien's Dwarvish resembles the Hebrew language. The Lord of the Rings Wikia states that:
It appears to be structured, like real-world Semitic languages, around the ...
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How much Dwarvish did Tolkien actually devise?
The Dwarvish language in Tolkien's legendarium is famous for being virtually unknown to non-Dwarves. Apart from a few phrases, like Gimli's battle-cry "Baruk Khazad! Khazad ai-menu!" (from memory; ...
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Has any conlang ever replaced the use of a pidgin?
I've read that being a simple, yet more expressive, substitute for a pidgin language is one of the possible applications of Toki Pona.
In situations where people from multiple languages come together ...
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How developed is the Old Tongue in the Wheel of Time series?
Robert Jordan's fantasy novel series The Wheel of Time includes a lot of short quotes in the Old Tongue, a fictional ancient language from a previous Age. Translations are provided for these, either ...
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