Constructed languages

occlith

occlith

Senior Member
USA
English - USA
Do you speak a constructed language? Also known as planned or invented language, a constructed language is devised by an individual or group, instead of having evolved naturally.

Examples include Ido, Afrihili, Esparanto, Novial, and fictional languages like Klingon and Tolkien's languages of Arda.

I do not speak any constructed languages but I find them to be rather interesting.
 
    • I find them interesting too, but rather useless.

    If one really thinks that they are of any use in terms of being easier to learn and such, I'd even prefer stripping an existing language of all irregularities unusual phonems, substituting these with regularities and phonems that exist in the majority of languages.

    The real drawback of constructed languages is that they are spoken by so few people that it would take too long for them to develop to a level even close to languages that evolved naturally. I'd say,
     
    I do not and I have no interest in them. I guess a natural language comes with cultural aspects that lack in artificial ones.

    (well, Klingon does come with cultural baggage but I'd rather not be associated with that one ;))
     
    I don't speak any constructed language but I might consider learning one someday, probably Esperanto. I recently met a guy who spoke it and informed me that there is a huge community of about 10 million strong around the world that speaks it. He takes his holidays to different countries to meet other people who speak it. They have conferences and socialize together, correspond etc. Apparently some even marry and their children become native speakers! It's kind of like a society within society that goes largely unnoticed. I have no clue about the language but apparently romance, germanic and slavic speakers learn it very easily since it kind of blends them grammatically, phonetically and with common vocabulary and no irregularities. I guess I was surprised since I thought pretty much nobody learned these languages.
    Anyway, this is not advertisement at all for Esperanto. After I learn Russian, which is my goal, I just might consider it, or maybe not. ´
    Incidentally I've never heard of those other languages.
     
    rusita preciosa said:
    I do not and I have no interest in them. I guess a natural language comes with cultural aspects that lack in artificial ones.
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    This is similar to how I feel about constructed languages: apart from Esperanto (and maybe a few others), they have no social or historical significance, so it's difficult for me to get excited about them.
     
    So, if someone who speaks Esperanto, marries someone who also speaks it, and they rear children, and they teach their child Esperanto as a first lanugage, and others follow suit, will this language eventually transform into a nautral language? Because isn't this similar to how pidgins develop? And in the case of some (Haitian Kreyòl, for example), they turn into natural languages.
     
    chifladoporlosidiomas said:
    So, if someone who speaks Esperanto, marries someone who also speaks it, and they rear children, and they teach their child Esperanto as a first lanugage, and others follow suit, will this language eventually transform into a nautral language? Because isn't this similar to how pidgins develop? And in the case of some (Haitian Kreyòl, for example), they turn into natural languages.
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    Hola Chiflado. Well I guess so. The 3000 odd people who acquired Esperanto from their parents speak it as a mother tongue. It is a natural language for them. I'll have to do some research but I heard Modern Hebrew started like that as well. At any rate, it's astonishing to think of a couple speaking only Esperanto to their children when it's the natural language of neither of them.
    No, Haitian Kreyòl has another origin, a very sinister one indeed. In the 18th century, the French took people from many different African tribes with different languages to Haiti to be slaves. They couldn't speak to one another or to their slave masters. They acquired French in a very strict kind of immersion program with no reading, writing, grammar courses or explanations. But it was urgent. So they basically ended up learning it and teaching it simultaneously to one another, simplifiying it and making it their own. SInce many Haitians never had much formal schooling in French, it has slowly developed into another language.
    Actually, now that I am thinking of it, maybe when Esperanto becomes divorced from its artificial book learnt language and those people make new words and slang, different accents maybe, Esperanto could become a real living language and its creators will have lost control of it.
     
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    bondia said:
    Neither have I! I have a hard enough time being (more or less) bilingual to get involved with a language some people have constructed. Aren't there enough established languages out there already?:)
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    Everybody thinks that English is good enough to be used as a lingua franca for the whole world. But such a solution has quite many drawbacks. One of them is the lack of a common spoken standard. I have recently taken part in an international congress, with lecturers of varous nationalities. One may think that the participants speaking English as a second language pose a major problem because of their often heavy accent making it difficult to understand. But this time no. The most difficult to understand was a lady from New Zealand, giving a lecture in a dialect from probably the most remote village of NZ, extremely difficult to understand. And you could not even criticize her for that, as she always could answer you "I speak English, it is my mother tongue, and nobody will teach me how to speak it". A gentleman from the US (born in India by the way) on the other hand spoke a beautiful General American, where it was no problem to discern every single word.
     
    Ben Jamin said:
    Everybody thinks that English is good enough to be used as a lingua franca for the whole world. But such a solution has quite many drawbacks. One of them is the lack of a common spoken standard. I have recently taken part in an international congress, with lecturers of varous nationalities. One may think that the participants speaking English as a second language pose a major problem because of their often heavy accent making it difficult to understand. But this time no. The most difficult to understand was a lady from New Zealand, giving a lecture in a dialect from probably the most remote village of NZ, extremely difficult to understand. And you could not even criticize her for that, as she always could answer you "I speak English, it is my mother tongue, and nobody will teach me how to speak it". A gentleman from the US (born in India by the way) on the other hand spoke a beautiful General American, where it was no problem to discern every single word.
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    Interesting comment! Is the goal of learning a language to make oneself understood or to speak as a native? I have worked as a language facilitator in multinational conferences. That means I accompany non-native people speaking to one another in English and intervene when communication breaks down or when someone asks for my help. Sometimes the English (from a native's perspective) is awful. Ex) We need dat in de jellow colour. You can us to make? No prrovlem. Vit aluminio or no? As you wishes. I stand there silently drinking my champagne and everyone goes on with their business for an hour with no problem. Then a Brit, an Irishman or an American joins and it falls apart. What? I said a nice mustard glaze. What? Aluminium. You have a problem or you had a problem? Tensions rise.

    I had not planned to defend Esperanto, but that would end all problems. Everything is regular and the accent is easy.
     
    Ben Jamin said:
    Everybody thinks that English is good enough to be used as a lingua franca for the whole world.
    No, I don't suscribe to this way of thinking. However, it is obviously an advantage to speak English when traveling in many countries. I am obviously Anglo-Saxon physically, and although I speak fluent Spanish, am always replied to in English, for example, in South and Central America.
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    merquiades said:
    Then a Brit, an Irishman or an American joins and it falls apart.[/COLOR] What? I said a nice mustard glaze. What? Aluminium. You have a problem or you had a problem? Tensions rise.
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    I, too, have come across this. Two non-native English speakers understand one another better than when a native speaker intervenes. I have found myself speaking pidgin English to facilitate things. Also, Spanish friends with various levels of English understand one another better than they understand me (sometimes;))
     
    bondia said:
    I, too, have come across this. Two non-native English speakers understand one another better than when a native speaker intervenes. I have found myself speaking pidgin English to facilitate things. Also, Spanish friends with various levels of English understand one another better than they understand me (sometimes;))
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    You sit here in chair and I go find someone who know hotel you live in, okay?

    That kind of pidgin??? I know it. D:
     
    merquiades said:
    You sit here in chair and I go find someone who know hotel you live in, okay?

    That kind of pidgin??? I know it. D:
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    I have found myself saying things along the lines of:
    Me go now. You business. Me married woman.
    Religion no allow meat. (A total lie, I have no religion, but it helps to not offend those offering you unrecognizable offal:eek:)
     
    bondia said:
    I have found myself saying things along the lines of:
    Me go now. You business. Me married woman.
    Religion no allow meat. (A total lie, I have no religion, but it helps to not offend those offering you unrecognizable offal:eek:)
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    I no know other mans and womans speaks this. I thinks it only I. Very surprise now. Language so pretty, why no book teach?
     
    bondia said:
    I have found myself saying things along the lines of:
    Me go now. You business. Me married woman.
    Religion no allow meat. (A total lie, I have no religion, but it helps to not offend those offering you unrecognizable offal:eek:)
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    I've used that "religion no allow meat" thing too. Also "Carpet very bee-oo-tee-full, but me no money".
     
    merquiades said:
    Interesting comment! Is the goal of learning a language to make oneself understood or to speak as a native? I have worked as a language facilitator in multinational conferences. That means I accompany non-native people speaking to one another in English and intervene when communication breaks down or when someone asks for my help. Sometimes the English (from a native's perspective) is awful. Ex) We need dat in de jellow colour. You can us to make? No prrovlem. Vit aluminio or no? As you wishes. I stand there silently drinking my champagne and everyone goes on with their business for an hour with no problem. Then a Brit, an Irishman or an American joins and it falls apart. What? I said a nice mustard glaze. What? Aluminium. You have a problem or you had a problem? Tensions rise.

    I had not planned to defend Esperanto, but that would end all problems. Everything is regular and the accent is easy.
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    My point in fact was: if the native speakers of English think that they are so privileged as to just speak their native village dialect and expect everybody in the world to understand them, then they do not deserve that privilege. Then it would be better to use Esperanto, or to expect that the native speakers speak acting internationally not just their home dialect, but one of maximum two standardized spoken langauges: British RP or Standard American, and with a fairly good diction. The English language is not longer a possession of the native speakers, but a world wide used medium of international communication. It is easy to poke fun on non native speakers speaking "awful" English, but what about the natives themselves?
     
    Ben Jamin said:
    My point in fact was: if the native speakers of English think that they are so privileged as to just speak their native village dialect and expect everybody in the world to understand them, then they do not deserve that privilege.
    I, for one, (and I count on other members of this Forum to join me) do not expect everybody in the world to understand me. On the contrary, I have made quite a lot of effort in my life to understand others.

    It is easy to poke fun on non native speakers speaking "awful" English, but what about the natives themselves?
    I don't think that any participant in this thread is poking fun at anyone. If you care to re-read previous threads, you will see that several of us agree that non-native speakers get along far better between themselves than when a native speaker is involved. The fact that we can be amused by the way we speak to make ourselves better understood is, in no way, a cause for offence.
    And yes, in any language, there are native speakers who are "destroyers".
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    Ben Jamin said:
    My point in fact was: if the native speakers of English think that they are so privileged as to just speak their native village dialect and expect everybody in the world to understand them, then they do not deserve that privilege. Then it would be better to use Esperanto, or to expect that the native speakers speak acting internationally not just their home dialect, but one of maximum two standardized spoken langauges: British RP or Standard American, and with a fairly good diction. The English language is not longer a possession of the native speakers, but a world wide used medium of international communication. It is easy to poke fun on non native speakers speaking "awful" English, but what about the natives themselves?
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    We are not poking fun at anybody. I said my job in some capacity or another has been in helping people with their English. We are explaining how we have learned to speak to be understood by some non-native speakers. I suppose if you spoke Polish to non-natives you might forego using cases and conjugating verbs.
    This situation is not the way you understand it. Unfortunately, many English speakers grow up not learning foreign languages. Moreover, grammar is no longer taught in schools. Plus accent only means American if you're English and English if you're American...etc. You talk of General American and RP. Native speakers have no idea what that is and how it is supposed to sound. Sometimes natives cannot understand non-natives because they simply have no exposure and are completely unprepared. They just may not put two and two together when they hear "shit of pepper" when an experienced linguistic comes quickly to "ok, they mean sheet of paper". Bilingual non-natives have this preparation and they catch on quick. Non-natives all have the experience of learning English, so they understand one another quite well with limited knowledge.
    Likewise, Bondia and I know how to change the way we speak to make people feel at ease and understand us (what verbs, what vocabulary, what accent). The monolingual speaker from Birmingham England or Alabama, not! When natives have no international experience, they speak with phrasal verbs, use slang, talk quickly, swallow syllables and people (non-natives) get lost. Some think if you raise your voice it'll help, but it's the whole way of speaking that needs to be changed.


    So perhaps Esperanto would be better after all
     
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    merquiades said:
    We are not poking fun at anybody.:thumbsup:
    Likewise, Bondia and I know how to change the way we speak to make people feel at ease and understand us (what verbs, what vocabulary, what accent). When natives have no international experience, they speak with phrasal verbs, use slang, talk quickly, swallow syllables and people (non-natives) get lost.
    Concuerdo contigo
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    merquiades said:
    That's what some of your compatriotas have told me. No more diagramming sentences or learning parts of speech and verb tenses.
    I think it's true in other countries too.
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    So you refer to Britain. I haven't lived there for 40 years and have no knowledge whatsoever of the current system of education. From what I read sporadically, I gather it is not in a good place. Your reply confirms:(
    Saludos
     
    We don't really learn grammar in the US either. A lot people in my classes (college) don't know what a direct object is :O

    Another question relating to the thread. If there are all these languages that are in danger of dying or that are now dead, will these constructed languages take their places? Because I read somewhere that half of the world's languages will be long and gone within the next twenty years. :( And I really don't think that we'll all start to speak a "gray" language
     
    Grammar has disappeared from the curriculum in Britain, the US, France and probably many other countries. The reason usually given is that in the modern world we have to study so many other things now, like computers, science and technology, 2 or 3 foreign languages, this option, that option....something's got to go, so it's grammar.

    No, I think the languages disappearing are largely local languages in the developing world, mainly Africa but also the Americas and Asia, and they are going to be replaced by English, Spanish, French, Portuguese and Russian depending on the area and the country. I heard that in the Congo there are 1000 languages dying out as people move to cities and pick up French or some bigger regional language or both. In the US there are native American languages that are now spoken by fewer than 100 people.

    I don't know if outside linguistic circles there are lots of people gung ho on Esperanto (like I said, I've never heard of Ido, Afrohili, Novial), but I may be wrong. In Europe the only language people seem to care anything about nowadays is English.
     
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    Orlin said:
    Do you find this project for a constructed Slavic language financed by the EU http://sites.google.com/site/novoslovienskij/projekt-eu useful? I personally don't for the reasons already stated in this thread for artificial Slavic languages: http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=114038.
    Click to expand...
    I have read exemplary texts and articles about making of two artificial Slavic languages: Slovio and another one, that I do not remember now. Being a language nerd I found the attempts very amusing. I had no problem understanding both languages, even if I found some of the solutions the authors had chosen somewhat peculiar. Anyway, I think that the constructed Slavic languages wil never have any practical use. There is no forum, at which they could be used: the Slavic countries are members of different economical and political groups, and a need of having an own common Slavic lingua franca is minimal. Anyway, it was fun to read the languages!
     
    chifladoporlosidiomas said:
    We don't really learn grammar in the US either. A lot people in my classes (college) don't know what a direct object is
    Click to expand...

    You do not need to study biophysics to know how to walk.

    Learning how to parse sentences in English using Latin grammar does not help you to write. Pupils learned to do this mainly because they had to be taught something.
     
    merquiades said:
    ...

    I had not planned to defend Esperanto, but that would end all problems. Everything is regular and the accent is easy.
    Click to expand...

    I don't believe it is to everybody. There will still be somebody that pronounces it in a way that others do not understand.

    Happens among native English speakers a lot. Why would that be less a problem among 2nd language Esperanto speakers?

    Besides, I know a few people from Scotland. I am sure most Americans would have more trouble understanding them, than they have understanding the foreigner with the funny accent you are quoting.
     
    I do not know any constructed languages but I do think it is a pity that Esperanto has been such a failure. This language is easy to learn, it is not associated with any country, nation, region or whatever, so it would be ideal for international communication.
     
    Ben Jamin said:
    I meant "How do you know that learning grammar does not improve your ability to write?".
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    That was not what I said. I said that learning how to parse sentences in English using Latin grammar does not help you to write. When you are learning Latin you need to understand concepts such as the subject and object of a sentence as otherwise you will not get nouns in their proper cases. However, you do not need to learn the concepts to be able to write English. I am not saying that learning to analyse English sentences is not a useful intellectual exercise, just that it will not improve your ability to write any more than learning the names of a wide range of shades will help you to paint.
     
    Hulalessar said:
    That was not what I said. I said that learning how to parse sentences in English using Latin grammar does not help you to write. When you are learning Latin you need to understand concepts such as the subject and object of a sentence as otherwise you will not get nouns in their proper cases. However, you do not need to learn the concepts to be able to write English. I am not saying that learning to analyse English sentences is not a useful intellectual exercise, just that it will not improve your ability to write any more than learning the names of a wide range of shades will help you to paint.
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    This is your personal opinion. Have you got any publications to back this opinion? I have read many texts written in the authors native tongue, showing a great confusion of the parts of the sentence (and other flaws too). Some knowledge of sentence structure could help them to write better.
     
    Sepia said:
    I don't believe it is to everybody. There will still be somebody that pronounces it in a way that others do not understand.

    Happens among native English speakers a lot. Why would that be less a problem among 2nd language Esperanto speakers?

    Besides, I know a few people from Scotland. I am sure most Americans would have more trouble understanding them, than they have understanding the foreigner with the funny accent you are quoting.
    Click to expand...

    Well, I had a look at Esperanto phonology to see if it was really so easy and universal. There are 5 pure vowels like Spanish, syllable equality and 23 consonants. All seem common to all the languages I have studied with the exception of rolled R that could be difficult for English or French speakers and glottal H which doesn't exist in the Romance languages. In my experience this would make the language difficult for French natives since it has neither of these sounds. But I guess it's easier to pronounce than English, French, German, Russian
     
    This has come up before in EHL, but Esperanto is I suppose easy from a euro-centric point of view. I don't know if a native Mandarin speaker or a native ǃXóõ speaker would necessarily find it very easy to learn, at least phonologically. Furthermore, all the vocabulary is European-derived. So it is very accessible to European-language speakers, but still plenty of hard work for someone who doesn't speak a European language and has to learn the lexicon from scratch with no cognates, and they may as well learn a language that has applicable currency in the world if they're going to put in that time and effort :D.

    As the thread is about constructed languages in general - many created for fiction such as Klingon do in fact have cultural contexts which were also constructed. That I suppose is part of the fun of "world building" in science fiction, and I've played with it myself. Of course, those languages do serve a purpose insofar as they are the mode of communication for characters in a novel or a film. Learning them by others is mostly a curiosity.

    Also for me at least, playing with constructing languages I feel gave me a better feel for grammar in general, because I experimented with all sorts of syntactic and morphological possibilities that I gleaned and researched from living languages. It's definitely a fun exercise. :) I suppose I can read Interlingua without a problem, however scientific literature is predominantly in English and I don't really see that changing any time soon.
     
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    Ben Jamin said:
    This is your personal opinion. Have you got any publications to back this opinion? I have read many texts written in the authors native tongue, showing a great confusion of the parts of the sentence (and other flaws too). Some knowledge of sentence structure could help them to write better.
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    I recall reading somewhere about an Ancient Mesopotamian text where the author complains about falling standards in the scribal schools.

    I'll rephrase what I said to put a different emphasis on it:

    Whilst learning to analyse English sentences may improve your ability to write, it is not an essential prerequisite.

    The best way to learn to write is to practise writing.
     
    Slavianophil said:
    I do not know any constructed languages but I do think it is a pity that Esperanto has been such a failure. This language is easy to learn, it is not associated with any country, nation, region or whatever, so it would be ideal for international communication.
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    I don't consider Esperanto a failure but rather a really slow process. It has over 2 million of speakers around the world, which is much more than some ''natural'' languages (After all, all languages are created by people). One of the reasons Esperanto has not spread as other languages have done is because one of the main concepts of Esperanto is not to force people to learn it by a massive attack of advertisements or other means (Like English does), so, as Esperanto is not a language that is imposed on people as other languages it grows slowly but it seems steady. Esperanto is man-made and has strict rules to keep it regular, but as it might happen, if Esperanto ever gets spoken by 50 or 70 million of people around the world, it eventually will lose its regularity and become a ''natural'' language, because as it spreads regional differences will start emerging. And I think they will not be able to stop that without being imposed in a bad way.

    In my opinion, I find constructed languages really interesting, especially the one from The Lord of Rings, Elvish, I love its writing system. I wish it were spoken around the world at least to the Esperanto's level.

    Constructed languages such as Esperanto are a good idea to be an international language so that people don't struggle with languages like English, Spanish, French, German and Russian. But, as Esperanto doesn't have a good bunch of people out there speaking it I'll stick to natural languages. (I'd make Latin the international language, though)
     
    [Two threads merged at this point]

    What are people’s opinions on constructed languages? Has anyone here studied one?

    I’ve never studied one, nor do I find the idea appealing.

    I’m averse to the whole concept of constructed languages. In fact, I find it almost offensive.

    For me, a big part of the beauty of natural languages is that they are organic entities whose development over time is not “manufactured.” I find that incredibly fascinating and profoundly awe-inspiring. In that sense, a constructed language is like an artificial lake.

    I’m also not sure I see any point or benefit to constructed languages. An artificial lake at least serves some purposes. What purposes do constructed languages serve?

    If it’s about creating a community of people united by a common language, there are plenty of existing natural languages that can be jointly learned for that purpose.

    If it’s about creating a language that’s easy to learn because its grammar, vocabulary, or whatever else is simple, again, I’m sure there’s at least one natural language that already meets whatever need the constructed language is supposed to meet.

    I would much rather see a community of people studying one of the world’s many lesser-studied and/or endangered languages than see artificial languages constructed and studied.

    How do others feel about constructed languages? Do you see any draws or benefits to them?
     
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    elroy said:
    Do you see any draws or benefits to them?
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    Did you read Arika Okrent's In the Land of Invented Languages (2009)? It's quite good. This is how she describes a Lojban convention ("Logfest"):
    I didn't see much live conversation at Logfest, but I did see a little. It goes very, very slowly. It's like watching people do long division in their heads. Of course, the types of people who are attracted to Lojban are precisely the types who are good at doing long division in their heads.
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    I think the "game" factor is probably more pertinent than the "we want to build a utopia" thing.
     
    When I was about 15 I got to lesson 5 of Teach Yourself Esperanto - I got to lesson 5 of a few other Teach Yourself language books.

    I have no more objection to people making up languages than I do to them writing fantasy such as The Lord of the Rings. Where I part company with many supporters of languages such as Esperanto is the claims made for them - a subject touched on in this thread: https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/are-some-languages-superior-to-others-”.3240437/

    It can be argued that learning to manipulate the affixes of Esperanto is a worthwhile intellectual exercise, but any benefit derived from it can also be obtained in many other ways. If you are going to spend a lot of time learning a language much better to learn a natural one. I think that everyone would benefit from being at least introduced to a language or two quite unlike their own.
     
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    I think Esperanto was created on the premise that European nationalisms were based on linguistic divisions and that if everyone spoke one language these divisions would cease to exist and there would be peace on earth. Nowadays, it's just a novelty or hobby I suppose.
     
    WadiH said:
    I think Esperanto was created on the premise that European nationalisms were based on linguistic divisions and that if everyone spoke one language these divisions would cease to exist and there would be peace on earth.
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    Riiiiight.
    Because there’s no nationalism in the Arab World or Latin America, of course. :p
     
    elroy said:
    Riiiiight.
    Because there’s no nationalism in the Arab World or Latin America, of course. :p
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    I meant that late 19th century Europe was the context where the idea emerged and nationalism in that era was primarily based on language, not that nationalism didn't arise elsewhere as well or that Esperanto was only meant to benefit Europeans.
     
    I think you misunderstood me. I was scoffing at the premise you described. My “Riiiiight” was directed at Zamenhof, not at you (I would never speak to you that way! :eek:).
     
    I'm sure it made some sense at the time ... if language is dividing us, maybe if we all spoke one language we won't be so divided. People have had similar ideas about religion ("let's come up with a unified religion so we're not divided anymore") and that's how some syncretistic religions arose but needless to say they were no more successful at bringing peace than Esperanto.

    elroy said:
    I think you misunderstood me. I was scoffing at the premise you described. My “Riiiiight” was directed at Zamenhof, not at you (I would never speak to you that way! :eek:).
    Click to expand...

    Noted my friend :)
     
    I agree that it sometimes is. However, the notion that a common language will somehow eliminate nationalism is an illusion. That's utopian to the point of absurdity.
     
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