Conlanging

Note that this abstract contains some linguistic errors (I believe that it was written by someone other than me):

It is possible to classify Artificial Languages as well as Natural Languages into three main types, according to the forms of comparative adjectives. Artificial Languages can form the comparatives using only a synthetic strategy, or only an analytic strategy, or both of them accordingly. Artificial Languages that use only a syntetic strategy can be classified further according to the rules in choosing one strategy or the other. Some evidence shows that a large proportion of Artificial Languages have both analytic and synthetic comparatives, as in some natural languages. The formation of comparatives results to be an interesting area of morphology, where there is room for choice, also for Artificial Languages.

Artificial languages -- languages which have been consciously designed -- have been created for more than 900 years, although the number of them has increased considerably in recent decades, and by the early 21st century the total figure probably was in the thousands. There have been several goals behind their creation; the traditional one (which applies to some of the best-known artificial languages, including Esperanto) is to make international communication easier. Some other well-known artificial languages, such as Klingon, have been designed in connection with works of fiction. Still others are simply personal projects.
A traditional way of classifying artificial languages involves the extent to which they make use of material from natural languages. Those artificial languages which are created mainly by taking material from one or more natural languages are called a posteriori languages (which again include well-known languages such as Esperanto), while those which do not use natural languages as sources are a priori languages (although many a posteriori languages have a limited amount of a priori material, and some a priori languages have a small number of a posteriori components). Between these two extremes are the mixed languages, which have large amounts of both a priori and a posteriori material.
Artificial languages can also be classified typologically (as natural languages are) and by how and how much they have been used. Many linguists seem to be biased against research on artificial languages, although some major linguists of the past have been interested in them.

Beyond popular accolades and prestigious positions at powerful research institutions (which unfortunately are not at all involved), there are some real benefits to a study of JRR Tolkien's invented languages and scripts. For one thing, they provide a challenge: poorly attested, highly restrictive in genre, and without comprehensive dictionaries and grammars. Like scholars of Etruscan, Gothic, Tocharian, and other fragmentary tongues known primarily (or solely) from disconnected manuscripts, students of Tolkien's languages employ the methods of comparative linguistics to decode these tongues, all of which are (carefully designed to appear to be) historically related. Further, although a philologist of distinction, it is frequently lamented that Tolkien did not publish nearly as many philological papers as some of his contemporaries; nonetheless, he worked for some sixty years perfecting the histories and relationships of his invented languages. In recent years, Tolkienian linguists have shown that these languages became the repositories of some of his most profound reflections on linguistics, philosophy, and the theory of translation: ample reward indeed for intrepid decipherers.

Words for berries in natural languages are of several types: semantically transparent compounds, e.g. English blueberry, somewhat semantically opaque compounds, e.g. English cranberry and raspberry, where it is not clear what the semantic contribution of the first component is (if there is any), and non-compounds, e.g. French fraise 'strawberry'. In addition, the set of fruits which are labelled as berries can differ in different languages. Given this variation, it would be interesting to look at such words in artificial (or constructed) languages, i.e. languages which have been consciously created. The most successful artificial language is Esperanto, but there have been more than a thousand others. This paper will look at terms for berries in various types of artificial languages: a posteriori artificial languages (e.g. Esperanto), which use one or more natural languages as sources, a priori languages (e.g. Ro), which do not do this, and mixed languages (e.g. Volapük), which occupy a middle ground between the first two types. A posteriori languages can be further classified according to which languages they are based on. Questions to be investigated include whether terms for berries are compounds, and if so, whether they are fully transparent, which sources these terms are taken from (in the case of a posteriori languages drawing on more than one languages), the ways in which they are similar in form (in the case of some a priori languages), and which fruits are treated as berries. From this work one might uncover general trends in the development of the vocabularies of artificial languages.

Neoslavonic is a dialect of Interslavic - the zonal constructed language.  It is an auxiliary language, which looks to be very similar to real spoken Slavic languages and continues the tradition of the Old Church Slavonic language. Neoslavonic shares grammar and common vocabulary with modern spoken Slavic languages in order to build a universal language tool that Slavic people can understand without any or with very minimal prior learning.  It is an easy-learned language for those who want to use this language actively.  Neoslavonic enables passive (e.g.  receptive) understanding of the real Slavic languages.  Non-Slavic people can use Neoslavonic as the door to the big Slavic world.

Among the hundreds of artificial languages put forth as possible
international auxiliary languages, relatively few (e.g. Esperanto, Interlingua) have seen a substantial amount of actual use. Given this, one might think that the study of such languages might have little to offer pragmaticists, and indeed there has been very little pragmatic work on them. However, I would argue that the pragmatic investigation of artificial languages can provide useful insights and information.
Most designers of artificial languages are not professional linguists.
Although they usually say little or nothing about the pragmatics of their languages, what they do say can reveal popular ideas about pragmatics, which may otherwise be difficult to discover. I shall present and discuss relevant remarks by some artificial language designers. I shall also look at several pragmatic features of artificial languages. Although the amount of textual material available in most artificial languages is limited, what exists can be subjected to pragmatic analysis. Perhaps most intriguing are the a priori artificial languages (e.g. aUI), attempts to
build a language without borrowing anything from natural languages, as, on the surface, these languages can appear quite odd. I shall present some texts from several artificial languages with a view to seeing whether even apparently exotic artificial languages have the same pragmatic properties as natural languages. Such work can be seen as contributing to the study of cross-linguistic pragmatics

This chapter examines possibilities for pragmemes and practs in artificial languages, and whether and how artificial languages differ in these respects from
natural languages. In some controlled languages (a type of artificial language), it is only possible to discuss a small set of topics, meaning that the set of possible
pragmemes is small. Some other artificial languages are designed for use by a particular group of people, in some cases by only one person. Such differences seem
to make some artificial languages quite unlike natural languages; that is, although artificial languages, no matter how strange they may seem on the surface, seem to
resemble natural languages in some areas (e.g. syntax), with respect to pragmemics they appear very different. However, if artificial languages are used to report on
pragmemes (e.g. in fiction), they may (and may have to) allow for a wider range of pragmemes and practs.

Although cryptocurrencies and the artificial language Esperanto, designed by L. L. Zamenhof, are quite different types of things, it has been argued that there are resemblances between them. Both slightly positive and negative comparisons have been made. For example, in the the website for Luno, a cryptocurrency exchange company, there is the following statement: "'Luno' is the Esperanto word for 'moon'. Esperanto is a language devised in 1887 with the main aim of being an international medium of communication, effectively a way to connect everyone in the world through language. Bitcoin is a perfect financial equivalent of this, and in some ways an even better way to connect us all". On the other hand, a 2013 webpage in the website of another company, CoinDesk, was entitled "What can bitcoin learn from the failure of [the] 'global' language Esperanto?" In this paper the validity of some such analogies will be examined. Other connections between Esperanto and cryptocurrencies will also be brought up, e.g. the fact that René de Saussure, a significant figure in the early Esperanto movement, "proposed the first 'virtual' worldwide currency-the father of Bitcoin, so to speak" (Gobbo 2020:110).

El presente trabajo analiza, primeramente, el conjunto de factores que en pleno siglo XVII favorecen la aparición de una auténtica necesidad por construir una lengua artificial, vehículo eficaz para la transmisión del saber científico entre los hombres de ciencia. En segundo lugar, pretendemos establecer una clasificación de los sistemas lingüísticos artificiales partiendo tanto de los propósitos por los que han sido creados como de los métodos utilizados por los autores para la concepción de los mismos. Palabras clave: lengua universal; lenguas artificiales; sistemas lingüísticos a priori; sistemas mixtos; lenguas a posteriori. ABSTRACT: The present work analyzes, firstly, the set of factors that in the 17th century favor the emergence of an authentic need to build an artificial language, an effective vehicle for the transmission of scientific knowledge among scientists. Secondly, we intend to establish a classification of artificial linguistic systems based on both the purposes for which they were created and the methods used by the authors for their conception.

Nowruz is very important in countries such as Azerbaijan and Iran, but not well known in the most countries in Europe and the Americas. One would therefore not expect it to receive much attention in media and works in artificial auxiliary languages such as Esperanto (i.e. languages which have been created to facilitate international communication), since most such languages have been created by inhabitants of these countries. On the other hand, since designers and users of such languages generally have an international outlook, it would not be too surprising if mentions or descriptions of Nowruz did sometimes occur in them. In this paper I will discuss appearances of Nowruz (or lack of them) in such languages. One might first note the apparent total absence of references to Nowruz in major auxiliary languages other than Esperanto, e.g. in Volapük, Ido, and Interlingua. This can be explained by the fact that the heyday of these languages was before the current era of globalization, and knowledge of some less familiar countries and cultures was limited. In contrast, Nowruz occasionally appears in non-fiction in Esperanto, and in at least one work of fiction in that language, Ne eblas aplaŭdi unumane ('One cannot Applaud with One Hand') by Sten Johansson. The bulk of this paper will be a discussion of such occurrences.

Although hundreds of artificial languages designed for international use have been created in the last few centuries (the best known of which is Esperanto), Korea has largely remained outside of this sphere of activity: most such languages were created in Europe or North America, and few of them make use of words from Korean. This is in spite of the fact that there is a reasonably active Esperanto movement in Korea. In this paper I shall examine the situation of artificial auxiliary languages in Korea and focus on the only major Korean artificial language, Unish, which was designed by some members of Sejong University, Seoul. Some properties of Unish will be examined in order to determine whether they can be attributed to the Korean linguistic context. I shall also look at the extent to which Korean vocabulary and grammar have been used in the construction of artificial auxiliary languages created in other countries.

Ro is an artificial auxiliary language created by Edward P. Foster in the early 20 th century. Unlike most such languages (e.g. Esperanto), it is of the a priori type, meaning that it (supposedly) does not draw on natural languages as sources. Some a priori languages had their vocabulary designed in such a way that words with similar meani words for reptiles, and the system with which these words were formed. An additional interesting feature of Ro is that Foster wrote works on it over a period of more than 20 years, and he made (relatively minor) changes to it during that span of time, and this will be seen in the words for reptiles. Words for reptiles all begin with the sequence mu, as do all words for animals. Muk(a) all words for reptiles start with muk, but so do words for amphibians, e.g. mukaf mukag Was this because Foster did not know that amphibians are a separate class from reptiles or because he did not think it worth the trouble to create a different sequence of initial letters for amphibians? Words for different types of reptiles are distinguished by their fourth letter, e.g. mukla mukma Further letters distinguish different subtypes of these, e.g. muklab mukmal of a priori artificial languages have been constructed.

Handout for talk given at the Sydney Language Festival October 8, 2016. Vela is an artificial language designed by an Australian, Ben Prist, who considers it "the easiest language possible", and how appears rather defensive about it, as shown by some of the quotations in the handout.

Talk given at the Sydney Language Festival, June 1, 2013. Fitusa is an a priori artificial language, but it appears to have been influenced a little by Esperanto.

A video of the talk can be see at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Alf0Y0S_-cY

A priori artificial languages are attempts to build languages from scratch, unlike artificial languages such as Esperanto, which are largely or entirely built from items in natural languages (the latter type of languages are known as a posteriori languages). Artificial languages are
languages which have been consciously created, as opposed to natural languages such as Turkish and English. Although artificial languages have been created for various purposes (e.g. in connection with a work of fiction), this paper will be limited to those created as auxiliary
languages, that is, languages designed to aid international communication. It will also be limited to languages created in the 19th or 20th centuries (although there are much older a priori languages). The vocabularies of a priori languages are often or usually built on the principle that words with similar meanings should have similar forms. By looking at the word ‘woman’ in such languages, one might learn something about what their designers felt about the concept of
‘woman’, and its relations to other concepts, such as ‘man’. The languages examined in this paper will include aUI, Babm, Lingualumina, Ro, Sona, and Suma.

Современная лингвистика антропоцентрична: она ставит в центр своего внимания человека, который выступает не как пассивный пользователь, а как активный творец и преобразователь языка.

В естественных языках процесс творения и преобразования языка людьми происходит в ежедневной коммуникации по большей части бессознательно (хотя определенная доля языковой рефлексии у «наивных» носителей языка обязательно присутствует) и только филологи, профессионально занимающиеся изучением и нормированием языка, пытаются воздействовать на него сознательно и систематически.

Однако существует вид деятельности, в котором каждый говорящий может стать создателем языка, — конструирование (моделирование) искусственных языков, получающее все большее распространение с развитием Интернета.

Объектом нашего исследования являются проекты вымышленных языков в Интернете.

Предмет исследования составляют представление и описание вымышленных языков (ВЯ) их авторами на страницах Интернета, попытки создания текстов на ВЯ, специфика языковой деятельности «конструкторов языка», сочетание в ней исследовательской, моделирующей, игровой составляющих.

Термин «вымышленные языки» (ВЯ) принят для выделения одной из групп конструированных языков (конлангов, conlangs) с целью отграничения ее от вспомогательных международных языков (auxlangs) типа эсперанто, идо, ложбана и т.п.

Материалом исследования послужили англоязычные и русскоязычные Интернет-сайты, на которых представлены описания вымышленных языков и языковая продукция на этих языках, а также вспомогательные материалы для языкового конструирования (инструкции, учебные пособия и компьютерные программы).

В диссертации рассмотрено более 200 проектов ВЯ, а также около 100 сайтов, созданных вокруг проектов языкового конструирования (переводы, исследовательские проекты, учебные курсы ВЯ, пособия по лингвоконструированию, языковые игры, компьютерные средства автоматизации лингвоконструирования).

Целью исследования является установление места языкового конструирования в общей структуре языковой деятельности людей, выявление задач и способов конструирования ВЯ, а также наиболее значимых черт проектов ВЯ и окружающей их в Интернете деятельности, свидетельствующих об уровне лингвистических знаний создателей этих проектов, о направлении их интересов и о роли языка в построении виртуальных миров.

The works produced along with this dissertation and presented as the result of my MFA consist of a narrative video, set in a foctional land, tracing the downfall of a secret society.This is presented alongside a looped photorealistic moving image of genderless, angelic  figures blinking, smiling, and intoning a hymn-like monotonous chorus.These two videos are projected on two large screens in a dark room in which there is bench seating which has been decorated in the style of the  fictional land to which the work belongs.These video works and the furnishing exist as outcrops of a larger whole.As they function as punctual materialisations of a set of geographies and histories—the Vyrcanian Federation —that I had been devising occasionally and randomly since childhood in my head, on scribbled bits of paper and on my computer; but the bulk of which has been developed during this MFA as fully realised artworks.As the result of this research, I also will install “behind the scenes” videos, maps and images relating to the construction of the Vyrcanian Federation, located behind the projection screens.
In the following dissertation I structure and expound the history of the Vyrcanian Federation, including the language in which the videos have been made; and I have composed this research following an encyclopaedic format. I include autobiographical details indicating the personal needs and proclivities that incited and guided to their creation, and discuss the cultural background inspiring them as well as the political questions they raise. For the latter I examine the works' roots in cartography, archaeology and the history of esotericism; and their relationship to the aesthetics of spirituality and of totalitarianism; and the films and artworks that have provided inspiration.

This paper is written by the president of the Slavic Union in the Czech Republic and describes methods and tools of the Slavic cultural diplomacy, which aim to improve the current status of Slavic nations in the context of today's globalized world. The first part is explaining the need for the Slavic cultural diplomacy, followed by the all-Slavic analysis of internal and external factors that cause the present dangerous situation. The following text is an overview of the theoretical researches and practical international projects, which could be used. The main part of this paper is the detailed SWOT analysis, and proposal of a new Slavic strategy for the future. This paper describes the AIDAS method of tactical management of individual projects. There is used the acculturation hypothesis by J. W. Berry about four variants of intercultural and international relations in the formulation of new strategy. This paper reflects author's practical experience in the recent all-Slavic movement and proposes the idea of better peaceable Slavic involvement in the processes of building modern world. There is an appendix to the program objectives of the Slavic Union at the end of this paper.

A preview of the second chapter from my forthcoming book "The Elvish Writing Systems of J.R.R. Tolkien", covering Tolkien's history in writing systems, the origins of Sindarin and Quenya, the Tengwar, Cirth and Sarati, a history of Arda and Middle-earth, aesthetics of the written word and prerequisites for learning Elvish.