Conlangs

Made-up languages aren't an altogether strange concept. Tolkien was a massive language nerd, inventing a few languages himself and then writing a sprawling fantasy epic to retroactively justify having done so. The aliens in Avatar had an actual language with its own vocabulary, grammar, and phonology. They even commissioned talented linguist David Peterson to design Dothraki and High Valyrian for use in Game of Thrones. And of course, who can forget Klingon? It's so robust, it has multiple stage plays written entirely in it. Nerds call these things "constructed languages," or conlangs. Pretty self-explanatory name, I'd say.

But not all conlangs are naturalistic fantasy languages for use in fiction. Over the past century and a half or so, various people have conned some langs for the purpose of facilitating communication between people who don't speak the same language natively. One example of such an auxiliary language, or auxlang, is Interslavic, which has seen niche success in enabling communication between speakers of different Slavic languages, like Russian and Polish.

Zonal auxlangs like Interslavic are all well and good, but the Holy Grail of auxlanging is without a doubt the international auxiliary language: a language designed for use by people the world over to communicate with people from other lands. Now, you might say, "Isn't that kind of what English already does?" And yeah, English is pretty much the global lingua franca. But auxlangers recognize that this creates an inherent power dynamic between native and non-native English speakers. After all, the native can communicate effortlessly, while the non-native has to put at least some degree of thought and effort into every sentence. The ideal is for there to be a culturally neutral auxlang that everybody learns as a second language. That way, everyone's on an equal playing field.

If that sounds like a pipe dream to you, you're right. There was a time in the past where the League of Nations almost adopted Esperanto as a common language, but the explosive popularity and zeal Esperanto had backing it at its peak wasn't enough to convince France not to vote against it. The IAL movement has only fragmented since then with the development of plenty of other contenders, and technology is rapidly lessening the need for an IAL anyway, so the Fina Venko (Esperanto for "final victory") is likely forever out of reach for any prospective IAL. Modern IALs are largely thought experiments.

But what fascinating thought experiments they are! As humanity's understanding of linguistics improves over time, auxlangers get more and more of an idea as to what makes a good IAL. For example, most IALs in the twentieth century were based heavily on European languages, and often just the Romance family at that. That makes learning them a breeze for people who live in Europe, and even English speakers outside it, but anyone else is going to have an uphill battle. That doesn't sound very fair. In contrast, more recent IALs try to draw inspiration from language families all over the planet in the hopes of being more or less equally challenging to learn no matter what your linguistic background is.

That's not to say these things are indeed challenging to learn, however. If you've ever taken a foreign language class, I'm sure you were caused no end of grief by irregular verbs, mysterious quirks of grammar, and sounds that you just can't seem to pronounce right. And don't even get me started on the horrors that face people trying to learn English as a second language! These things make their way into languages through centuries of natural evolution. Nobody in their right mind would intentionally design these quirks into a language they're creating from the ground up, so nobody does. The overwhelming majority of IALs are designed to be entirely regular, making them far easier to learn than just about any natural language in existence.

There's a handful of IALs that have caught my interest, and I want to give my thoughts on them here. Again, I'm under no impression that any of these will actually become a Thing. I'm drawn to these because I'm a nerd, and thinking about this stuff is my idea of a riveting Saturday afternoon. It's my hope that I can help you see at least some of the coolness in them that I do. Also check out Paul O. Bartlett's website, which has oodles of resources for just about all of the languages I make mention of here, and then some.

Esperanto

Esperanto wasn't the first IAL out there, but it was certainly the first to see widespread success. It's the only IAL that the average layman is even remotely likely to have heard of, and it's got by far the biggest community of any IAL still in existence. Unleashed upon the world in the late 1800's by a Polish eye doctor who was an adherent of what he called "homaranismo," it bears all the naive and slightly bigoted hallmarks you might expect from a language designed by a nineteenth-century non-linguist. But there's no denying the appeal it had and the awe it inspired in those who read Dr. Zamenhof's publications about it, which is why it has survived and thrived to this day and spurred countless people to design IALs of their own. If you want to use an IAL practically in the real world, Esperanto is the one.

Occidental

Occidental is a classic example of one of those early twentieth-century Eurocentric IALs I alluded to above. Designed by the Estonian Edgar de Wahl in 1922, it's mostly an inter-Romance language, but with a smattering of Germanic and Slavic vocabulary that gives it a unique aesthetic. Its modern community is small but thriving, and they largely treat it not as an IAL, but a cool little artlang to use for fun and self-expression.

Globasa

On the other hand, Globasa is the poster child for modern IALs that source their vocabulary from all over the world. First published in 2019 by a linguist with experience teaching English as a second language, every last nook and cranny of Globasa is oozing with consideration for making it as easy as possible to learn and use. Its creator has amassed a team of people to help add new words to the language and iron out all the finest details of grammar and word formation. The kicker? These conversations all take place in Globasa. These people have a truly masterful command of the language, one that I envy greatly. On the Globasa page, I'll try and explain to you why I think it's so impressive.

Pandunia

Pandunia has gone through a lot of iterations over the years it's existed, but its current (and finalized, the creator swears) is what makes it stand out from basically any other IAL. While it started as a Globasa-esque internationally-sourced language, its current form takes a wildly different approach that has an eye set on actual adoption.

Anglish

Anglish isn't an IAL or even an auxlang, which is why I've called this section of the website "Conlangs," but honestly, it's dubious whether it's even a conlang, either. Anglish is a thought experiment that asks a simple question: what would English look like without any French, Latin, or Greek influence? There's multiple layers of depth to this, and you'll see what I think of them on the page itself.