List of constructed languages


The following list of notable constructed languages is divided into auxiliary, ritual, engineered, and artistic languages, and their respective subgenres. All entries on this list have further information on separate Wikipedia articles.

Auxiliary languages

are languages constructed to provide easy, fast, and/or improved communication among all human beings, or a significant portion, without necessarily replacing native languages.
NameISOOriginCreatorDescription
Solresol1827Based on pitch levels sounded with their solfege syllables although no knowledge of music is required to learn it.
Communicationssprache1839Based on French.
Universalglot1868An early a posteriori language, predating even Volapük.
Volapükvo, vol1879–1880First to generate international interest in IALs.
Esperantoeo, epo1887The most popular auxiliary language ever invented, including, possibly, up to two million speakers, the highest ever for a constructed language and the only one to date to have its own native speakers.
Spokil1887 or 1890An a priori language by a former Volapük advocate.
Mundolinco1888The first Esperantido.
Bolak, "Blue Language"1899Prospered fairly well in its initial years; now almost forgotten.
Idiom Neutral1902A naturalistic IAL by a former advocate of Volapük.
Latino sine Flexione1903"Latin without inflection", it replaced Idiom Neutral in 1908.
Ro1904An a priori language using categories of knowledge.
Idoio, ido1907The most successful offspring of Esperanto.
Adjuvilo1910An Esperantido some believe was created to cause dissent among Idoists.
Interlingueie, ile1922A sophisticated naturalistic IAL, also known as Occidental.
Novialnov1928Another sophisticated naturalistic IAL by a famous Danish linguist.
Sona1935Agglutinative language with universal vocabulary. Its 360 radicals can be combined to form new words.
Esperanto II1937Last of linguist Saussure's many Esperantidos.
Mondial1940sNaturalistic European language.
Glosaigs1943Originally called Interglossa, has a strong Greco-Latin vocabulary.
Blissymbolszbl1949An ideographic writing system, with its own grammar and syntax.
Interlinguaia, ina1951A major effort to systematize the international scientific vocabulary. It aims to be immediately comprehensible by Romance language speakers and to some extent English speakers.
Intal1956An effort to unite the most common systems of constructed languages.
Romanid1956A zonal constructed language based on the Romance languages.
Lingua sistemfrater1957Pham Xuan ThaiGreco-Latin vocabulary with southeast Asian grammar.
Neoneu1961A very terse Esperantido.
Babm1962Notable for using Latin letters as a syllabary.
Guosa1965Made for use in West Africa.
Arcaicam Esperantom1969'Archaic Esperanto', developed to produce an archaic effect in Esperanto literature.
Afrihiliafh1970A pan-African language.
Kotavaavk1978A sophisticated a priori IAL focused on cultural neutrality.
Uropi1986Based on the common Indo-European roots and the common grammatical points of the IE languages.
Poliespo1990s?Esperanto grammar with significant Cherokee vocabulary.
Romániço1991Vocabulary is derived from common Romance roots.
Europanto1996A "linguistic jest" by a European diplomat.
Unish1996Vocabulary from fifteen representative languages.
Lingua Franca Novalfn1998Romance vocabulary with creole-like grammar.
Slovio1999A constructed language based on the Slavic languages and Esperanto grammar.
Interslavic2006A naturalistic language based on the Slavic languages.
Sambahsa-Mundialect2007Mixture of simplified Proto-Indo-European and other languages.
Lingwa de planeta2010Worldlang based on Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Hindi, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.

Controlled languages

s are natural languages that have been altered to make them simpler, easier to use, or more acceptable in certain circumstances, such as for use by people who do not speak the original language well. The following projects are examples of controlled English:
NameOriginCreatorComments
Basic English1925Charles Kay OgdenSeek to limit the language to a given list of common-use words and terms in order to make it simpler to foreign learners or other people who may have difficulties.
Special English1959Voice of AmericaSeek to limit the language to a given list of common-use words and terms in order to make it simpler to foreign learners or other people who may have difficulties.
Globish2004Jean-Paul NerrièreSeek to limit the language to a given list of common-use words and terms in order to make it simpler to foreign learners or other people who may have difficulties.
E-Prime1940sD. David Bourland Jr.Eliminates the verb to be with the intent of making writing more expressive and accurate.
Simplified Technical English1983European Association of Aerospace IndustriesSeeks to largely reduce the complexity and ambiguity of technical texts such as manuals.
Parallel English1998Madhukar GogateA constructed language, which is based on, but independent of, English.
Plain EnglishVariousProposes a more direct, short, clear language by avoiding many idioms, jargon and foreign words.

Visual languages

Visual languages use symbols or movements in place of the spoken word. Constructed sign languages also fall in this category.
NameISOOriginCreatorComments
Blissymbolszbl1949Charles K. BlissBased on an ideographic writing system.
Gestunoils1970sJasin MalokuInternational sign language.

Ritual languages

These are languages in actual religious use by their communities or congregations.
NameISOOriginCreatorComments
Eskayanesyc. 1920–1940Mariano DatahanGrammatically based on the Boholano dialect of Cebuano.
Medefaidrin1930sObɛri Ɔkaimɛ churchUsed by this Nigerian Christian church; said to be of sacred origin.
Daminunknownthe Lardil peopleCreated by native speakers of Lardil; only click language outside Africa.

Engineered languages

s are devised to test a hypothesis or experiment with innovative linguistic features. They may fall into one or more of three categories: philosophical, experimental and logical.
NameISOOriginCreatorDescription
Logopandecteision1653Sir Thomas UrquhartSuggestions toward a taxonomic language of great complexity.
Unnamed language1668John WilkinsDetailed suggestions for a symbolic language capable of philosophical precision.
Isotype1925–1934Otto Neurath et al.A pictographic language.
Loglan1955James Cooke BrownCreated to test the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis; the inspiration for Lojban.
aUI1962W. John WeilgartEach phoneme is also a morpheme and a sememe, so that a single word can express a complex idea.
Ithkuil1978–2011John QuijadaComplex language designed to express deeper meanings briefly and clearly.
Láadanldn1982Suzette Haden ElginA tonal language oriented towards women; created to test if natural languages are biased towards men.
Lojbanjbo1987Logical Language GroupLogical and syntactically unambiguous language; successor of Loglan.
Toki Pona2001Sonja LangMinimalist language with small vocabulary which reflects Taoist philosophy.
Kēlen2009Sylvia SotomayorAn alien language that attempts to eliminate verbs, which would violate a universal feature among natural human languages.

Others

Artistic/fictional languages

Languages used in fiction

J. R. R. Tolkien

''Star Wars''

Other literature

Comic books

Film

Television

Music

Games

[Toy]s

Other

Some experimental languages were developed to observe hypotheses of alternative linguistic interactions which could have led to very different modern languages. The following two examples were created for Ill Bethisad, an alternate history project.
NameOriginCreatorDescription
Brithenig1996Andrew SmithA Romance language that replaced native Celtic languages in Great Britain instead of the Germanic Anglo-Saxon.
Wenedyk
2002Jan van SteenbergenPolish as a Romance language. A language with Polish phonetics and orthography but with Romance instead of Slavic vocabulary.

Micronational languages

NameOriginCreatorDescription
Lingua Ignota12th centuryHildegard of BingenLatin-influenced mystical language.
Balaibalanc. 14th to 16th centuryMuhyî-i GülşenîLanguage with mostly a priori vocabulary and written in Arabic script; influenced by Persian, Turkish and Arabic.
Enochianlate 16th centuryJohn Dee, Edward KelleyPurported Angelic language, possibly used in magic and occultism.
Vendergoodearly 20th centuryWilliam James SidisBased mainly on Latin and Greek, with influence from German, English and Romance languages. Contains eight moods, including Sidis's own strongeable, and has a base twelve number system.