The following list of notable constructed languages is divided into auxiliary, ritual, engineered, and artistic (including fictional) languages, and their respective subgenres. All entries on this list have further information on separate Wikipedia articles.
Auxiliary languages
International auxiliary languages International auxiliary languages (IAL) are languages constructed to provide easy, fast, and/or improved communication among all human beings, or a significant portion, without necessarily replacing native languages.
Name ISO Origin Creator Description Solresol 1827 Based on pitch levels sounded with their solfege syllables (a "musical language") although no knowledge of music is required to learn it. Communicationssprache 1839 Based on French. Universalglot 1868 An early a posteriori language, predating even Volapük. Volapük vo, vol 1879–1880 First to generate international interest in IALs. Esperanto eo, epo 1887 The 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 (approximately 1,000).Robert Phillipson. English-Only Europe? 2003. p. 172: "several thousand children worldwide are growing up (in over 2000 families) with Esperanto as one of their mother tongues" Idiom Neutral 1902 A naturalistic IAL by a former advocate of Volapük. Latino sine Flexione la-peano 1903 "Latin without inflection", it replaced Idiom Neutral in 1908. Ro 1904 An a priori language using categories of knowledge. Ido io, ido 1907 The most successful offspring of Esperanto. Adjuvilo 1910 An Esperantido some believe was created to cause dissent among Idoists. Timerio 1921 A language where each concept is replaced with a number, intended to be used as a means for automatic translation. Interlingue ie, ile 1922 A sophisticated naturalistic IAL, also known as Occidental. Novial nov 1928 Another sophisticated naturalistic IAL by a famous Danish linguist. Sona 1935 Agglutinative language with universal vocabulary. Its 360 radicals can be combined to form new words. Esperanto II 1937 Last of linguist Saussure's many Esperantidos. Mondial 1940s Naturalistic European language. Interglossa igs 1943 It has a strong Greco-Latin vocabulary. Interlingua ia, ina 1951 A major effort to systematize the international scientific vocabulary. It aims to be immediately comprehensible by Romance language speakers and to some extent English speakers. Intal 1956 An effort to unite the most common systems of constructed languages. Lingua sistemfrater 1957 Pham Xuan Thai Greco-Latin vocabulary with southeast Asian grammar. Neo neu 1961 A very terse Esperantido. Babm 1962 Notable for using Latin letters as a syllabary. Arcaicam Esperantom eo-arkaika1969 'Archaic Esperanto', developed to produce an archaic effect in Esperanto literature. Eurolengo 1972 Combines elements of English and Spanish. Glosa 1975 An evolution of Interglossa. Kotava avk 1978 A sophisticated a priori IAL focused on cultural neutrality. Uropi 1986 Based on the common Indo-European roots and the common grammatical points of the IE languages. Poliespo 1990s? Esperanto grammar with significant Cherokee vocabulary. Romániço 1991 Vocabulary is derived from common Romance roots. Europanto 1996 A "linguistic jest" by a European diplomat. Unish 1996 Vocabulary from fifteen representative languages. Lingua Franca Nova lfn 1998 Romance vocabulary with creole-like grammar. Sambahsa-Mundialect 2007 Mixture of simplified Proto-Indo-European and other languages. Lingwa de planeta 2010 Worldlang based on Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Hindi, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.
Zonal auxiliary languages Zonal auxiliary languages are languages created with the purpose of facilitating communication between speakers of a certain group of related languages. Unlike international auxiliary languages for global uses, they are intended to serve a limited linguistic or geographic area. Examples include Pan-Slavic languages, Pan-Romance languages and Pan-Germanic languages.
Name ISO Origin Creator Description Ruski jezik 1666 The first known example of an artificially created Pan-Slavic language. Tutonish 1901 The first Pan-Germanic language, later reformed under names like nu teutonish, alteutonik, etc. Romanid 1956 A zonal auxiliary language based on the Romance languages. Guosa 1965 A zonal auxiliary language for West Africa derived primarily from Hausa, Yoruba, and Igbo. Afrihili afh 1970 A pan-African language. Runyakitara A standardized language based on four closely related languages of western Uganda. Palawa kani 1992 Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre Based on reconstructed vocabulary from the limited accounts of the various Tasmanian languages once spoken by the eastern Aboriginal Tasmanians. Ortatürk / Öztürkçe 1992, 2008 Baxtiyar Kärimov, Shoahmad Mutalov A Pan-Turkic zonal auxiliary language, with statistically calculated vocabulary. Slovio 1999 A constructed language based on the Slavic languages and Esperanto grammar. Romance Neolatino 2006 and others A Pan-Romance language Slovianski 2006 A naturalistic language based on the Slavic languages. Neoslavonic 2009 A modernized form of Old Church Slavonic. Budinos 2009 A zonal auxiliary language based on the Finno-Ugric languages. Interslavic isv 2011–2017 A Pan-Slavic zonal auxiliary language, the result of the merger of Slovianski and Neoslavonic.
Controlled languages Controlled natural languages 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: Name Origin Creator Comments Basic English 1925 Charles Kay Ogden Seek 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 (Learning) English 1959 Voice of America Globish 2004 Jean-Paul Nerrière E-Prime 1940s D. David Bourland Jr. Eliminates the verb to be with the intent of making writing more expressive and accurate. Simplified Technical English 1983 European Association of Aerospace Industries Seeks to largely reduce the complexity and ambiguity of technical texts such as manuals. Plain English Various Proposes 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. Name ISO Origin Creator Comments Isotype 1925–1934 Otto Neurath et al. A pictographic language. Blissymbols zbl 1949 Charles K. Bliss An ideographic writing system, with its own grammar and syntax. International Sign ils 1970s Jasin Maloku International auxiliary sign language. Also known as Gestuno.
Ritual languages These are languages in actual religious use by their communities or congregations. Name ISO Origin Creator CommentsIyaricc. 1930sRastas"Rasta Talk" "Dread Talk" Constructed in the Rastafari Movement to replace lost ancestral African languages. Eskayan esy c. 1920–1940 Mariano Datahan Grammatically based on the Boholano dialect of Cebuano. Medefaidrin dmf 1930s Obɛri Ɔkaimɛ church Used by this Nigerian Christian church Damin unknown the Lardil people Created by native speakers of Lardil; only click language outside Africa.
Engineered languages Engineered languages 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.
Name ISO Origin Creator Description Logopandecteision 1653 Sir Thomas Urquhart Suggestions toward a taxonomic language of great complexity. Real Character 1668 John Wilkins Detailed suggestions for a symbolic language capable of philosophical precision. Loglan 1955 James Cooke Brown Created to test the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis; the inspiration for Lojban. aUI 1962 W. John Weilgart Each phoneme is also a morpheme and a sememe, so that a single word can express a complex idea. Ithkuil 1978–2023 John Quijada Complex language designed to express deeper meanings briefly and clearly. Láadan ldn 1982 Suzette Haden Elgin A tonal language oriented towards women; created to test if natural languages are biased towards men. Lojban jbo 1987 Logical Language Group Logical and syntactically unambiguous language; successor of Loglan. Toki Pona tok 2001 Sonja Lang Minimalist language with 120137+ words, with over 1600 speakers. Kēlen 2009 Sylvia Sotomayor An alien language that attempts to eliminate verbs, which would violate a universal feature among natural human languages.
Others Name Origin Creator Description Lincos 1960 Hans Freudenthal Designed to be understandable by any possible intelligent extraterrestrial life, for use in interstellar radio transmissions. Attempto Controlled English 1995 University of Zurich A controlled natural language that is also a knowledge representation language.Schwitter, Rolf. "Controlled natural languages for knowledge representation." Proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on Computational Linguistics: Posters. Association for Computational Linguistics, 2010. Mänti 2006 Daniel Tammet An invented language that uses some Finnic words and grammar.
Artistic/fictional languages
Languages mainly used in fiction
Constructed by J. R. R. Tolkien
Tolkien's most prominent languages are: Language ISO Description Sindarin sjn an Elvish language, largely inspired by Welsh. Quenya qya an Elvish language, largely inspired by Finnish, Latin, and Ancient Greek. Khuzdul a Dwarvish language, largely inspired by the Semitic languages.
Film
Name Work Origin Creator Description Klingon Star Trek 1979–present Marc OkrandLanguage of the Klingon alien species. Atlantean Atlantis: The Lost Empire 2001 Marc OkrandLanguage of the citizens of the mythical city of Atlantis. Ku The Interpreter 2005 Said el-Gheithy Fictional African language. Naʼvi Avatar 2009 Paul Frommer Spoken by the Naʼvi. Barsoomian John Carter 2012 Paul Frommer, Edgar Rice Burroughs Language of the Martians. Kiliki Baahubali 2015Madhan Karky Spoken by the Kalakeyas.
Games Name Work Origin Creator Description Tsolyani Empire of the Petal Throne 1940s M. A. R. Barker Language of the world of Tékumel as described in this roleplaying game. Gargish Ultima series 1981–2013 Language of the gargoyle race. Wenja Far Cry Primal 2016 Andrew Byrd, Brenna Byrd Three dialects (Wenja, Udam, Izila) used in all dialogs and by NPCs. Engineered as an archaic version of PIE.
Internet-based Name Origin Creator Description Teonaht 1962 Sally Caves Language of the Teonim, a race of polydactyl humans who have a cultural history of worshiping catlike deities. Verdurian and others 1995 Mark Rosenfelder Spoken in the country Verduria of planet Almea. Dritok 2007 Don Boozer Spoken by the Drushek, a large-eared, long-tailed race without vocal cords that lives in the continent Kryslan.
Music Name Origin Creator Description Kobaïan 1970s Christian Vander Used by French rock group Magma. Loxian 2005 Roma Ryan Used on Enya's 2005 album Amarantine and 2015 album Dark Sky Island. Moss 2009 Jackson Moore A language with a musical phonology, modeled on pidgins.
Television Name Work Origin Creator Description Vulcan Star Trek: The Original Series 1966–1969 Further developed by fans as Golic Vulcan. Enchanta Encantadia and Etheria television series 2005 Suzette Doctolero Spoken by the denizens of Encantadia, known as Encantado(s)/Encantada(s) or Diwata (fairies). The Valyrian languages and Dothraki Game of Thrones 2011–2019 David J. Peterson Belter Creole The Expanse 2014 Nick Farmer Spoken by Belters, inhabitants of the asteroid belt and outer planets of the Solar System. Romulan Star Trek: Picard 2019 Trent Pehrson
Other literature